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Prewriting Strategies

Five useful strategies.

Pre-writing strategies use writing to generate and clarify ideas. While many writers have traditionally created outlines before beginning writing, there are several other effective prewriting activities. We often call these prewriting strategies “brainstorming techniques.” Five useful strategies are listing, clustering, freewriting, looping, and asking the six journalists' questions. These strategies help you with both your invention and organization of ideas, and they can aid you in developing topics for your writing.

Listing is a process of producing a lot of information within a short time by generating some broad ideas and then building on those associations for more detail with a bullet point list. Listing is particularly useful if your starting topic is very broad, and you need to narrow it down.

• Jot down all the possible terms that emerge from the general topic you are working on. This procedure works especially well if you work in a team. All team members can generate ideas, with one member acting as scribe. Do not worry about editing or throwing out what might not be a good idea. Simply write down as many possibilities as you can.
• Group the items that you have listed according to arrangements that make sense to you. Are things thematically related?
• Give each group a label. Now you have a narrower topic with possible points of development.
• Write a sentence about the label you have given the group of ideas. Now you have a topic sentence or possibly a  thesis statement .

Clustering, also called mind mapping or idea mapping, is a strategy that allows you to explore the relationships between ideas.

• Put the subject in the center of a page. Circle or underline it.
• As you think of other ideas, write them on the page surrounding the central idea. Link the new ideas to the central circle with lines.
• As you think of ideas that relate to the new ideas, add to those in the same way.

The result will look like a web on your page. Locate clusters of interest to you, and use the terms you attached to the key ideas as departure points for your paper.

Clustering is especially useful in determining the relationship between ideas. You will be able to distinguish how the ideas fit together, especially where there is an abundance of ideas. Clustering your ideas lets you see them visually in a different way, so that you can more readily understand possible directions your paper may take.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a process of generating a lot of information by writing non-stop in full sentences for a predetermined amount of time. It allows you to focus on a specific topic but forces you to write so quickly that you are unable to edit any of your ideas.

• Freewrite on the assignment or general topic for five to ten minutes non-stop. Force yourself to continue writing even if nothing specific comes to mind (so you could end up writing “I don’t know what to write about” over and over until an idea pops into your head. This is okay; the important thing is that you do not stop writing). This freewriting will include many ideas; at this point, generating ideas is what is important, not the grammar or the spelling.
• After you have finished freewriting, look back over what you have written and highlight the most prominent and interesting ideas; then you can begin all over again, with a tighter focus (see looping). You will narrow your topic and, in the process, you will generate several relevant points about the topic.

Looping is a freewriting technique that allows you to focus your ideas continually while trying to discover a writing topic. After you freewrite for the first time, identify a key thought or idea in your writing, and begin to freewrite again, with that idea as your starting point. You will loop one 5-10 minute freewriting after another, so you have a sequence of freewritings, each more specific than the last. The same rules that apply to freewriting apply to looping: write quickly, do not edit, and do not stop.

Loop your freewriting as many times as necessary, circling another interesting topic, idea, phrase, or sentence each time. When you have finished four or five rounds of looping, you will begin to have specific information that indicates what you are thinking about a particular topic. You may even have the basis for a tentative thesis or an improved idea for an approach to your assignment when you have finished.

The Journalists' Questions

Journalists traditionally ask six questions when they are writing assignments that are broken down into five W's and one H:  Who? ,  What? ,  Where? ,  When? ,  Why? , and  How?  You can use these questions to explore the topic you are writing about for an assignment. A key to using the journalists' questions is to make them flexible enough to account for the specific details of your topic. For instance, if your topic is the rise and fall of the Puget Sound tides and its effect on salmon spawning, you may have very little to say about  Who  if your focus does not account for human involvement. On the other hand, some topics may be heavy on the  Who , especially if human involvement is a crucial part of the topic.

The journalists' questions are a powerful way to develop a great deal of information about a topic very quickly. Learning to ask the appropriate questions about a topic takes practice, however. At times during writing an assignment, you may wish to go back and ask the journalists' questions again to clarify important points that may be getting lost in your planning and drafting.

Possible generic questions you can ask using the six journalists' questions follow:

• Who? Who are the participants? Who is affected? Who are the primary actors? Who are the secondary actors?
• What? What is the topic? What is the significance of the topic? What is the basic problem? What are the issues related to that problem?
• Where? Where does the activity take place? Where does the problem or issue have its source? At what place is the cause or effect of the problem most visible?
• When? When is the issue most apparent? (in the past? present? future?) When did the issue or problem develop? What historical forces helped shape the problem or issue and at what point in time will the problem or issue culminate in a crisis? When is action needed to address the issue or problem?
• Why? Why did the issue or problem arise? Why is it (your topic) an issue or problem at all? Why did the issue or problem develop in the way that it did?
• How? How is the issue or problem significant? How can it be addressed? How does it affect the participants? How can the issue or problem be resolved?

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Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don’ts

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Before You Start Writing That Paper...

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Every Writer's Dilemma 

Are you writing a paper and don't know where to start? Even with a clear prompt, a grasp on the material, and lots of ideas, getting started on any paper can be a challenge. All writers face the dilemma of looking at a blank computer screen without having any idea of how to translate their thoughts into a coherent and carefully articulated essay. You may know all about drafting and editing, but how do you get to that first draft? What comes between a blank computer screen and that polished final paper anyway? 

Prewriting!

The answer to that final question is quite simple. The best and most successful papers always start with prewriting.

So, what is prewriting anyway?

Good question! Prewriting is a term that describes any kind of preliminary work that precedes the actual paper writing. It doesn't necessarily have to be writing. In fact, prewriting can just be concentrated thinking about what you want to write your paper on. Various prewriting techniques are expanded upon below. However, know that you don't have to use all of them, nor is any one better than any of the others. Successful prewriting (and paper writing!) occurs when the writer finds what works best for him/her.

What are good prewriting techniques? 

I'm glad you asked! In the rest of this handout, you'll find a variety of useful techniques to help you get started on pretty much any writing project. If you're not sure where to start, just pick one and try it out. After you've tested a couple, you'll probably develop a sense of your most successful prewriting strategies and can choose the techniques that best suit your writing and thinking style. 

Brainstorming

Brainstorming refers to quickly writing down or taking inventory of all your thoughts as fast as they come to you. In this sense, your ideas are like a gigantic storm swirling around in your brain, and it's your job to get them out of your head. Writing of some kind is very helpful in brainstorming, as it can often be difficult to keep track of all your thoughts and ideas without writing them down. However, your writing does not have to be formal. Many writers simply use bullet points to mark all their ideas; in this sense, brainstorming often looks more like a list, rather than a coherent piece of writing (which is totally fine at this stage!). When brainstorming, don't feel pressured to connect, defend, fully articulate, or censor your ideas. If you allow yourself to simply pour out all the thoughts that are in your head, following them wherever they lead, you might come up with a really interesting topic, theme, motif, etc. to focus your paper on. 

Example:  Brainstorming for Toni Morrison's Beloved.

• Sethe's relationship with her children.
• Significance of milk and the breast. Possible connection to mother/child relationship.
• Familial relationships under slavery. Perhaps Morrison is examining (or complicating) this through Sethe's extreme relationship with her children. Possible connection to milk and breast imagery. Breastfeeding her children may be so important because mother/child relationshps are often destroyed under slavery. 
• Motherly love. Sethe seems to think murder can be taken as an act of motherly love. Maybe she's rewriting the role of the mother under slavery. 
• Return of Beloved and inability to explain/justify murder. Even though Sethe claims that the murder was right, she seems conflicted. 

Freewriting 

Freewriting is very similar to brainstorming in that it gets all your thoughts out onto paper. However, where brainstorming often looks more like a list of ideas, freewriting usually takes the shape of more formal sentences. Even so, grammar, punctuation, and the like should be far from your mind. Like brainstorming, you should follow the flow of your ideas, and you shouldn't pressure yourself to fully tease out everything. There's plenty of time for that later! And once again, I want to stress that you SHOULD NOT censor your ideas. You may be quick to discount an idea, but if you give it a chance, it may take you somewhere totally unexpected and extremely productive in terms of writing a successful paper. 

Example:  Freewriting for Beloved.

I have to write a paper on Beloved for my English class. There's a lot to write on in this book. When I first read it, I noticed a lot of things about Sethe and her relationship with her kids. Her motherly relationship with her children seemed important to her, especially in terms of breastfeeding them. Perhaps this is symbolic of something. Like milk and the breast represent motherhood itself. This might be why it was so important for Sethe to get milk to her baby; she may have wanted to retain that motherly bond. Perhaps that's important because of the fact that slavery interferes with the mother/child relationship. In slavery, Sethe and her children are just her master's property, so she's not the ultimate guardian/owner of them. Maybe breastfeeding is her way of reestablishing the bond that slavery attempts to destroy by making humans into property. 

Clustering or Mindmapping

Once again, clustering and mindmapping, like brainstorming and freewriting, allow you to take inventory of your ideas. However, they both focus you on a central word (usually something that embodies a theme, topic, motif, etc. that is important to your ideas), which you then work out from by associating other words, thoughts, and ideas to that central word. These may be very useful techniques for extremely visual people. A lot of online diagrams of clustering have the central word in a circle, with all the associated words in their own circles and lines connecting them back to the central word. Similarly, there are very elaborate and decorative examples of mindmaps online. Be as creative as you want—just not at the expense of your ideas themselves! Using these techniques allows you to very easily visualize all the ideas that are in your head.

Example:  Clustering for Beloved. 

Question-Asking 

This is one of the best and most useful approaches to get yourself started on writing a paper, especially if you really have no idea where to start. Here, you write down all the questions that seem relevant to your material. These should definitely be legitimate questions, possibly ones you have yourself. By generating a lot of questions, as well as forcing yourself to contemplate answers to those questions, you'll get out a lot of the ideas, issues, thoughts, etc. that could potentially get you started on paper writing. Similarly, a lot of great essay topics come out of a question. By focusing on a question that is not easily answered, you'll have a framework for your argument. 

Example:  Question-Asking for Beloved.

• Why does Morrison focus on Sethe's relationship with her children?
• What is the significance of mother/child relationships in Beloved?
• Is milk and breastfeeding important? Why? How does it connect to other themes in the book? Could it be symbolic? If so, what does it symbolize?
• How does slavery affect Sethe's relationshp with her children? Is Morrison addressing this? If so, how?
• What does Sethe's murder of her baby signify? Is it clear by the end of the book? Or is it unresolved? How does it connect to slavery, mother/child relationships, and other themes? 

This technique is best used as an on-going process. While brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, mindmapping, and question-asking can wait until you have your paper assignment and are thinking about where to start, journaling is best throughout your engagement with whatever material you could potentially be writing on. Journaling can involve aspects of all previously mentioned techniques. However, the idea behind it is to write down whatever strikes you about the material when it strikes you. That way, rather than trying to remember your first impressions and ideas about the material, you'll have them already conveniently written down. Although many ideas that strike us in the moment don't lead to great papers, many of our initial thoughts become the seeds of a successful essay. 

Example : Journaling for Beloved.

On page (x), Sethe mentions milk and breastfeeding. This seems really important to her, especially as a mother. Is this a theme Morrison is developing? Possibly the relationship between mothers and children. 

On page (x), Morrison describes how Sethe murdered her baby. Why is the detail so vivid? If Sethe's trying to argue that she did it out of motherly love, why does Morrison make the murder so graphic? Also, what does slavery have to do with this? Does the fact that Sethe murdered her baby to protect her from slavery justify her actions? 

