BC MANUAL

Bridgewater College Online Writing Manual

Prewriting and Planning Pointers

Try some of these frequently used techniques for getting started on your writing.

Traditional Verbal Techniques for the Solitary Writer:

• Freewriting

Freewriting may be useful for getting started writing. In freewriting, the goal is to get as many words on paper or computer screen as possible, writing steadily without interruption. You may want to set a time limit of 5 or 10 minutes. Write whatever comes to mind, with pen and paper or at a computer. If you run out of things to say, write, "I don't know what to write," or repeat the last word you wrote until something else occurs to you.
For "guided freewriting," write just as continuously, but give yourself a topic to write on before beginning.
You may want to select a sentence out of your first round of freewriting as the starting point for a second round, in order to generate more ideas for a particular writing assignment.
• Clustering
  For a free-form starting point in your planning part, try clustering.  Begin by just jotting down words and phrases that you need to include in your paper.  Then circle the phrases and use lines and arrows to make connections and group the ideas.
• Brainstorming
  To brainstorm, list as many ideas as you can about your topic.  Don't critique them--just write them down.  You can sort out the valuable ones after you've come up with a substantial list.  When you brainstorm, you come up with enough ideas so that you can pick out the best ones for your writing.

You say the traditional, verbal brainstorming and planning activities haven't worked for you? Then try these techniques for visual thinkers and social writers. (A good overview of graphic organizing activities is available at http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/actbank/torganiz.htm.)

• Tree diagram
  A visual means of representing an outline.  To create a tree diagram, create a box and label it with a phrase that identifies your topic.  Then divide your topic into as many parts as you need to fully discuss your topic.  Several kinds of mind-mapping are illustrated at SmartDraw.com. The company Mind Tools illustrates a decision tree, which may also be used as a model for planning a paper. 
• Flow chart
  Flow charts generally illustrate the parts of a process, rather than the categories or subdivisions of a topic.  They similarly use boxes for text and arrows to show links between the boxes, or the parts.  See examples at SmartDraw.com.
• Storyboarding
  When you are writing about a process, constructing a narrative that moves through time, you may find it useful to make quick sketches of various points in the process or narrative.  When you have identified important points or moments in your paper, you can consider their arrangement, organizing them in different sequences if you need to.
• Web page or Power Point plan
  If you were creating a Web page about this topic, what information would you include?  If you were using Power Point and making an oral presentation, what would you put on each slide?  Imagining a Web page or Power Point presentation may help you to organize the material for your paper.
• Analyzing transcript of conversation in electronic environments
  Talking about your project in a real-time chat program may help you think through your ideas.  Keep a transcript of your conversation and review it to find the major elements of your paper's plan.
• Envisioning a scenario  (news report, courtroom scene, documentary or feature film)
  Consider presenting your paper as a TV news segment.  What would you include in this news story?  
  Or think of it as a documentary film.  What do you want to show in your film?  The verbal description of your visualization is the basis of your paper.  
  Or imagine yourself teaching a class on this topic.  What do you need to tell your students?  Use your teaching notes as an outline for your research paper.

By A. L. Trupe, revised Sept. 2006