If a writer directly jumps at jotting down the rough ideas, then he will never land up at great content. It’s a great systematic recipe that leads to a delicious meal.
Likewise, in order to curate eye-catching and attention-grabbing content, you need to present the perfect ideas in the perfect manner. The recipe for such appealing content lies in pre-writing. Thus Pre Writing is the First Step of Writing Process
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What Is Pre Writing?
Before cooking any dish, the chef first grabs the recipe and then settles down to collect the ingredients. Similarly, it becomes necessary to collect ideas before writing any content. Moreover, the writer also needs to put down the ideas in a sequentially coordinating manner, just like the ingredients to create arresting content. This is where pre-writing becomes important.
Pre-writing is the preparatory stage before writing, which helps generate, express, develop, and organize messy ideas into a form. The preliminary stage of the writing process starts with jotting down and drafting ideas, followed by editing and polishing the rough ideas into freshly formatted content.
Before engaging in writing, the writer first collects ideas about the content. This is where you unconsciously get into pre-writing, thereby taking down key points and annotating. In the world of content, pre-writing actually plays a really important role than you can imagine!
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Importance Of Pre Writing | Pre Writing – The First Step of Writing Process
To understand the importance of pre-writing, let’s first imagine writing content without pre-writing. Pre-writing makes the writing process easier. It helps the writer maintain the constant flow of popping up of connecting ideas. Moreover, it takes one’s mind to dig into the depth of the topic and give shape to the rough ideas.
Pre-writing helps one find out the weakness in arguments and thereby pave the path to clear reasons. This, in turn, helps the writer increase his/her efficiency by creating a better plan. The brainstorming part of the pre-writing is what helps the writer understand the topic and demands of the audience better.
After a clear understanding of the audience’s demands, the writer finally creates an outline where he organizes the ideas adhering to their understanding. The content that comes out along with this outline looks appealing to the senses and the audience’s demands and questions. Thus, as the first step to the actual writing process, pre-writing helps the writer curate the content from the reader’s point of view.
Methods Of Pre Writing
There are various methods of pre-writing. The type chosen by a writer depends on the
writer’s personality. The most common pre-writing strategies or types adopted by a writer
are:
- Freewriting
- Brainstorming
- Mind Mapping
- Doodling
- Asking Questions
- Outlining
Freewriting
Freewriting allows the writer to pitch everything he can write and which is there in mind. It may not be the final output, but it helps to grow ideas from it. In freewriting, the writer sets a specific time for himself to write everything his mind suggests relevant to the theme. During the short span of 5 to 10 minutes, the writer will enjoy the flexible opportunity to express, bothering less about the spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
As these are scrap ideas, the writer can pen down as many ideas and information he can arrange to pitch before starting the final writing process. This style is not a new concept; every writer has their way of doing the same thing, knowingly or unknowingly.
The raw material, which the writer produces during freewriting, builds up confidence in the writer’s mind. It also shapes the style and tone of the writing process. The formatting and information management can be arranged in the free writing process. Sometimes, these 10 minutes of freewriting, becoming an exercise of pre-writing, can give birth to a full-length final output.
Brainstorming
Every writer enjoys brainstorming, and it increases the creativity of the writer. In this process, the writer has the flexibility to come up with a maximum number of ideas. The workability, logical importance, and the practical existence of the ideas are less important than creativity and idea collection.
The writer explores every possible idea within the boundary of the topic. Brainstorming allows the writer to set steps for the ideas, which will help the writer to frame the article. It frees the writer from the boundaries of reality which motivates him to leave no idea unexplored.
The data or the set of ideas can be organized in the listed format to get access to the vast information. The writer can use content planning in their writing processes. If the idea collections are listed, then the writer can understand the relationship he wants to depict in writing, which he thought during the brainstorming process.
Mind Mapping
Mind maps, also known as concept maps, are graphic organizers that help organize the collected ideas and gather more similar and related ideas. These visual ways of giving shape to the rough ideas.
One prominent way of mind mapping is webbing. In webbing, the writer writes a word in the middle of the paper and surrounds the word with other related concepts and ideas. Thus, the central idea gains a plethora of other connected ideas. Mind maps actually pave a detailed roadmap to the content, which helps the writer connect the central idea with other related ideas.
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For example, suppose the writer is asked to write about the distinguishing features of the varieties of apples. The writer first thinks and maps a normal apple and its characteristics as a central idea. Then, he creates a web of various varieties of apples, thereby jotting down their characteristics.
Now, he can easily distinguish each variety of apples from the other. Thus, mind mapping helps the writer provide an outline or roadmap to the rough ideas, thereby helping him gain some rarely related topics.
Doodling
Drawing, doodling, sketching is an apt way of visualizing ideas, thereby productively allowing utilizing talents. It helps the writer frame pictures out of his words, making him view the ideas from an entirely different point of view.
Doodling doesn’t demand the writer to be a great painter. It’s just rough sketches and figures, which may include ven diagrams and continuums, describing the thinking patterns of the writer. These rough doodlings suffice the writer with some useful insights, thereby saving evidence of the ideas.
Not all writers prefer doodling. It’s a matter of the writer’s comfortability. In order to get adapted to this technique, writers need to step out of their comfort zone. Moreover, doodling and mind mapping are nearly the same concepts with minute differences. While doodling may include rough drawings, mind maps include small cheat codes of ideas.
Asking Questions
Asking questions provokes the writer to search for an answer, and the process of searching for an answer provides more information. The cycle of raising good questions will make the writer aware of creative ideas he is unaware of.
For example, if the writer wants to write about “Computer,” then he can ask questions like “what is a computer? “, “What are the uses of computers?” and a lot more questions which can format the content.
Along with that, asking questions will keep the writer curious and interested to keep the writing process engaging. Dealing with questions can increase creativity and writing style according to the demand of the question. Asking questions will develop the different perspectives of an individual, and one can explore all the dimensions of a particular topic in the process of searching for the answer.
Ms Melessa Kelly in her blog The Prewriting Stage of the Writing Process has explained beautifully about the methods.
Outlining
The ideas and thoughts can be organized logically to present and set into the format. The collected details are listed to organize specific data. A proper outlining of the content will help the writer, from the beginning till the ending, to shape the content by keeping the connection between the ideas and events.
Outlining helps to organize and structure every potential content. This systemic approach provides strategic formation, where the writer can check the uses of all the picked points, thereby ending up using them effectively to mold the final content.
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Final Takeaway
Pre writing triggers the chronology in the writer’s thinking process, thereby enabling him to explore every point of the topic. It also engages the writer’s creativity, thereby making him capable of coming up with original ideas.
However, pre-writing doesn’t count as an isolated process. It’s process-driven towards optimum products. These pre-writing stages are helpful in crafting out desirable content and are also applicable in all other things. Even kids, at their initial stages, are made to learn writing through these pre-writing stages. Thus, pre-writing, forming an essential part of
writing, storms ideas into the mind, organizes them, and helps serve delicious content answering the audience’s search intent.