On page (x), Morrison writes that Sethe is constantly trying to explain and justify the murder. Elsewhere, Sethe defends it as the right thing to do. Why this conflict? Does this tie into other themes? What is Morrison trying to say?

Outlining can be extremely helpful for some writers, but extremely restrictive for others. Also, it's difficult to jump into outlining without having done some prelimiary work with one of the other techniques. Outlining requires that you have a good sense of your ideas, themes, thoughts, approach, argument, etc. This is why many writers cannot use outlining; for some, a good sense of what you're writing about comes through the actual writing process. You may start off with a sense of what you'll argue, but often, it changes and molds into a coherent argument as you write the paper. However, if you're one of those writers who has a clear sense of your argument from the beginning and you want a way to organize your ideas before starting to write the paper, then outlining is for you! 

For outlining, most usually use bullet points to organize how they'll structure their paper. Beginning with the introduction, lay out your main point/argument. From there, go through each paragraph, highlighting the main idea, evidence, and analysis you'll be using. Be sure to check that it ties into the previous paragraph, as well as your overall argument. Finally, sum up your argument in your conclusion, pointing to the larger significance of your essay's claims.

For those of you who don't like outlining, but find moving straight into the actual writing process more productive, reverse outlining can be very useful. This is where you outline your paper after you've written it. This is extremely helpful when checking to make sure that all your paragraphs move logically from one idea to the next, and that they all work to support your larger argument. 

Example : Outline for an essay on  Beloved . 

Introduction

—Focus on how Morrison highlights the importance of history in terms of slavery and the African American community in her book.

—Thesis: Morrison stresses the necessity of an active communal preservation, retrieval, and even writing of a personal history that many have tried to forget, ignore, or make impersonal.

1st paragraph:

—Topic sentence: In Beloved, Morrison shows the necessity of community and active participation to history's preservation and retrieval by highlighting the importance of telling one's personal story to others.

•   “They sang it out and beat it up, garbling the words so they could not be understood; tricking the words so their syllables yielded up other meanings” (128). 

•   Similarly, Sethe is able to retrieve her forgotten history by “telling” Beloved, who has “distance from the events itself,” stories from her past, as Morrison writes, “she was   remembering something she had forgotten she knew” (Morrison 69, 73).

—Close reading analysis.

2nd paragraph:

—Topic sentence:   And Morrison, through the figure of Beloved, who represents not only Sethe's, but also slavery's history itself, accentuates the need for an active communal retrieval and rewriting of history by illustrating the dangerous effects of an unresolved past on the present. 

—Evidence: 

•  “The flesh between [Sethe's] forefinger and thumb was thin as China silk and there wasn't a piece of clothing that didn't sag on her. Beloved...was getting bigger, plumper by the day” (Morrison 281).

— Close reading analysis.

3rd paragraph:

—Topic sentence: But in Beloved's exorcism, Morrison shows that the past can finally be resolved through an active communal rewriting of personal history. 

•  “They grouped, murmuring and whispering, but did not step foot in the yard...Denver saw lowered heads, but could not hear the lead prayer—only the earnest syllables of agreement that backed it: Yes, yes, yes, oh yea. Hear me. Hear me. Do it, Maker, do it. Yes” (304-305).

•  “Then Denver, running too. Away from [Beloved] to the pile of people out there. They make a hill. A hill of black people, falling” (309).

—   Close reading analysis.

Conclusion:

— Beloved shows that the past has bearing on the present. It is personal and cannot be forgotten. In terms of modern day readers, Morrison seems to be advocating a retrieval of the history of slavery that is often forgotten.

Helpful Resources 

• Brainstorming (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)  
• Freewriting: A Way Around Writer's Block (University of Richmond Writing Center)  
• Prewriting: Clustering (University of Richmond Writing Center)  

Allison Lahl

Student Learning Center, University of California, Berkeley

©2008 UC Regents 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Prewriting Strategies: 9 Proven Steps With Tips, Examples & Worksheets

Prewriting strategies are a number of techniques you can use to prepare yourself for the actual writing process . Writers who don’t use prewriting strategies purposefully set themselves up for failure. These writers either won’t finish their writing projects and if they do, their work won’t be logical to readers .

You can avoid such disasters by falling back on processes countless successful writers and authors use. In this article, we will discuss what prewriting is, and the 9-step techniques on how to pre-write successfully We will also go over some examples, and round off with worksheets that you can use to master this process.

👉Check Out Our Complete Guide: The Writing Process: 6 Steps With Tips, Examples, And Worksheets

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What is Prewriting?

Prewriting refers to a set of techniques writers use to ready themselves to tackle a project. These steps are not set in stone, and a writer can use any combination of them.

Other people have written about your topic, which means you need to find out what they are saying. You don’t want an article or book that’s all over the place, so you might end up using a number of techniques to narrow down your focus. These are just some of the things that happen during the prewriting phase.

👉Head over to our guide to prewriting to learn more.

What is the Purpose of Prewriting?

Unlike plotters (writers who write with a plan), many writers who claim they can write without planning (called pantsers ) still do some form of prewriting. Some reasons this stage of the writing process is important include:

• Prewriting helps you come up with ideas – you ideally want to know what you are going to write about before starting.
• Prewriting narrows down your focus – vague and generic ideas have the problem of being too broad and not being helpful to anyone.
• Prewriting forces you to find out what other writers in the same field have to say – the last thing you want to do is write about a topic that has been covered before.
• Prewriting helps you check if your topic is worth pursuing before wasting your time – you don’t want to work on an idea your target audience is not interested in reading about.
• Prewriting can help you check if your ideas are logical and coherent.

👉 See our guide on 15+ reasons you should be prewriting for your next book !

The Prewriting Process Steps

Prewriting has several steps you can use. The good news is that you don’t need to follow every single step. You just have to go with what works for you. Here are some prewriting strategies you can use next time you have a writing project:

• Researching
• Brainstorming
• Clustering (Mind Mapping)
• Freewriting
• Journalistic Questioning
• Storyboarding

Any one of these steps can help you as you start a writing project. Use any combination that works for you.

#1. Researching

Researching is the first step for many writing projects. Start by reading other works on the topic, gathering resources, and taking notes. This helps you to get a sense of what your project should look like and can help spark ideas.

You can also start by talking to experts in the field or getting feedback from those who are knowledgeable about the topic. As a writer or author, try to think beyond what is already known and find unique ways of approaching the topic at hand.

Research is very important in the writing process . If you use incorrect information in your project or book, you may come across as ignorant and lazy to your readers. And this could potentially ruin your career, seeing as readers have no reason to trust anything else you write in the future.

👉 Head over to our comprehensive guide on the research process to learn more tips on how to research for your book!

#2. Brainstorming

Your initial idea is not always the one you end up writing about. In addition, you might have a vague idea of what you want to write, but nothing specific. This is where brainstorming comes in.

Brainstorming is a part of prewriting where you come up with as many ideas as you can. It doesn’t matter if many of the ideas are unreasonable, difficult, or not 100% related to your topic. The main aim here is to generate as many ideas as possible. Relax and don’t worry about being accurate yet.

Fiction authors might for instance brainstorm various endings for the same short story. Here are some guidelines you can follow when brainstorming:

• Be in an environment that is most conducive for work.
• Grab a paper and pen. Text editing software will also do.
• Set a timer.
• Write down anything that comes to mind.

Brainstorming is not compulsory. It might not be your cup of tea. That said, writers who don’t brainstorm are more likely to get stuck when their single idea doesn’t turn out to be as good as they thought it would be. In addition, some of the ideas you generate during this process can easily become subtopics and subheadings in your final piece.

Brainstorming Example

Here are some random ideas associated with digital currencies:

• Internet money
• Online trading
• International trading
• Centralized currency
• Government control
• Crypto apps
• Exchange rate

Brainstorming is a helpful process that can ensure you have loads of ideas to choose from.

Set a timer for ten minutes. Brainstorm the following until each timer goes off:

• The national unemployment rate.
• Your country’s president.
• Disney World
• Your favorite film.
• Game of Thrones

Unless you are working with a detailed topic brief, your initial idea might be extremely broad. Listing helps you narrow down things and develop more ideas.

Listing involves noting down everything associated with your topic. These ideas can then be categorized by how related they are. These categories can then become the area your writing will focus on. The various ideas that fall under each category can become your research questions/subheadings.

Follow these steps when listing:

• Have a pen and paper or text editor at hand.
• Write down everything you can think of that’s associated with your topic.
• Put related ideas under one category.
• Write down a sentence about each idea.

While this step is not mandatory, it is good for narrowing down your research area and defining discussion points. A broad topic that is not broken down into manageable bits can lead to an article or book that is so broad, it helps no one.

Prewriting Listing Example

We’re first going to list down some ideas related to digital currencies, categorize them, and finally write sentences about some of them.

Digital currency ideas : What is digital currency? How to get digital currency? Good thing about digital currency. Bad thing about digital currency. Who uses digital currency? Where to buy digital currency.

Category 1, introduction to digital currencies: What is digital currency? Who uses digital currency?

Category 2 , getting started with digital currencies: How to buy digital currency. Where to buy digital currency.

Category 3 , pros and cons of digital currencies: Good thing about digital currency. Bad thing about digital currency.

The following are sentences to expand on the ideas from category 1:

What is digital currency: “Digital currencies are money-like assets that are managed over the internet.”

Who uses digital currency: “People weary of unstable governmental economic policies can use digital currencies.”

• Write as many words as you can associate with the term “books.”
• Categorize the following words into related ideas: iPhone, Samsung, Windows, Nokia, headphones, charger, Windows, Android, and headphones.
• Choose any of the categories from 1 or 2, and write a sentence on each idea in that category.
• Use the listing techniques above on a topic of your own choosing.
• Listing is a good technique for writers who struggle to narrow down topics into manageable ideas.

#4. Clustering or mind mapping

Not all ideas you come up with will have anything to do with your topic. It’s very easy to be diverted into areas that have nothing to do with what you are working on when conducting research. Mind mapping can help you stay on track.

You can either use a chart or plain text editor/paper to create a mind map. Your main topic will be at the center. You can then write other ideas around the main topic while trying to establish links to the main topic. Your ideas can have sub-ideas, those sub-ideas can have their own sub-ideas, and so on.

Non-fiction writers will love mind maps because they can provide a wide pool of topics. On the other hand, fiction authors can use mind maps to generate subplot ideas.

Follow these steps to create a mind map:

• Create a chart or grab a large piece of paper.
• Write your main topic at the center.
• Write down other ideas around the topic, and draw lines to link them back to the main topic.
• Each idea can have sub-ideas linking back to it.
• Anything that cannot be linked to a parent idea should go.

It’s easy to become sidelined by ideas that have nothing to do with what you are writing about. This is especially true if you’re passionate about the subject. You’ll leave your readers puzzled at best, or make yourself look incompetent at worst if your writing is filled with vaguely related ideas. A mind map can help you avoid this.

Mind Mapping Example

Here is an example to demonstrate a mind map using our digital currency example.

Main topic: digital currency.

Ideas : centralized banking and crypto.

Ideas related to crypto : crypto mining and cryptography.

Idea related to crypto mining : high-powered computer.

Mind maps are a crucial technique that can help you focus your writing.

• Create a mind map for financial literacy.
• Create a mind map for comedy.
• Create a mind map for music.
• Create a mind map for any idea that might occur to you.

