Prewriting

Matt Sharkey-Smith
Writing Instructor and Coordinator of
Graduate Writing Initiatives

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 Agenda

• Prewriting: Briefly defined

• Stages of prewriting
• Prewriting techniques
• Techniques for other learning styles
• Questions

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 Poll questions

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 The Writing Process

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 Prewriting

• Researching, brainstorming, organizing,

planning
• Everything that you do before you write your
draft.
• Often the toughest part of writing because it’s
so individualized.
– Different people learn and think differently

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 The Writing Process: An Overview

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 Stages of Prewriting

Three broad, roughly defined phases

• Researching
• Generating
• Planning

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 Researching

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 Researching

• Research is the first step of prewriting for

academic purposes.
• You’re probably already doing this in your
courses or as part of your capstone, though
you may be able to tweak your research
processes to make them more efficient.

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 Critical Reading

• Read actively rather than passively.

• Engage with the text by
– Asking questions as you read
– Underlining, highlighting, etc.
– Making notes in the margins
• See our critical reading page for more info.

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 Critical Reading—Example

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 Note Taking

• Goes hand-in-hand with critical reading

• Many different methods; no “right” one
– Journaling
• Pen-and-paper
• Apps on your computer or tablet
– EverNote, OneNote, Zotero, etc.
• Include major ideas from sources, your reactions, etc.
• Variety of organizational methods
• All notes in one repository

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 Note Taking—Example (Journal)

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 Note Taking

– Note cards
• One card for each source, includes major points, useful
evidence, disagreements with other sources, etc.
• Built-in organization: you can group cards by category,
topic, etc.
– Writing annotations
• Similar to using note cards, but more formalized
• Often required for some projects
• Includes summary, analysis, and synthesis

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 Note Taking—Example (Note Cards)

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 Generating

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 Generating

• The next phase of prewriting

• After you gather information, you need to
generate ideas about it for your writing.
• Generating is usually considered the most
mysterious and frustrating part of prewriting.

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 Freewriting

• Often, your ability to think critically can lead

you to reject ideas before you develop them,
preventing you from writing anything.
• Freewriting helps you bypass this by getting
ideas on the page, even if they’re
underdeveloped or unrelated to your topic.
• Often used to defeat writer’s block

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 Freewriting

How it works:
• On a blank piece of paper or in a blank document on
your computer, think about your topic and begin
writing everything that comes to mind.
• Don’t worry about grammar, structure, or style—just
keep writing. Whatever you do, don’t edit.
• If you can’t think of anything to write about your topic,
write about whatever else is on your mind (e.g., “I
can’t think of anything to write, this is really
frustrating…”).
• Keep going for at least 5 minutes without stopping.

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 Freewriting

• After your time is up, read through what you’ve

written.
• Highlight anything related to your topic and, if
you want, copy it to a new page/document
(omitting any unrelated text).
• Now you can evaluate these ideas critically.
– Did you discover any new thoughts?
– Can you use these ideas as a topic, a thesis, or a
connection between other ideas?
– Do any of these ideas interest you?
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 Clustering

• Like freewriting, clustering is a way of getting past

your critical faculties in order to generate ideas.
• Based on clusters of associations, takes
advantage of chaotic nature of thoughts
• It relies on intuition and “feel” to bring
subconscious thoughts and connections to your
attention.
• You can use paper and pen or various apps
(Bubbl.us, FreeMind, etc.).
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 Clustering

• How it works:
– If you have a topic in mind, write it down.
• If you don’t have a topic, write down an idea that seems
related and significant (e.g., if you’ve been researching
leadership styles, you might use “Kurt Lewin,”
“stakeholders,” or “transformational”).
– Near that topic, write down ideas that come to mind.
• Leave plenty of space between them.
– Repeat this with any additional ideas that you think of,
moving further away from your original topic as you
develop a line of thought.
– Don’t stop for at least 5 minutes.

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 Clustering

– Draw lines, like spokes in a wheel or filaments in a

spider web, between related ideas to help you
visualize their relationships.
– Ask yourself questions:
• Did you discover any new ideas?
• Did you notice any new connections between ideas?
• Could you write about any of these ideas further?
• Do any of these new ideas interest you?

