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Friday, March 14, 2014

Pre-writing Process

    There are many factors that should be taken into consideration before writing a paper. Whether it's a story, an essay, an article, etc., you should always think about the following:
 
    1.  Topic: the topic, or the theme, is the subject that you will be writing about.
    2.  Purpose: this is the 'why?' of the paper. What do you want to achieve through the composition?
    3.  Genre: what will you be writing? There are essays, short stories, poems, novels, non-fiction,etc.
    4. Audience: who will you be writing to? the readers are one of the most important if not the most important aspect of your paper. Every composition is meant to be read by someone. Whether it's a teacher, fellow students, friends or complete strangers, always remember that what you write will be meant for someone else.
 
    The pre-writing process is everything you do before you begin to compose your writings. There are many ways to carry out this process. Once you have answered the questions stated above, you can decide which style of pre-writing you will use. Each of the styles have their own characteristics and work differently; always depending, of course, of what you think is more convinient for you as a writer. (note: during the pre-writing process, punctuation, grammar and spelling are not important.) Some of the pre-writing styles are:
 
    1. Free style
        Free style writing consists of taking no more than 5 minutes and writing, without stopping. Once you choose your topic, you begin to write everything that comes to mind and you dont stop writing until the thoughts in your head stop flowing. After writing you organize your ideas by reading and marking the information that you believe best suits the topic, purpose, genre and audience of your paper.
    2. Clustering
        When you use clustering you use single words. Once your topic is chosen you begin to jot down every word that comes to mind about that word or topic. This process is also about 5 minutes long and once you're finished all you do is, literally, cluster the words together. You take the words that go under the same subject or line of thought and put them into groups.
    3. Outline
        Outlining is quite common and mostly used when writing essays. It's also one of the most organized ways of pre- writing. You devide your outline in 3 parts: your introduction or the statement of your topic, your body or development and your conclusion or solution to your problem. For the outline it is extremely important to keep in mind your line of thought. If you deviate too much from your topic, your composition might end up out of the subject that you had planned to write about in the first place.
   4. Brainstorming
       When you are brainstorming, you jot down questions. Some of these might include: What do I enjoy about this topic? What is my main purpose to write about this? What moves me? What does this involve or require? etc. Once the questions are made you start answering them until you find that you have enough information as to being your first draft.
 
    There are many more pre-writing styles used by all kinds of people. To understand these a bit better, let's show some examples of each. The sugested topic is pets.
 
    1. Free style
When we think about pets we mostly think of dogs, cats, birds or fish. But there are many types of pets all over the world. There are lizards, snakes, monkeys, elephants and in some places even wild cats. They all require a certain type of care. There are the basics of cleaning and feeding. You must always keep in mind the diet of the animal to be take care of because of the health of the creature. If you don’t keep them clean you’ll find that they could get sick from the bacteria that develops on their skin or around them in there cage or habitat. Most animals belong in cages. Like birds and monkeys. Others, like the fish and the snake and other cold blooded animals belong in tanks. Mostly dogs or cats are left free to roam the house. If you do let them free you need to make sure that they are trained or they will make a huge mess around the house. The way to train them is simple you use treats and certain signals that the animals will respond to...
    (note that the ideas are unorganized. There may be grammatical errors and even in punctuation, but this will be organized and revised many times before it is printed, published, turned in, etc.)
 
    2. Clustering
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    3. Outlining
 
Introduction: Pets are important for the development of a child.
    a. develops responsability.
    b. social development in the caring of another living creature.
    c. development of realistic thinking.
Body:
    a. develops responsability
        1. cleaning
        2. feeding
        3. caring
    b. social development
        1. comparison in pets with other kids
        2. playing games with the pet
        3. sense of companionship with the pet
    c. realistic thinking
        1. need for money to care for the pet.
        2. facing the death of the pet
Conclusion: rephrase your topic, summarize your work and make a closing point (state the purpose subtly)
 
    4. Brainstorming
What do you need to keep a pet?
what kind of animals are good for kids?
what kind of animals are good for the elderly?
Whats the most common pet?
What resposabilities are required?
What are the benefits or disadvantages of having a pet?
 
Note: think of all the questions you might want to include in your paper and do your research based on the questions that most fit the purpose and audience of your paper.
 
Practice Exercise:
Write an example with each of the pre-writing process styles with one of these topics:
  Movies         School                 Family
  Music           Violence             Friends
  Art                Drugs                  Blogs
 
Free Writing
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                  
 
Clustering
 
Outline:
Introduction:_______________________________________________________________________
   1. first statement
   2. second statement
   3. third statement
Body:
   1. Statement #1
       a. supporting detail
       b. supporting detail
       c. supporting detail
   2.  Statement #2
       a. supporting detail
       b. supporting detail
       c.  suporting detail
    3.  Statement #3
        a. supporting detail
       b. supporting detail
       c. supporting detail.
Conclustion:_________________________________________________________________________
 
Brainstorming:
ask yourself at least 5 questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
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