#5. Freewriting

Some writers are not good at meticulous planning techniques such as mind maps. Their ideas only flow when they are writing. Freewriting is the best technique for such authors.

Freewriting is simply going with the flow. You can pick an idea, and then write as much as you can about it. Don’t worry about grammar or coherency just yet. You can then go back and pick out the good ideas when you are done. This process can be repeated as many times as you need to.

Fiction authors can also use this technique to get a feel for the story. You could pick a few random ideas, and write a page about each.

Here are some useful steps for people who prefer freewriting:

• Be in an environment conducive to writing.
• Have a pen and paper/text editor at the ready.
• Pick a topic.
• Write as much as you can about the topic until the timer goes off.
• Read through what you wrote, and highlight important ideas you might want to explore.

For writers who are not good with techniques such as mind mapping and listing, freewriting has many advantages. Not using it means you’ll end up relying on techniques that don’t work for you. This could ultimately negatively impact your final written piece.

Freewriting Example

The following paragraph demonstrates freewriting:

“Digital currencies are money-like assets on the internet. Anyone can own them. They are very good to have. Digital currencies help us become independent from centralized banking. Examples include cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The legality of digital currencies is still shaky in most countries. This is because there is no controlling body.”

Here is the same passage, but with an asterisk (*) in front of an idea that can be further explored:

“Digital currencies are *money-like assets on the internet. Anyone can own them. They are very good to have. Digital currencies help us become independent from *centralized banking . Examples include *cryptocurrencies like *bitcoin . The *legality of digital currencies is still shaky in most countries. This is because there is no *controlling body .”

Freewriting is a powerful technique that can help you generate ideas you’ve never considered.

Set a five-minute timer for each of the following exercises:

• Freewrite about soccer.
• Freewrite about your favorite book or movie.
• Freewrite about any musician of your choice.
• Freewrite about any topic of your choice.

#6. Looping

Looping is closely related to freewriting and shares some characteristics with mind mapping.

Looping is a process where you freely write ad expand your topic. You then pick an idea from what you wrote and start a new freewriting session. You can continue to pick yet another idea from the latest freewriting session and repeat the process as many times as necessary. A writer could easily end up doing five or more sessions.

Follow these steps if you want to loop:

• Set a timer for five minutes.
• Write as much as you can.
• Pick an idea from what you just wrote.
• Reset the timer again.
• Start a fresh freewriting session using the idea from the first session.
• Repeat as many times as you need to.

Looping Example

Here is our example from the previous step:

“Digital currencies are *money-like assets on the internet. Anyone can own them. They are very good to have. Digital currencies help us become independent from *centralized banks . Examples include *cryptocurrencies like *bitcoin. The *legality of digital currencies is still shaky in most countries. This is because there is no *controlling body.”

Here is another paragraph if we were to start a new freewriting session using centralized banking:

“ Central banks are institutions that manage national/union *currencies. They are also known as central banks or reserve banks. Some are *independent from the government others are not. Their responsibility include creating currency policies, determining *rates, and *managing aspects of the *economy.”

• Freewrite a paragraph for each of the words highlighted with an asterisk.
• Pick any of your new paragraphs, and do at least two more freewriting sessions.
• Freewrite any topic of your choice.
• Apply what you just learned about looping on your session from 3.

#7. Journalistic questioning

Journalists write and provide information for a living. It should therefore come as no surprise they have great techniques when it comes to writing.

Journalistic questions seek to establish basic facts. This can include involved people, the reason the topic is important, and how the issue being addressed works. Using these questions will at the very least let you know if your idea is worth pursuing. You are good to go if you can answer all or most of these questions.

Journalists call their questions the 5w’s and 1h. They are:

• Who : Who cares, and who does the topic affect?
• What : What exactly is happening? What do you want to write about?
• Where : Which locations are relevant to what you are writing about? Is the topic country/region specific?
• When : In which time period is your project set? Which histories and time periods are relevant in order to get a fuller picture?
• Why : What is behind the topic? Why is it happening?
• How : How can people do anything about what you are writing?

You are in trouble if you cannot answer many of these questions. For instance, failure to answer “who” probably means you don’t have a target audience, failure to answer “why” might mean you haven’t properly done your research, failure to answer “how” comes across as if you don’t have solutions, etc.

Journalistic Questioning Example

Here is how we might answer the 5w’s and 1h for our digital currency example:

• Who? People who want to learn more about digital currencies.
• What? There is a growing interest in digital currencies. This article will provide some basics.
• Where? This is relevant to people in places where they don’t necessarily trust banking institutions.
• When? : This article is relevant for 2022. The financial crisis of 2008 is an example of how financial institutions can collapse, taking the currency down with them.
• Why? : There is a growing mistrust of governments and financial institutions. People need alternative methods of protecting their wealth.
• How? : People can educate themselves using this article, before signing up for various digital currency services.

The 5W’s and 1H are a set of questions that can make or break your topic.

• Read a newspaper article. See if you can identify the 5w’s and 1h.
• Think about your favorite book. Try to come up with the 5w’s and 1h for the book.
• Answer the journalistic questions if your topic was: “Write a 750-word review of your favorite film to convince people to go and watch it.”
• Answer the journalistic questions for any topic of your choice.

#8. Outlining

Knowing what exactly you are going to talk about from beginning to end is one of the main goals of prewriting. That’s why after you’ve researched, brainstormed, asked yourself journalistic questions, etc., one of the last steps is creating an outline.

An outline is a description of everything you are going to cover in your book or article. Make it as detailed as you want it to be. Some writers will outline every single point and paragraph, while others will just create headings and subheadings. Others might just jot down the introductory points, middle, and conclusion.

Novelists will find outlines extremely useful. They can help you plan and view the entire novel before starting your pros.

Here are some guidelines you might find useful when outlining:

• Write your main idea at the top.
• Create subheadings.
• List what you want to cover under each subheading in bullet form.
• Be as detailed as you think is necessary.

Not having an outline can make things difficult for you when writer’s block strikes. The last thing you want is to have your mind go blank when you have a looming deadline. Outlines also help you to check if your ideas are logical and smoothly flow from one to the next before you start writing.

Outlining Example

Here is a sample outline for our digital currency article:

• H2: What are digital currencies?
• H2: The history of digital currencies.
• H3: Bitcoin
• H3: Dogecoin.
• H3: Ethereum.
• H2: how to get started.
• H2: warnings.
• Conclusion: [Summarize article]

Outlining is a process that can be your best friend when your mind goes blank.

Create outlines for the following topics:

• Covid-19 symptoms.
• The 2022 FIFA World cup.
• Any topic of your choice.

#9. Storyboarding

Visually oriented people sometimes struggle with techniques such as freewriting and looping. Storyboarding is the best choice for these writers.

Storyboarding is a visual prewriting technique that has its foundations in film production. Authors of fiction will find it extremely useful. You can build a board with various events you want to cover. You can then connect these events in sequential order.

You can either use a physical board or rely on software such as Trello.

Storyboarding Example

We could have a board called Crypto as part of our digital currency article. We can then create individual cards for each point we want to cover about crypto. So our cards might have titles like:

• History of crypto
• Most valuable cryptocurrency
• Benefits of crypto
• Disadvantages of crypto
• What might you call a board that has cards with titles such as carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, hydrated, and organic?
• Come up with the names of cards you might add to a board called “online marketing.”
• Come up with a minimum of five board names.
• Create at least three cards for each of the boards from 3.

Tips For Developing Your Prewriting Process

If we could sum up the prewriting process in one sentence, it would be: “Be ready to write.” That is all that matters. Most of the prewriting strategies covered in this guide are not compulsory. But you can improve the quality of your writing by following many of them.

Journalistic questions and some sort of outline are the two most crucial steps in prewriting. Leaving them out can mean danger down the road.

FAQs on Prewriting Strategies

Should i follow every single strategy in the prewriting stage.

No. Very few writers follow every step. Some only follow one or two. Others mix them up to create their own unique process. That said, ignoring things like research, outlining, and journalistic questions will only create problems for you down the road.

Are the prewriting strategies to be followed in order?

You don’t need to follow all nine steps. Similarly, those you choose to follow, don’t need to be completed in any specific order. One writer might choose to create a mind map before freewriting. Another might create a storyboard first, then use cards from the board to generate looping ideas. Writers knowledgeable about their chosen topic might start by creating an outline, and finish by conducting research.

Can I create a good piece of writing without prewriting?

Some writers prefer working without a plan. In fact, the harder they plan, the more restricted they feel. These writers are sometimes known as pantsers in book writing. That said, even pantsers do some planning. They might do preliminary research. A pantser might develop a brief outline that has only the beginning, middle, and end. Writers who skip the prewriting process entirely, and still manage to produce outstanding work, are exceedingly rare.

Final Notes On Prewriting strategies

Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process. This step is concerned with making sure you are prepared to start writing.

Research, mind mapping, listing, outlining, looping, and freewriting are just some of the prewriting techniques available to you. While none of these are compulsory, a good writer will always make use of some. Researching and asking journalistic questions are two things a serious writer will consider doing.

Chioma Ezeh is an author, digital marketer, business coach, and the founder of chiomaezeh.com, a blog that teaches how to build successful online businesses. Get in touch.

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Prewriting is also known as discovery, invention, topic exploration, and a host of other terms that speak to the usefulness of this phase of writing. If you are trying to select a topic or explore a topic to begin a writing assignment, prewriting techniques offer ways to explore the topic more fully. Before you begin researching a topic from outside perspectives, it is important to research your own thoughts, knowledge, and experiences to understand how familiar you are with a topic.

One common misconception that students have is that they should already know what they want to write (form those ideas and sentences in their heads) before beginning to peck away at the typewriter or pull out that pencil.

An alternate perspective is that the physical act of writing and typing allows one to create meaning. Many writers get blocked when they attempt to form the perfect thoughts in their minds and transfer those thoughts on paper. But when they let themselves go, allow themselves to create a mess by prewriting early on in their writing, the ideas may flow. Brilliance appears, clear topics and directions emerge, and the block is dashed away.

Prewriting allows you to write without limitations and censors. Giving yourself this freedom may not only inspire you to get writing, but it may also help you discover those ideas that have been hidden away in your mind.

Think of prewriting as your bag of tricks to get started on any writing project. You may find some techniques much more comfortable and successful than others. Try each of the following prewriting forms in order to discover which works best for you. The most important thing to remember is to let yourself go. Try not to make judgments on the ideas and wording as they appear on the paper or screen. There’s always time to judge later. In the midst of prewriting, don’t censor yourself. Just write.

Freewriting

Freewriting allows you to write, usually for a specific period of time, without stopping. The ideas should just flow from your mind to the paper (or keyboard). It is your stream of consciousness.

Here’s how it works: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. Then, begin writing and don’t stop until the timer goes off. That means don’t stop to correct spelling or to consider and ponder what you wrote; don’t stop for anything. Some practitioners suggest that you should not stop and backspace to correct typing or erase misspellings, as this act of editing might interrupt the flow of thought. It is also a good idea to have a phrase in mind for times when you get stuck, like typing “stuck, stuck, stuck” over and over again until your mind starts rolling.

There are many benefits to free writing. First, you clear your mind of clutter that might be preventing you from getting your ideas out. It’s okay to write much more than you will actually use in the paper. Remember, the process of writing will help you discover ideas, so write as much as you can. You can always cut material later. Freewriting gives you a strategy to begin writing.