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 Clustering—Example

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 Other Learning Styles

Auditory learners
• Try speaking aloud about your topic and
record your ideas with a microphone (use your
computer or smartphone).
• Don’t worry about ordering your thoughts;
just speak naturally and freely. Keep going for
at least 5 minutes.
• Play the recording back and transcribe
anything pertinent to your topic.
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 Other Learning Styles

Kinesthetic learners
• Get active. Go for a walk, pace around the
room, toss a ball against a wall—do something
to move your body and activate your thought
processes.
• Bring your topic to mind as you move.
• Then, record your ideas by writing them down
or speaking aloud and recording audio.
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 Planning

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 Planning

• The final phase of prewriting

• The goal: Create a clear, logical plan for the
document you’re constructing.
• Throughout this phase, keep in mind the goals
and constraints of your project.
– E.g., for a course paper, you’ll create the structure
of your paper from scratch, but for a dissertation
you’ll need to follow the dissertation rubric.

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 Concept Mapping

• Concept mapping is similar to (and often

combined with) clustering, especially for smaller
projects.
• Different from clustering because it takes critical
thinking further.
– Rather than generating ideas based on association,
you visually arrange and evaluate ideas to determine
an overall structure.
• You can use pen and paper or various apps.
– Bubbl.us, FreeMind, etc.

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 Concept Mapping

• How it works:
– On a blank page, write down the major ideas you’ve
generated. Put them wherever you want, leaving
space between them.
• If you already know which one you’ll focus the most on, put
this one in the middle.
– Draw lines (as in clustering) between related ideas.
You can also make notes by these lines to clarify how
these ideas are connected (e.g., “this is an example,”
“these seem to contradict each other”).
– If you don’t yet have a thesis, now is a great time to
determine one.

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 Concept Mapping

– Evaluate these ideas, their relationships, and the

ways they support your thesis.
– In an app: Rearrange the ideas into groups and
subgroups and think about how you could use
these groups as components of your text.
– On paper: Draw circles to group related ideas.
– If you want, add notes to specify how you’ll use
these groups (e.g., “introduction,” “evidence for
the efficacy of transformational leadership”).

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 Concept Mapping—Example

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 Outlining

• The most familiar organizational method,

outlining is especially useful for academic
writing.
• Can be used right after generation or as the
next step after concept mapping to establish a
clearer structure.

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 Outlining

• How it works:
– On a blank page/document, write the topic of your
paper’s first paragraph (usually the introduction).
– On the next line, indent and add a supporting idea of
that topic (or subtopic). Repeat until you’ve written
everything you want to include in this paragraph. (You
can also use numbers and letters if you want to
distinguish the importance of each idea.)
– Outdent on the next line and repeat the above steps
for the rest of your paragraphs.
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 Outlining

– Read through the entire outline and make sure

that the ideas flow linearly.
• Ask yourself: “Does each idea logically follow the one
that comes before it?”
– Revise as necessary for cohesion and flow.
• On the page: cross things out/erase, then rewrite.
• In a document: Cut and paste.
– When you’re done, you’ll have an easily readable
blueprint for drafting your text.

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 Outlining—Example

I. Introduction
A. People hold a wide range of opinions about coffee
consumption.
B. Even when these opinions are informed by medical
research, they tend to vary.
C. Though there is a wealth of information about coffee
consumption, the overwhelming majority of the research
indicates that consumption in moderation is healthy
(thesis).
II. Some negative opinions of coffee are based in fact.
A. Coffee can cause irritability and sleeplessness (Johnson,
2012).
B. …
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 Prewriting—Not Done Yet

• Once you’ve established a clear plan for your

document, write a rough draft.
• Evaluate this draft.
• If you notice areas you could clarify, cut,
expand, or rearrange, use prewriting
techniques again to research, generate, and
plan ideas as necessary.

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 Prewriting—Not Done Yet

• Prewriting, like all writing, is iterative.

• It requires multiple uses of each phase of the
process, not always in order.
• For example, you may freewrite at the beginning
of a project to generate the basic ideas you’ll
cover. Later, you may freewrite again to expand
upon just one portion of a major section of that
project.
• Prewriting can happen at any time throughout a
writing project.
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 The Writing Process—In Theory

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 The Writing Process—In Practice

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 Reflection

• Will you change your writing and prewriting

processes to include any of these techniques?
• If so, which ones will you use and why?

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 Questions?

If you have any questions after the webinar, feel

free to email us:
[email protected]

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