What are Pre Writing Strategies?

Writing is a means of communication, which represents a language through signs and symbols.  In simple words, writing is the way of expressing or describing thoughts and emotions on a paper. Prewriting is an essential part of the writing process. It is the initial stage and at this stage, we search and look for the ideas and thoughts so as to convey it on the paper. There are various prewriting techniques, which we use in our day-to-day life activities. Some of the important prewriting strategies are listed below:

•   Brainstorming: Brainstorming means writing or listing the ideas, thoughts and views that come to your mind.  Write down the ideas that come into your mind, and from all those ideas, you can choose and create a topic, which you can describe well.

•   Free Writing: Free writing is the step in which you create a lot of information by writing about a particular topic. It is the process that encourages you to write whatever comes to your mind. Set a time-limit and write anything that makes sense, even if nothing particular comes to mind, then also you must write.  At this stage, you should jot down the ideas on a paper before you conduct research on the topic. In this form of writing, spelling or grammar errors are considered secondary things instead you need to focus on the information you have generated and written on a paper.

•   Clustering: Clustering is a process of mind mapping. At this stage, you draw a circle in your mind and keep the main idea in the center. Similarly, you draw new ideas or sub-ideas in your mind and link these ideas to the main idea. In this way, you can identify the relationship between ideas and how these fit with each other. By clustering your ideas, you can visually plan how you will present your ideas to the readers.

•   Looping: Looping is a free-writing method that enables you to concentrate on your idea or thought in order to create a topic for writing.

•   Journalistic Technique: According to journalist point of view, the writing starts with 5W’s and 1 H (Who, What, When, Why and How). Based on the six important questions, you can discover the topic, which you will be writing. These questions are often used when describing an event or incident. Let us understand the 5 W’s and 1H in detail.

Who – Who are the person involved in the event or conflict.

What – What is the topic or issue? What is the importance of the topic or issue?

Where – Where refers to the place. Where the issues or activities took place?

When – When refers to the time period (past, present or future). When did the problem or issue arise?

Why – Why did the issue or incident take place?    

How – How does the issue or incident affect the participant?