Besides just getting the clutter out, freewriting can help you discover seeds of inspiration. You might find an interesting idea that you never knew was tucked in your brain or consciousness. Out that idea pops in a free writing exercise.

Below is a sample freewrite:

Online learning

So my assignment is to write a paper about the pros and cons of online nearning that is learning. But I haven’t been an online student for very long. What do I know abou this topic? It’s been ages since a that I was a traditional student. I think one thing that was appealing about online learning is that I could do it whenever I want to. I wasn’t or I’m not made to keep a particular schedule, come to class at a particular time. I just have to make srue that I get the assignments completed, finish my readings, keep up and turn things in teim. Of course, that is also a challenge. I have to be self motivated. No one is reminding me every other day in person that I have assignments due. I have to make an effort to get into my class each day and see what’s going on and keep yp. But I think there are great possibility possibilities for online learning in the future. I keep thining of my daughter in high school. There are tons of things she is interested in, but the school curriculum is pretty limited. If she could pick and choose classes that interest her and that challenge her from online schools, she would love it! She is so ingrained in the online environment anyway. Her friends and family are mostly online and she keeps up with current events that way too. There just seems to be so many more opportunities to reach out to folks online. And what if you live in a really rural area that is far away from a traditional university or college. Online would be perfect! I wonder how diffidult it is to keep the standards high and consistsent at online institutions. I wonder, I’m stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, I lost my train of thought. Do you think it will cpome back? I ihope so, I was on a roll. Oh, yest, that’s it. I wonder how hard it is to get accredited. And I wonder how people do hands-on learning – practicums and health fields that need students to have so many hours working in a facility to get their training. How does that work with online learning? My time’s up!

To see the freewrite in action, click this link: http://tinyurl.com/freewrite-sample

The five-minute freewriting session above appears to be a giant mess at first glance. However, something interesting emerges. The student begins thinking about general ideas related to online learning – flexibility, student motivation – but then turns to a personal issue that online learning could affect – her daughter’s high school education. The possibilities of tailoring education to a high school student’s learning preferences and interests, changing the system of education quite dramatically, emerges from the freewrite. Perhaps the student has an avenue for researching the topic.

Find your inspiration through a freewriting session!

Brainstorming

You probably brainstorm every day. When you need to run by the grocery store to pick up some items on the way home from work, you brainstorm. When you sit down and think of all the things you need to do in a day, you brainstorm. Brainstorming is simply making a list of the ideas, words, phrases, etc. that come to mind about a topic. The most important thing with brainstorming, as with all discovery methods, is to avoid censoring yourself. Just list. And don’t forget to let that list get messy.

As with freewriting, it is a good idea to set a specific amount of time, perhaps 10-15 minutes, to brainstorm in order to allow your mind to let go and list without restraint. You might also consider brainstorming with someone else, talking through ideas while your brainstorming partner records. Whether you decide to brainstorm on paper or out loud, this prewriting strategy is a healthy way to get your mind working toward a topic or further development.

Here is a sample brainstorming list that a student used to discover ideas for an assignment about her dream job:

Day care Preschool In-home facility Be my own boss Care for children of low-income families Network with other day cares Finances to start the business Support for tuition Government grants Network with child advocacy agencies Curriculum and state standards Advertising Preparing my home Help from family Need for child care in our area What’s the average income? Success rates in this area Inclusion

This brainstorming list helped the student discover some areas to research and to write about her future career in an in-home day care facility. She began thinking of the type of center she would like to create, the funding she will need to start her venture, and the support she can receive from local resources.

Ideally, the student will select a topic and possibly some subtopics from this brainstorming session to brainstorm in a separate list. She can focus her next exploration on a possible major supporting point of the paper, like the financial considerations for a day care owner.

Bubbling, like freewriting above, is a great technique when you have not yet developed a clear idea of where you are going with your topic. Bubbling is a technique that allows you to create a visual map of your ideas and thoughts, graphically organizing the relationships between those ideas. This is a great technique for people who are visual learners. Here is how it works.

Pick a word or phrase as your topic. In this example, the student used childhood obesity.

Now think about some ideas relating to the topic. For example, you might want to look into the causes, effects, or solutions of this problem in America.

Continue by adding on to these new circles.

And so on. Bubbling “maps” can grow quite large and complicated (imagine if everything from the freewrite and brainstorm were added here), but they are a great way to generate ideas. They are also helpful for organizing your ideas later on because concepts that should be linked together in the paper will be clustered together on the bubble map.

This prewriting technique is very similar to bubbling: You take a main idea, in this example “horror movies,” and write it in the center of the page, screen, or board. You then branch out sub-ideas (and sub-sub ideas) until you have filled up the area with a huge web of ideas. Here is an example of clustering, which is basically bubbling without drawing the circles:

Studios	Audiences
1970s Hammer films	Who watches?
Current profitable studios	Differences among ages? Genders?

Past/Classic Horror	Newer Movies
1930s	Nightmare on Elm Street
Frankenstein	Halloween sequels
Dracula	Friday 13th sequels
Wolfman	Texas Chainsaw

1950s	Types of Threats
The Blob	creature
The Thing	criminal
Them!	supernatural

1970s
Halloween
Friday the 13th
Evil Dead

As you can see from our bubbling and clustering examples, we are starting to generate some organization while we prewrite. Listing is another great way to organize as you prewrite. If you like creating lists for everyday tasks, you will want to try listing when you prepare to write a paper. Here is an example of listing using the horror movie topic:

Table 1.  Listing as an effective prewriting strategy.

Audiences	Why do they watch?	Favorites	Dislikes
Male (what percentage of total audience?)	To be scared	Creepy creatures: Alien	Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Female	To relax and escape stress	Classics: Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman	Candyman
Any	To compare written horror books with movie adaptations	Psycho antagonist: Silence of the Lambs, Halloween	Blade
Any	To see how special effects look	Supernatural: Nightmare on Elm Street, The Ring	–

Informal Outlining

Outlining is a terrific prewriting strategy to try, but do not be concerned about the formal elements of an outline, like whether to use Roman numerals (I, II, III) or Arabic (1, 2, 3). Instead, focus on generating ideas and getting a notion of structure instead of worrying about the finer points of how the outline looks. You can choose to write full sentences or simple phrases, and you should move ideas around as the structure becomes apparent. Here is an example of an outline using the topic of horror movies:

I. Who watches horror movies? A. Adult males? B. Adult females? C. Couples? D. Certain age demographics?

II. Why do we watch horror movies? A. To be scared, thrilled B. To relax C. To be first to see and tell friends D. To enjoy special effects

III. What types are popular? A. Series

• Nightmare on Elm Street (Freddy)
• Halloween (Michael Meyers)
• Friday the 13th (Jason)

B. Supernatural 1. Creepy creatures

• Psychotic criminal

Cubing is a technique that allows you to look at a subject in 6 different ways (like the 6 sides of a cube). It is a way to explore your topic fully and to help you realize what you know and what you don’t know about your topic.

When you cube your topic, you are researching your topic by delving into your memories and experiences in the following ways:

1. Describe it  – When you describe your topic, you will examine it through your five senses. What does it look like, feel like, sound like, taste like? What is the texture? What is the size?

2. Compare it  – When you compare your topic, think about what it is similar to and different from. You could compare physical elements, purpose, functions, usefulness, or other points.

3. Associate it  – When you associate your topic, discover what it makes you think of. How does it connect to or remind you of another topic?

4. Analyze it  – When you analyze your topic, consider the parts of the topic and how those parts relate to each other. What is it made of? Where does it come from and where is it going?

5. Apply it  – When you apply your topic, consider how it is useful to individuals, groups, society as a whole, the environment, the economy, or a host of other institutions. What can you do with your topic?

6. Argue it  – When you argue your topic, consider all of the arguments associated with it. You might consider political, ethical, social, economic, philosophical, or other areas of argument.

Once you have described, compared, associated, analyzed, applied, and argued your topic, you should have a good idea of what you know and don’t know about the topic. You should also be well on your way to finding a direction or focus for your drafting.

Prewriting Application

Below is a sample cubing session a student used to learn more about the topic homeschooling.

Homeschooling

1. Describe – setting could vary daily

• Worksheets at the kitchen table
• Field trips to historic sites, museums, community organizations, government monuments and offices
• Online curriculum
• Parks programs for recreation – sports, art, dance, music
• Instruction time varies daily and according to availability of resources
• Mom or dad providing instruction
• Independent reading
• Blend of learning and family living

2. Compare to traditional schooling

• Both provide a specific curriculum and require teaching, reflection, and assessment
• Home school could be organized around the interests of the child and the environment of the family; traditional school is organized by a set curriculum and the school calendar.
• With home school, parents are responsible for ensuring the child has a full and rich educational experience; with traditional schooling, the school is responsible for providing the instruction according to standards set by the state, city, or district.
• With home school, social interaction among peers must be sought out; with traditional schools, peer interaction occurs daily.
• With home school, the parents will be financially responsible for the cost of curriculum; with traditional schools, tax dollars take care of the cost of curriculum.

3. Associate homeschooling

• Intelligent, independent kids
• Parents encouraging religious education
• Exploration
• Driven parents
• Perceived problems in traditional school settings

4. Analyze homeschooling

• Homeschooling may take children out of the traditional school setting, but they could still be engaged in the academic community.
• The parent’s role may change once he or she begins homeschooling.
• The line between home and school might blend together. Do home experiences become teaching experiences and vice versa?
• What are the effects of a child’s encouragement to explore areas of interest with guidance from the parent/teacher?

5. Apply homeschooling

• Homeschooling might be a good option for students in smaller and poorer school districts interesting in pursuing studies that are not available in traditional schools.
• New technologies make homeschooling possible for more students (curriculum delivery online).
• Parents become more aware of the education their children need and how to provide their child’s education through homeschooling.

6. Arguments associated with homeschooling

• Homeschoolers lacking social interaction
• Does homeschooling curriculum hold up to state and local standards of education?
• Are parents isolating their kids when they home school them?
• Is the role of teacher a healthy role for a parent to play?

When you begin your next writing assignment, try a few of the freewriting techniques explained above. And since the writing process is a recursive process, meaning you will revisit phases as you write and revise, use your new bag of prewriting tricks any time you are trying to develop content or rewrite sections of your project.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Pre-writing Activities and Drafting Your Essay

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Pre-writing Activities

1. freewrite.

Without referring to the text or your notes, write for five to ten minutes on all the images (or the device you have chosen to examine) you can recall. This will provide an initial list which will make up your body of evidence.

Look back through the text and your notes to further identify evidence, keeping focused on the particular device you want to discuss.

3. Research

Optional: Ask your instructor about outside sources before you use them. Once you've identified enough textual evidence to support your thesis, you may want to see what other writers have had to say about your topic. This kind of appeal to other authorities helps you back up and interpret your reading of the work.

4. Evaluate

You will probably generate more evidence than you can use. One way to decide which evidence to take and which to leave is to limit your choices to the best, most illustrative examples you can find. Focus on how the devices are used to develop major characters, major scenes, and major turning points in the work.

Drafting your essay

You've read and annotated the work, developed a thesis, and identified your evidence. Now you're ready to work your evidence into your draft. Here are some effective techniques.

What is a quote?

Quoting involves taking a word, phrase, or passage directly from the story, novel, or critical essay and working it grammatically into your discussion. Here's an example:

In his novel, The Secret Agent , Conrad describes Verloc as "undemonstrative and burly in a fat-pig style.... " (69). The pig image suggests that Verloc is not a lean, zealous anarchist, but is actually a corrupt, complacent middle class man who is interested in preserving his comfortable status.

