PrewritingThe first step of the Writing Process is Prewriting. Resist the urge to plunge headlong into your paper with no forethought—while this may often work fine on many simple writing assignments, it will cost you more time and effort in the long and even the medium run. Prewriting entails a number of things you can do to make the actual writing faster and easier, such as: First off, you need to know what you'll write about. You may already know a lot--you had been doing prewriting without even knowing it as you studied for other classes, read the newspaper, or ran naked down the beach--if that had anything to do with your paper, that is. If you don't know everything about your topic (and don't get cocky here--there's probably a lot you don't know yet), then take some time for research. You can do this by reading or interviewing others or even running naked down the beach (if this has something to do with your paper!). When you're ready, you might do a preliminary outline of your paper. The clearer you have your paper's structure and content in your head, the easier it'll fall out onto the paper as you write. Anytime you find yourself stuck during the writing process, feel free to try a little more prewriting, like laying on your back in the grass (or snow) and staring at the sky while waiting for ideas, clarity, and illumination to come. Prewriting can be one of the most relaxing sections of the writing process if you begin early! Your thoughts won't be very clear and laying on the grass won't relax you if your paper's due tomorrow and you haven't started writing yet. Prewriting can save you hours of suffering and confusion! Taking the time now to figure out what you're doing is a heck of a lot better than asking yourself "what the crap am I doing?" when your paper's due the next day and you can't change anything because that would mean you have to start all over. Do yourself a big favor and start over the right way now instead! |