Notice three things about the example above:

• The passage from the novel is enclosed in quotes and the page number is indicated in parentheses. For more help see our handouts on MLA and APA .
• The passage is introduced in a coherent grammatical style; it reads like a complete, correct sentence. For more help, see our handout on using quotation marks .
• The quote is interpreted, not patched on and left for the reader to figure out what it means.

When should I quote?

• To make a particularly important point
• When a passage or point is particularly well written
• To include a particularly authoritative source

How should I quote?

• All quotes must be introduced, discussed, and woven into the text. As you revise, make sure you don't have two quotes end-to-end.
• A good rule of thumb: Don't let your quotes exceed 25% of your text.

2. Paraphrasing

What is paraphrasing?

• This is using your own words to say what the author said. To paraphrase the quote used above, you might say something like:

When should I paraphrase?

• Paraphrasing is useful in general discussion (introduction or conclusion) or when the author's original style is hard to understand.
• Again, you would need to interpret the paraphrase just as you would a quote.
• For more help, see the OWL handout on paraphrasing .

3. Summarizing

What is summarizing?

• This is taking larger passages from the original work and summing them up in a sentence or two. To use the example above:

When should I summarize?

• Like paraphrasing, summary is useful in general discussion which leads up to a specific point and when you want to introduce the work and present the thesis.
• For more help, see the OWL handout on Summarizing .

The Writing Process

Making expository writing less stressful, more efficient, and more enlightening, search form, you are here.

• Step 1: Generate Ideas

Freewriting

“Don’t think; just write!” —Ray Bradbury

Freewriting, a writing strategy developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, is similar to brainstorming but is written in sentence and paragraph form without stopping. Thus, it . . .

• increases the flow of ideas and reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally censor a good idea.
• helps to increase fluency second-language learners—i.e., the ability to produce written language easily (as opposed to accuracy, which is of course important but which is better addressed later in the process).

As in brainstorming,

• DON'T worry about correct grammar or spelling;

Unlike in brainstorming,

• DO write in sentence and paragraph form;
• DO KEEP YOUR HANDS MOVING. If you can’t think of anything,  just keep repeating your subject (e.g., “busy trap, busy trap”) or something like “I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will, I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will,” over and over until they do come. (They will!);

• DO keep going for 15 or 20 minutes or until you feel you have enough to start to build your paper or research on.
• NOTE: In Peter Elbow's original formulation of freewriting, designed to generate not only ideas but even a topic, the writer writes for a few minutes, chooses one idea or word from that freewriting and then freewrites about that new topic for several minutes, and then repeats that process again, successively refining their topic. This process can be a useful one if you are truly starting from scratch and are not even sure what you want to write your paper about.

Read a sample freewrite .

- "Writer John" by Onomatomedia - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Writer_John.JPG#/media/File:Writ...

- "Don't Stop" ©2010, Hironori Nakagawa. All rights reserved.

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high quality essays written by our researchers over the years. Or use the search engine above and locate what you need quickly and efficiently. � We have papers whizzing out of here 24 hours a day. Standard delivery time is 6 hours. In a hurry? Rush delivery takes only 30 minutes! � Of course. Your billing details are encrypted before they are sent directly to our servers. � Our essays are written by researchers who hold masters degree and even PhDs. Many of our writers have also published books, articles, and academic writings. We hired the best so that you'll receive the best. � Yes, all of our papers come complete with a free works cited or bibliography page! My Storyboards Prewriting Templates Customize prewriting templates. If you're assigning this to your students, copy the worksheet to your account and save. When creating an assignment, just select it as a template! Enhance Writing Skills with Engaging Prewriting Worksheets These handouts are valuable resources that play a significant role in the process, helping individuals, particularly students, organize their thoughts, generate ideas, and set the groundwork for effective writing. These printable tools provide a structured framework for various prewriting activities and can be utilized by teachers and parents alike to foster creativity and critical thinking skills in young learners. By utilizing worksheets, kids can witness a concrete example of prewriting in practice, as they engage in activities that stimulate their creativity and help them generate ideas. In comparison to traditional free-form brainstorming, engaging in intentional prewriting practice with the aid of prewriting printables offers a more structured and guided approach. What is a Prewriting Worksheet? It is a tool used during the initial phase of the process to help writers generate ideas, organize thoughts, and plan their writing. It is a printable or digital document that provides prompts, instructions, and visual aids to assist with brainstorming, outlining, mind mapping, and research. They are customizable and cater to different writing tasks and age groups. An example of how pre-writing printables can be utilized is by providing students with a graphic organizer specifically designed for essay writing, allowing them to systematically brainstorm main ideas, supporting details, and connections between concepts, resulting in a well-structured and cohesive essay. The Importance of Prewriting Practice Prewriting is an essential stage of the writing process that sets the foundation for a well-structured and coherent piece of writing. Understanding how to do prewriting for an essay empowers students to employ a systematic approach, utilizing techniques like brainstorming, outlining, and utilizing worksheets, to effectively organize their ideas and develop a coherent and persuasive essay. In the prewriting phase, students can utilize pre-writing outlines as a strategic tool to map out their ideas, establish a logical flow, and ensure coherence in their writing, setting a strong foundation for their final composition. Engaging in prewriting activities allows writers, especially young learners, to: Generate ideas and brainstorm effectively Organize their thoughts and clarify objectives Develop fine motor skills necessary for handwriting Enhance creativity and critical thinking abilities Exploring Various Types of Prewriting Worksheets Brainstorming worksheets. Encourage kids to jot down ideas, keywords, and associations related to a topic. Example: "Imagine you're planning a party. Use this worksheet to brainstorm theme ideas, decorations, and activities." Outlining Worksheets Help students structure their ideas, arguments, or storylines. Example: "Use this outline worksheet to organize the main points and supporting details for your persuasive essay on an environmental issue." Mind Mapping Worksheets Facilitate visual connections between ideas, fostering creativity and critical thinking. Example: "Create a mind map using this worksheet to explore different elements of a fictional story: characters, setting, conflict, and resolution." Research Worksheets Assist in organizing research findings, facts, and supporting evidence. Example: "Research a historical figure and use this worksheet to jot down key dates, accomplishments, and interesting facts." Free Prewriting Worksheets for Kids To support young learners in their prewriting journey, we've curated a collection of engaging and free printable worksheets available for download on our website. These resources cater to various prewriting needs, such as developing fine motor skills, tracing lines, practicing writing, and exploring shapes and letters. With pre-writing worksheets printable in various formats, students have the convenience of accessing and utilizing these valuable resources that promote organization and idea generation in their writing endeavors. How to Incorporate Prewriting Worksheets for Essay Writing For older students preparing for essay writing, they can be invaluable tools. Here's a step-by-step guide to using these worksheets effectively: Choose an appropriate worksheet based on the essay topic or type. Fill in the worksheet with relevant ideas, arguments, and evidence. Use a prewriting graphic organizer or outline worksheet to structure the essay. Revise and refine the worksheet. Prewriting Worksheets for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners These worksheets are not limited to older students. Preschoolers and kindergarteners can also benefit from activities that develop their fine motor skills and introduce them to basic writing concepts. Our printable worksheets for this preschool and kindergarten include tracing lines, practicing writing shapes and letters, pencil grip, and engaging in playful prewriting exercises that help them learn to write. Kids love this type of activity for morning work, because they can use crayons, colored pencils, and other coloring tools as they are beginning to learn! Incorporating these handouts into writing can make a world of difference in developing strong writing skills, creativity, and critical thinking abilities. By offering a wide range of engaging and free prewriting printables to help kids practice writing, we aim to support kids and educators in fostering a love for writing and preparing young learners for future academic success. Tips for Creating a Prewriting Worksheet Determine the Purpose and Target Audience: Consider the age group (preschoolers, kindergarteners, or older students) and their specific needs. Tailor the worksheet to suit their level of understanding and skill development, focusing on keywords like fine motor skills, pre k, or handwriting skills. Select the Worksheet Format: Choose a format that aligns with the prewriting activity you want to facilitate, such as brainstorming, outlining, or mind mapping. Include shapes, letter tracing, or line tracing exercises to promote motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Design the Layout: Use pre-writing fonts and printable worksheet templates to make the worksheet visually appealing and easy to read. Consider incorporating horizontal lines, curved lines, and diagonal lines to aid in practicing writing and tracing skills. Provide Clear Instructions: Clearly state the objective of the prewriting activity on the worksheet. Include instructions on how to complete the worksheet or engage in the prewriting practice. Include Visual Prompts and Examples: Add visual cues, such as pictures or icons, to stimulate creativity and understanding. Provide examples of completed prewriting exercises to guide students and parents. Offer Variety and Flexibility: Offer multiple versions of the worksheet, each with a different focus or topic, to cater to diverse interests and learning needs. Allow space for children to personalize and add their own ideas to the worksheet. Consider Developmental Progression: For preschoolers and kindergarteners, start with simple fine motor skills activities like tracing thin lines or shapes, making patterns, and practicing strokes. Then gradually teach them to trace letters and practice word formation. Older kids can benefit from more complex worksheets, including research-based prompts and structured essay outlines. More Storyboardthat Resources and Free Printables Worksheet Templates Link Handwriting Practice Worksheet Link Creative Writing Worksheet Link How to Make a Prewriting Worksheet Choose one of the premade templates. We have lots of templates to choose from. Take a look at our example for inspiration! Click on “Copy Template” Once you do this, you will be directed to the storyboard creator. Give Your Worksheet a Name! Be sure to call it something related to the topic so that you can easily find it in the future. Edit Your Worksheet This is where you will include directions, specific images, and make any aesthetic changes that you would like. The options are endless! Click "Save and Exit" When you are finished, click this button in the lower right hand corner to exit your storyboard. From here you can print, download as a PDF, attach it to an assignment and use it digitally, and more! Happy Creating! Frequently Asked Questions About Prewriting Worksheets How do prewriting worksheets fit into the overall writing process. These worksheets serve as the initial step in the process. They help writers generate ideas, organize their thoughts, and create a roadmap for their writing. Prewriting is followed by drafting, revising, editing, and ultimately, producing a final written piece. How do prewriting worksheets help with overcoming writer's block? They provide a structured framework for brainstorming and generating ideas, which can help overcome writer's block. They offer prompts, visual cues, and organization techniques to stimulate creativity. Do these worksheets support English language learners? Yes, they can be beneficial for English language learners. The visual prompts, examples, and structured frameworks help ELLs generate ideas, organize their thoughts, and develop their writing skills in a supportive and accessible manner. Try 1 Month For 30 Day Money Back Guarantee New Customers Only Full Price After Introductory Offer Learn more about our Department, School, and District packages Thousands of images Custom layouts, scenes, characters And so much more!! Create a Storyboard Get the Reddit app Reddit's home for wholesome discussion related to pre-medical studies. Free premed resource (sample essays, list of internship/scholarship/gap year jobs++) (messaged/already got the okay from mods for approval before posting this) Over the past few weeks some medical students at Weill Cornell have worked to build a free premed resource. Having gone through it ourselves, we know how expensive and overwhelming premed can be so we wanted to share information that we wish we had during our own journeys. Although none of us have ~insider knowledge~ of admissions committees (the website is completely volunteer/student-run), hopefully the information we've compiled and gathered can help some people make sense of this process that can be difficult to navigate https://www.roadmaptomed.com/ Some of the resources we've created/compiled: - Quick rundown of the fee assistance program, general gist of MD application timeline, and tips for the application cycle - Reasons to consider a gap year - Resources for DACA/undocumented students - Sample essays (everything from primaries and secondaries to disadvantaged statements, research statements and letters of interest) - Sample interview cycle budgets and financial aid packages received by low-income students (even though the decision behind aid is really complex and dependent on individual financial situations, we thought it would be helpful to provide a range so people can be more aware of the general possibilities. and to know that that financial aid does exist! because none of us really knew what to expect when applying to med school) - List of paid summer internships and gap year opportunities - List of scholarships and schools with relatively generous financial aid policies (not comprehensive but a good starting point) RTM is made up of a team of medical students of first-gen/low-income background, and the idea was born out of wanting to create a space for FLI students/represent relevant concerns and topics that we haven't really seen discussed otherwise. That said, a lot of the content is more general advice for all premeds and our goal is to make medical school more accessible for all students, so we figured we'd share here as well. Please spread the word to your premed friends and hope this is useful for some of you. Good luck! You'll have to sign up for an account to access some of the materials (this is so we can have an idea of our impact) but again this resource is totally free and volunteer-run. We as broke medical students have nothing to gain from it except the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing future generations maybe won't go into the application cycle as confused and lost as we did lol Santa Clarita Valley's #1 Local News Source The evolution of academic assistance: pre-written essays for sale in the digital age, sponsored post. July 8, 2024 Writing used to be a solitary job where writers would sit at the table in their studies to scribble away imaginary scenarios, people, and events. Today, writing is much more collaborative with writers working out of cafes and dormitories with other students. Academic writing has seen a lot of change in the recent days, thanks to the internet and the AI. In this blog, we will take a look at academic assistance for students and how pre-written essays for sale are changing the landscape. Evolution of Academic Assistance The history of academic assistance for students has been nothing short of a saga. In this section, we will take a look at three major phases in the evolution of academic assistance and how it led to pre-written essays for sale . Peers and Siblings In the beginning, meaning before the internet, students do not have any way to seek help from others, save their peers and siblings with some experience. This was easily accessible but it was crude with no guarantee of success and a lot of chances of hit and miss. AI Essay Writing Tools With the advancement of the internet and writing tools, AI took center stage with amazing capabilities and scope. But the nascent hype has died down as teachers and instructors have found out ways to tackle AI in essays and papers. Pre Written Essays for Sale Today, essays for sale offer amazing value to students in terms of their scope, range, pricing, availability, and so on. Let’s take a look at some of the salient features that make them the ultimate rendition of academic assistance for students in schools and colleges. Immediate Access The first thing that is great about these pre-written essays for sale is the first part of their name. Since they are already finished, students do not have to wait for hours or days, and even pay a premium, to get one of these. All it takes is to go to the relevant website, find the right essay, pay for it, and that’s it. From start to finish, it takes no more than a couple of minutes! Wide Range of Topics Companies dealing with pre-written essays for sale have dedicated teams for researching the market. They anticipate the demand and come up with topics and titles that cover all the bases for students across the world. That’s why you will find a wide range of amazing essays and papers, available just a download away. Affordable Pricing Students do not have surplus cash lying around the dorm to spend on food and essentials, let alone buying essays from essay writing companies. They charge a premium on custom orders and take at least a day to write a 500-word essay. This is where pre-written essays for sale shine as they are available for a fraction of the price with all the benefits. Lucrative Add-Ons You might have a notion that once you download a pre-written essay, you are on your own. That’s not true as many reputed companies offer lucrative add-ons and perks to sweeten the deal. For instance, for a nominal price, you can ask for essay editing services. This will allow you to get all the changes in the essay without doing anything yourself.  Things to Look For Before Buying Pre-Written Essays for Sale Although pre-written essays for sale are great, you need to do some due diligence before paying your hard-earned cash. Here are some of the things you should check before moving forward with the purchasing of an essay online: The essay should be written by professional writers with experience in academic writing and editing. There should be an established brand behind the development of pre-written essays for sale. You should look for perks and benefits, such as title pages, free formatting, and downloadable plagiarism reports in order. The company has reviews and testimonials from other customers so that you know they are for real. Wrapping Up Academic assistance for students in the digital age has come a long way, from its humble roots. Today, students can order a complete essay from the comfort of their homes and get one in seconds. We have covered some aspects in the blog for your assistance in finding the right pre-written essay for sale. Related To This Story The power of a strong visual brand identity and the key steps to create it , how to wear and style a bandage dress: ultimate guide, the difference between indoor lighting and outdoor lighting products, external file sharing , complete guide to solar spotlights: everything you need to know , how can routine cleaning improve your smile, latest news. USPS to raise postage stamp prices by 7.8% beginning Sunday  Expansion of Board of Supervisors to be on ballot  Hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries, billions of dollars: The cost of extreme heat in California  United airlines plane loses wheel during takeoff from lax, lands safely in denver . Victim phones in gunshot near Canyon Country liquor store  Sign up for the, morning rundown. 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Windows • MacOS • Linux • iOS • Android Select areas that need to improve Didn't match my interface Too technical or incomprehensible Incorrect operation instructions Incomplete instructions on this function Fields marked * are required please Please leave your suggestions below Quick Tutorials Practical Skills How to Write a Paper in APA Format | For Students When I was a student, I was told to submit my essays in APA format. At the time, I had no idea what that even meant or how to do it. If this sounds familiar to you, don’t worry—I’ve been there, too. In this guide, I’ll show you the easiest way to understand APA format and a simple hack to help you comfortably write your essays and then format them in APA style. When is APA format used? APA format is commonly used in the social and behavioral sciences, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, and economics, as well as in fields like business and nursing. This standardized format is adopted by professionals, researchers, and students to structure and present research papers, essays, and other academic documents. It ensures consistency and clarity in communication within these disciplines by providing specific guidelines for nearly all aspects of manuscript formatting, from font choice to margins and punctuation. By adhering to paper APA format 7th edition style, writers in these fields can effectively share their findings and ideas in a clear and organized manner. General Guidelines/ Rules of APA Formatting Understanding the guidelines is key when learning how to write a paper in APA format for students. However, there's one important point that is often missed by many: the APA 7th edition now has different guidelines for students and professionals. So, if you notice a few extra details that might be missing in the guidelines below, it is because we have skipped the APA 7th edition guidelines for professionals to avoid any confusion. Let's review the guidelines: General Formatting: Margins: Set 1-inch margins on all sides. Font: Use a readable font such as Times New Roman (12 pt.). Line Spacing: Double-space throughout the document, including the title page, abstract, references, and any other sections. Indentation: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches (use the tab key or the paragraph formatting function). Alignment: Left-align all text except for headings, which follow specific formats. Page Numbers: Include page numbers in the top right corner of every page, starting on the title page (which is considered page 1). Title Page: Follow guidelines for the placement of the title, author information, affiliation (your school), course information, and instructor's name. Abstract: Include a brief summary of your paper on a separate page after the title page. Body Text: Write in clear and concise language, avoiding jargon. Use headings to organize your content. In-text Citations: Cite your sources within the text using the author’s name and publication year in parentheses. There are specific formats for different types of sources. Reference List: Start a new page for your references, listed alphabetically by the first author's last name. Follow specific formatting guidelines for different types of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.). Here's what a title page of a reference paper template looks like in APA format: How to Set up APA Format Paper [Step-by-Step] After understanding the guidelines, the next step is to apply them effectively to format your paper in APA 7th edition style. To achieve this, we need an efficient writing tool that provides all the necessary formatting tools. Since we're just starting our journey to format essays in APA style, the tool should be easy to use. For these reasons, I'll be using a professional writing tool— WPS Office . WPS Office not only provides all the necessary tools but also has a major benefit—it's completely free to use. I recommend downloading WPS Office on your system to ensure you can follow the steps smoothly. So, let's begin. I have an example paper that I will format in APA style using WPS Office. 1.Page Margins Before you begin formatting your essay, let's set the page margins according to APA 7th edition guidelines, which require 1-inch margins on all sides. Step 1: To set the page margins in WPS Writer, simply go to the Page Layout tab. Step 2: In the Page Layout ribbon, locate the Margin fields on the left end of the ribbon. Step 3: Here, set all margins—top, bottom, left, and right—to 1 inch. Once you've adjusted the margins, we can proceed with formatting the rest of the document. 2.Font Settings and Line Spacing Next, let's adjust the font and line spacing according to APA style requirements. Step 1: Go to the Home tab in WPS Writer and change the font to “Times New Roman” in the “Fonts” field. Step 2: To change the font size, enter "12" in the "Font size" field. Step 3: For adjusting line spacing, simply click on the "Line spacing" icon in the Home ribbon and select "2.0" to apply double spacing in your essay. Once we've completed setting the general formatting of our entire essay according to APA style, we now need to prepare the header. Step 1: To set the header, double-click on the header area to enter the header in WPS Writer. The header in APA style for students includes only the page number on the top right. Step 2: To insert the page number, click on the "Page Number" button in the Header/Footer ribbon. Step 3: From the Page Number drop-down menu, select the "Header right" option to insert the page number on the top right. Step 4: Next, we need to set the header height to "0.5 in" in the "Header height" field.  4.Title Page Sure! Let's start formatting each page of your essay, beginning with the title page. The title page should include the title of your paper, your name (as the author), the professor's name, course details, university name, and the due date. Each of these headings should start on a new line with 3-4 blank lines at the top of the page. This formatting ensures that your essay's title page follows APA style guidelines accurately. Step 1: Press the "Enter" key on the keyboard to leave 3-4 blank lines at the top of the page. Step 2: Type the title of your essay and center align it by clicking on the "Center" icon in the Home ribbon. Step 3: Make the title bold by selecting the title text and clicking on the "Bold" icon in the Home ribbon. Step 4: Press the "Enter" key twice to create a blank line between the title and the essay details. Then, enter the essay details in the following order, each on a separate line: Your name (Author) Department, University Course Name, Course code Professor's name Step 5: After entering the essay details as described, ensure that each detail is centered on the page by selecting all the text with your mouse. Then, click on the "Center" icon in the Home ribbon to center-align the selected text. Step 1: To insert a new blank page after the title page, place the cursor at the end of the due date on the title page and go to the Insert tab. Step 2: In the Insert ribbon, click on "Breaks" and then select "Page Break" from the drop-down menu. This will create a new blank page where we will enter our abstract. Step 3: Enter the heading "Abstract" in bold font style and center align it. Step 4: Type the body of the abstract with no indentation. Simply start typing the abstract text. After completing the abstract, insert another page break to start the next section of your essay. 6.Headings and Subheadings To ensure your paper adheres to APA style guidelines for headings and paragraph indentation, here's how you can format them: Step 1: On a new blank page, enter the Level 1 heading and ensure it is centered and in bold. Step 2: For the body of the headings, indent the first line of each new paragraph by “0.5 in” by pressing the “Tab” key on your keyboard Level 1 Heading: Centered and bold. It is used for main sections, like "Methods" or "Results". Level 2 Heading: Left-aligned and bold. It is used to divide the main sections into subsections. Level 3 Heading: Left-aligned, bold, and italicized. It further divides subsections into smaller parts. Level 4 Heading: Indented, bold, and ends with a period. Text immediately follows this period, and it continues with lowercase text. Level 5 Heading: Indented, bold, and in italics. Similar to Level 4, it also continues with lowercase text.. 7.Table of contents Essays can be lengthy, so including a table of contents can help make navigation easier. Let's take a look at how we can add a table of contents in WPS Writer. Step 1: The Table of Contents is placed right after the title page, so the first step is to create a blank space after the title page using a Page Break. Step 2: Now, on the blank page, go to the References tab and click on the Table of Contents button. Step 3: From the Table of Contents drop-down menu, select any of the default templates available. I prefer using the 3rd template as it allows coverage of 3 levels of headings. Step 4: Once the Table of Contents has been added, ensure that its heading is set to "Table of Contents", and it is formatted in bold and centered alignment. Step 5: Additionally, ensure that the font settings of the Table of Contents are set to Times New Roman and 12-point font size. 8.Reference page Before completing our essay, it's important to insert references that were helpful during the research process. For this, the end of your essay will include a separate References page. Step 1: On a blank page at the end of your essay, enter the heading "References". Center align the heading and make it bold. Step 2: List all the works cited in your essay. You can use the free Scribbr citation generator to generate APA 7th edition citations, which makes the process easier and ensures accuracy. Step 3: Ensure the references are formatted with hanging indents using the Ruler in WPS Writer. To access the ruler, go to the View tab and check the "Ruler" checkbox in the ribbon. Step 4: Drag the arrow on the ruler to half an inch to set the hanging indent . Step 5: Then, drag the rectangle (below the ruler) back to 0 to reset the left indent for the subsequent lines of each reference. And here is our APA 7th edition formatted essay from scratch. As you may have noticed, the whole process can be lengthy without an outline, but formatting your essay step by step makes the process clearer and easier to complete. I've used a few other writing tools for formatting, but I recommend WPS Writer because of its ease of navigation—all formatting tools are readily available in the tab, with no need to navigate through extra menus or open additional guides to learn additional steps. Try using WPS Writer for your essay assignments and experience the difference. Bonus Tips: How to Convert Word to PDF without losing Format WPS Office not only provides the necessary tools for students to efficiently format their essays according to APA 7th edition, but it also offers tools to easily convert these papers to PDF format within the WPS Writer application. Therefore, because submitting your work promptly is the next step after writing, ensure that your submission doesn't cost you any marks due to formatting issues after putting in so much effort. To convert your essay documents to PDF using WPS PDF without quality loss, simply follow these steps: Step 1: Open your document in WPS Writer. Step 2: Click on the Menu button at the top left corner of the screen. Step 3: Select "Export to PDF" from the menu that appears. Step 4: Adjust any settings, such as the output path, in the Export to PDF window. Step 5: After configuring the settings, click on "Export to PDF" to save your essay document as a PDF. FAQs about writing a paper in APA format 1. how should i format tables and figures in apa style. To correctly format a table in APA style, follow these guidelines: Boldly label the table number above the table. Provide a brief, italicized title in the title case just below the table number. Avoid using vertical lines in the table design. Use horizontal lines sparingly, only where necessary for clarity. Ensure column and row headings are clearly labeled and concise. Maintain consistent number formatting, such as decimal places. Include any necessary notes below the table to explain details or sources. To correctly format a figure in APA style, follow these guidelines: Place the figure number in bold above the figure. Provide a brief, italicized title in the title case beneath the figure number. Include clear labels and legends within the image if needed. Add any pertinent notes below the figure. 2. How to cite a Journal article in APA Style? An APA Style citation for a journal article includes the author's name(s), the year of publication (in round brackets), the title of the article, the name of the journal in italics, the volume (in italics) and issue number, the page range of the article, and a DOI (if available). APA format: Author's last name, First name initial. (Year of publication). Title of article. Journal Title, Volume(Issue), Page range. DOI or URL Johnson, M. (2023). Explore with us. Journal of random discoveries, 5(2), 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1234/jes.2023.5.2.123 3. How to cite a website in APA style? APA website citations include the author's name, publication date, the title of the page or article in italics, the website name, and the URL. If no author is known, begin with the title of the article. If updates to the content are possible, include a retrieval date. Author's Last Name, First initial. (Year, Month Date of publication). Title of the page. Name of the Website. URL Johnson, M. (2024, March 12). Explore with us. Random Discoveries. https://www.randomdiscoveries.com/explore-with-us Master APA Format Easily with WPS Office I personally find APA format to be the most complex of all formats, but doing it on WPS Office sure makes it easy. The fact that it’s so user-friendly, with every feature readily available, is a huge advantage. The best part is that WPS Office is completely free. As a student, finding a good office suite that is cost-effective can be a challenge, and I’ve been there. Download WPS Office and spare yourself the hassle of hunting for an office suite— WPS Office is the answer to all your problems. 1. How to Find and Replace in Word for Your Paper? [For Students] 2. APA Format in PowerPoint Presentation Example Templates 3. 10 PowerPoint presentation in APA Format example templates 4. 10 Top APA Format PowerPoint Presentation Example 5. How to Write a Research Paper [Steps & Examples] 6. How to Write an Essay in MLA Format | For Students 15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software. Test Preparation College & High School Sorry, there was a problem. Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required . Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web. Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app. Image Unavailable To view this video download Flash Player Follow the author The Complete College Essay Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing the Personal Statement and the Supplemental Essays Paperback – July 19, 2021 Want to write memorable college application essays in less time, with less stress? This book will guide you through the process, with hands-on activities, practical tips, and tons of real application essays—personal statements and supplemental essays—by real students! Finally—the book you’ve been waiting for! The Complete College Essay Handbook demystifies the entire college essay writing process with easy-to-follow directions and hands-on activities that have worked for hundreds of students. Maschal, a former admissions officer, and Wood, a professional writer and writing teacher, draw on their combined expertise to help students craft a successful set of application essays for every school on their list. Supplemental essays in particular can seem overwhelming—some schools ask students to write as many as six essays in addition to the personal statement. Maschal and Wood identify four types of supplemental essays, walking students through how to write each one and then how to recycle these essays for other schools. The Complete College Essay Handbook walks students through: What makes an essay stand out, drawing on sample essays by real students to illustrate main points Brainstorming activities to find the best topics for the personal statement and supplemental essays How to write the two central components of every application essay: scene and reflection Editing and revision—including techniques to cut down or expand an essay to hit the word limit The four types of supplemental essays and how to decode the different essay prompts, using actual essay questions The strategy behind a well-rounded set of application essays The Complete College Essay Handbook is a no-frills, practical guide that will give students the confidence and know-how they need to craft the best essays for every single school on their list—in less time and with less stress. This book is for students, high school teachers and counselors, parents, and anyone else who wants to help students through the college essay writing process. Print length 212 pages Language English Publication date July 19, 2021 Dimensions 6 x 0.48 x 9 inches ISBN-10 173731598X ISBN-13 978-1737315988 See all details Products related to this item Product details Publisher ‏ : ‎ 1 (July 19, 2021) Language ‏ : ‎ English Paperback ‏ : ‎ 212 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 173731598X ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1737315988 Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.2 ounces Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.48 x 9 inches #204 in College Guides (Books) #327 in College Entrance Test Guides (Books) About the author Brittany maschal. Dr. Brittany Maschal is the founder of Brittany Maschal Consulting, LLC, an educational consulting firm that works with students applying to college and graduate school. Brittany has held positions in admissions and student services at the University of Pennsylvania at Penn Law and The Wharton School; Princeton University (undergraduate) and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; and the Johns Hopkins University-Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She has served on admissions committees with American Councils for International Education and International Research and Exchanges Board; as an invited speaker to numerous community programs in the US and abroad; and as an alumni interviewer and admissions representative for the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Brittany was also an Executive Board member and Membership Director of the Penn GSE Alumni Association. Brittany received her doctorate in higher education from the George Washington University in 2012. Prior, she attended the University of Pennsylvania for her master’s, and the University of Vermont for her bachelor’s degree—a degree she obtained in three years. Brittany is a member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association and a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches. Customer reviews 3 star 0% 2 star 0% Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. Customers say Customers find the themes in the book comprehensive and personal. They also appreciate the writing style as clear, empathic, and gentle. AI-generated from the text of customer reviews Customers find the themes in the book comprehensive, inspiring, and personal. They also say it's a gem of a book, chock full of real essays by real students. Customers also appreciate the brainstorming exercises and writing prompts. "...was the emphasis on how students can find a meaningful and very personal story in seemingly small every day events, coupled with the very practical..." Read more "...exercises, and writing prompts - all designed to be the perfect guided experience . It’s a gem of a book, chock full of real essays by real students!" Read more "...This book really taught me how to write a concise , personal, meaningful college essay. So glad I found this book!" Read more "...Not only does it help you write the common app essay , but it teaches you how to write a wide variety of supplemental essays which are just as..." Read more Customers find the writing style clear, empathic, and gentle. They also say the book is chock full of real essays by real students. "... It's written so clearly , and with great empathy and the right amount of gentle humor...." Read more "...It’s a gem of a book, chock full of real essays by real students!" Read more "... Love the clarity and concision too. I strongly recommend for students and teachers." Read more "...The authors are very down to earth and give simple but important tips for writing a stand out essay...." Read more Reviews with images Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews Top reviews from the United States There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later.. About Amazon Investor Relations Amazon Devices Amazon Science Sell products on Amazon Sell on Amazon Business Sell apps on Amazon Become an Affiliate Advertise Your Products Self-Publish with Us Host an Amazon Hub › See More Make Money with Us Amazon Business Card Shop with Points Reload Your Balance Amazon Currency Converter Amazon and COVID-19 Your Account Your Orders Shipping Rates & Policies Returns & Replacements Manage Your Content and Devices Conditions of Use Privacy Notice Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure Your Ads Privacy Choices Quick Takes Student Expelled After Getting Scholarship With Fake Documents and AI-Written Essay By  Lauren Coffey You have / 5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in. A Lehigh University student with a full scholarship pleaded guilty to a forgery change and was expelled after admitting online that he faked admissions documents and used ChatGPT to write his essay. Aryan Anand, 19, was expelled from the private Pennsylvania university this spring after falsifying documents, including his father’s death certificate, tax documents and an email address to impersonate a school principal, according to a report from the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office obtained by Inside Higher Ed . “Lehigh University revoked his status as a student and his admission was rescinded,” a university spokesperson said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed . “A thorough investigation by Lehigh University police revealed significant fraudulent materials submitted for admission, leading to charges.”  Anand was admitted to Lehigh in August 2023 and shortly after created a post on the social media site Reddit titled “I have built my career and life on lies.” In the post, he detailed his fabrications of multiple documents to gain a full-ride scholarship to the university.  A Reddit user sent the post to the Lehigh University Police Department, which conducted an investigation and found the claims were true.  Anand was arrested in April and faced multiple charges that could have resulted in more than 30 years in prison. Last month, he pleaded guilty to one count of forgery. Lehigh officials decided to not seek restitution, which totaled roughly $85,000, on the condition he return to his home in India.  Anand admitted to using ChatGPT to write his admissions essay, according to The Hindustan Times . He applied to several universities and got rejected from Ivy League institutions but was successful with Lehigh University. AI Taking Root in Growing Number of Agriculture Programs Embracing the technology could not only boost food production but also prepare students for fast-changing jobs. Share This Article More from quick takes. 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The essay traces the history of satire from ancient Greece and Rome to modern times highlighting key examples like Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” and George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” It also discusses the techniques satirists use such as irony and hyperbole to expose hypocrisy and provoke thought. Despite its challenges satire remains a powerful tool for social critique encouraging reflection and inspiring change. How it works Satire a literary genre that wields humor and wit as its primary weapons has been a powerful tool for social critique and commentary for centuries. Its unique ability to expose the follies and vices of individuals institutions and societies sets it apart from other forms of writing. But what exactly is satire and why does it remain so effective and relevant in contemporary discourse? At its core satire is a mirror held up to society reflecting its absurdities and shortcomings in a way that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Unlike direct criticism or serious argumentation satire employs irony sarcasm and exaggeration to highlight the contradictions and flaws in human behavior and societal norms. This approach allows writers and artists to address controversial or sensitive topics with a certain degree of detachment and humor making their critiques more palatable and engaging for audiences. The roots of satire can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome where playwrights like Aristophanes and poets like Juvenal used their works to mock political leaders societal norms and cultural practices. These early satirists laid the groundwork for a tradition that would evolve over the centuries influencing countless writers and thinkers. From Jonathan Swift’s biting critiques of 18th-century British society in “Gulliver’s Travels” to George Orwell’s dystopian satire “Animal Farm” the genre has continually adapted to address the changing concerns and complexities of the world. One of the key elements that makes satire so compelling is its use of irony. By saying one thing and meaning another satirists can expose the hypocrisy and absurdity of their targets in a way that straightforward criticism often cannot. For example in Swift’s famous essay “A Modest Proposal” he suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to the rich. This outrageous proposition is of course not meant to be taken literally; rather it serves to highlight the inhumane attitudes and policies of the British government towards the Irish people. The shock value of the suggestion forces readers to confront the underlying issues in a new and unsettling light. Exaggeration and hyperbole are also central to the satirical method. By magnifying the flaws and vices of their subjects to ludicrous proportions satirists can effectively showcase the ridiculousness of certain behaviors and attitudes. This technique is evident in the work of modern satirists like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart whose exaggerated personas and over-the-top commentary on political events and public figures reveal the often absurd nature of contemporary politics and media. Another important aspect of satire is its ability to provoke thought and inspire change. While it is often humorous and entertaining satire is ultimately a form of social critique that aims to challenge the status quo and encourage reflection. By presenting familiar issues in an unfamiliar and often exaggerated context satirists can prompt audiences to reconsider their assumptions and question the legitimacy of established norms and practices. This transformative potential is what gives satire its enduring power and relevance. Despite its long history and widespread use satire is not without its challenges and controversies. Because it relies heavily on irony and exaggeration it can sometimes be misunderstood or misinterpreted by audiences. Additionally the use of humor to address serious issues can be seen as trivializing or disrespectful leading to debates about the appropriateness and ethical implications of satirical works. However these challenges also underscore the importance of satire in fostering critical thinking and open dialogue about complex and contentious topics. In conclusion satire is a multifaceted and dynamic genre that continues to play a crucial role in literary and cultural discourse. Its unique blend of humor irony and exaggeration allows it to effectively critique and comment on the absurdities and injustices of the world. By holding a mirror up to society satire not only entertains but also enlightens challenging us to reflect on our behaviors beliefs and institutions. As long as there are human follies and societal flaws to be addressed satire will remain a vital and powerful form of expression. Cite this page The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose. (2024, Jul 06). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/ "The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose." PapersOwl.com , 6 Jul 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/ PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/ [Accessed: 10 Jul. 2024] "The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose." PapersOwl.com, Jul 06, 2024. Accessed July 10, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/ "The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose," PapersOwl.com , 06-Jul-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/. [Accessed: 10-Jul-2024] PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding Its Power and Purpose . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-art-and-essence-of-satire-understanding-its-power-and-purpose/ [Accessed: 10-Jul-2024] Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs. Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+! Please check your inbox. You can order an original essay written according to your instructions. Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide 1. Tell Us Your Requirements 2. Pick your perfect writer 3. Get Your Paper and Pay Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant! Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert. short deadlines 100% Plagiarism-Free Certified writers 444 IMAGES Pre Essay Writing Exercises (Misc YRS). Linked to The Australian FREE 25+ Essay Writing Samples & Templates in PDF, Word How to Write an Essay: Step by Step Guide & Examples 017 Pre Written Essays For Free Essay ~ Thatsnotus 003 Pre Written Essays Essay ~ Thatsnotus Prewriting for Essays VIDEO Making Writing simple an essay by j.b.priestley Write an Essay Properly ! #essay #speaking #writing #eassywriting How to use AI for Essay Writing #college #texteroai Write essay on My school in English BCS Written English Essay writing Tips How to write a 75+ GAMSAT essay (+ free essay guide) COMMENTS Totally Free Essay Database Totally free essay database: thousands of essay and research paper samples submitted by college, high school and uni students Thousands of topics All fields of study Easy download. ... One of the most common uses of our database is to generate fresh ideas or inspire students with their own essay writing. Our samples can also become a source of ... Prewriting Strategies While many writers have traditionally created outlines before beginning writing, there are several other effective prewriting activities. We often call these prewriting strategies "brainstorming techniques.". Five useful strategies are listing, clustering, freewriting, looping, and asking the six journalists' questions. Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don'ts Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College) Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. Before You Start Writing That Paper... Prewriting is a term that describes any kind of preliminary work that precedes the actual paper writing. It doesn't necessarily have to be writing. In fact, prewriting can just be concentrated thinking about what you want to write your paper on. Various prewriting techniques are expanded upon below. However, know that you don't have to use all ... Prewriting Introduction Summarize your whole idea. Tell it to someone in three or four sentences. Diagram your major points somehow. Make a tree, outline, or whatever helps you to see a schematic representation of what you have. You may discover the need for more material in some places. Write a first draft. Then, if possible, put it away. Prewriting: What It Is and How to Do It 1. Brainstorm. During brainstorming, you start to list down all the topics you would like to write about. When we say list down, we mean just to write them all down without qualifying them. Set a timer for about five to ten minutes, and write down all your ideas. After you do this, go over your list and pick one topic. Prewriting Strategies: 9 Proven Steps With Tips, Examples & Worksheets Prewriting has several steps you can use. The good news is that you don't need to follow every single step. You just have to go with what works for you. Here are some prewriting strategies you can use next time you have a writing project: Researching. Brainstorming. Listing. Clustering (Mind Mapping) Freewriting. Prewriting Freewriting allows you to write, usually for a specific period of time, without stopping. The ideas should just flow from your mind to the paper (or keyboard). It is your stream of consciousness. Here's how it works: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. Then, begin writing and don't stop until the timer goes off. Free Essay Writing Tools by IvyPanda Abstract Generator for Research Papers. This abstract generator will be an excellent assistant if you want to create a successful abstract for your research. This free tool will solve your problem in seconds! We will write a. custom essay specifically. for you. by our professional experts. --- certified writers online. 11 Pre writing Strategies (and how to use them) Show them how you would brainstorm or cluster. Additionally, show students how you can "throw away" an idea. This will often lead them to a deeper, more creative approach to the topic. I always say, "throw away your first two ideas.". Help them find discovery in their prewriting. Writing is a form of discovery. Pre-writing Activities and Drafting Your Essay Pre-writing Activities. 1. Freewrite. Without referring to the text or your notes, write for five to ten minutes on all the images (or the device you have chosen to examine) you can recall. This will provide an initial list which will make up your body of evidence. 2. Free Essay Examples Free Essay Examples Database by PapersOwl. Find relevant and credible information for your specific topic in our free essay samples. FIND ESSAY. Get inspired with 55000+ essay examples or order unique paper. 150,000 students trusted PapersOwl. 5 Essay Pre-Writing Strategies for Diverse Learners However, not every pre-writing method is helpful to all students. There are several pre-writing strategies, including outlining, mind mapping, journalist's questions, essay charting, and freewriting. Whether you are an educator or a student, read on to learn how to apply these effective pre-writing strategies to your essay writing toolbelt. Freewriting "The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words; but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words.Only in the end will you know what you are saying." —Peter Elbow "Don't think; just write!" —Ray Bradbury Freewriting, a writing strategy developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, is similar to brainstorming but is ... Prewriting Prewriting is the step in the writing process that precedes the actual writing of the initial draft of a piece. In response to a writing prompt or other initial trigger for an idea that anchors a ... 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Quality writing by expert researchers. Essays delivered by email, fax, or FedEx. Super fast, same day delivery. Free Term Papers for Research & Free Essays Access 2,000,000+ private essays, term papers, and answers for only $19.77! Professional writing services also distribute free student essays, but these reports are primarily intended to serve as model products so that prospective essay buyers can see the type of writing that the service produces. Typically, a free student essay provided by a ... Freewriting Try a series of timed freewritings. Set a timer for five minutes. The object is to keep your fingers moving constantly and write down whatever thoughts come into your head during that time. If you can't think of anything to say, keep writing I don't know or this is silly until your thoughts move on. Stop when the timer rings. Free Prewriting Worksheets Here's a step-by-step guide to using these worksheets effectively: Choose an appropriate worksheet based on the essay topic or type. Fill in the worksheet with relevant ideas, arguments, and evidence. Use a prewriting graphic organizer or outline worksheet to structure the essay. Revise and refine the worksheet. Free premed resource (sample essays, list of internship ... Free premed resource (sample essays, list of internship/scholarship/gap year jobs++) (messaged/already got the okay from mods for approval before posting this) Hi all! Over the past few weeks some medical students at Weill Cornell have worked to build a free premed resource. Having gone through it ourselves, we know how expensive and ... The Evolution of Academic Assistance: Pre-Written Essays for Sale in Academic writing has gone through drastic changes in the digital age. Learn how pre-written essays for sale are lending a hand to students. Full-Length SAT Suite Practice Tests Find full-length practice tests on Bluebook™ as well as downloadable paper (nonadaptive) practice tests to help you prepare for the SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, PSAT 10, and PSAT 8/9. The Art and Impact of Figurative Language in Literature WRITE MY ESSAY. Papersowl. 4.7 /5. Sitejabber. 4.7 /5. Reviews.io. 4.9 /5. Cite this page. APA MLA Harvard Chicago ASA IEEE AMA . ... To get a custom and plagiarism-free essay click here. Related essays. Figurative Language and the Hidden Magic in Everyday Conversations Pages: (878 words) How to Write a Paper in APA Format Step 1: On a blank page at the end of your essay, enter the heading "References". Center align the heading and make it bold. References Page. Step 2: List all the works cited in your essay. You can use the free Scribbr citation generator to generate APA 7th edition citations, which makes the process easier and ensures accuracy. Scribbr Citation ... The Profound Impact of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on American Society Essay Example: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and first published in 1852 is regarded as one of the most important books in American history. Its importance goes well beyond its literary accomplishments since it was intricately woven into the American social and political The Complete College Essay Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing The Complete College Essay Handbook demystifies the entire college essay writing process with easy-to-follow directions and hands-on activities that have worked for hundreds of students. Maschal, a former admissions officer, and Wood, a professional writer and writing teacher, draw on their combined expertise to help students craft a successful ... Student won scholarship with fake documents, AI-written essay A Lehigh University student with a full scholarship pleaded guilty to a forgery change and was expelled after admitting online that he faked admissions documents and used ChatGPT to write his essay. Aryan Anand, 19, was expelled from the private Pennsylvania university this spring after falsifying documents, including his father's death certificate, tax documents and an email address to ... The Art and Essence of Satire: Understanding its Power and Purpose The essay traces the history of satire from ancient Greece and Rome to modern times highlighting key examples like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" and George Orwell's "Animal Farm." It also discusses the techniques satirists use such as irony and hyperbole to expose hypocrisy and provoke thought. assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis