Where to Start in Essay Writing Preparation

We all can attest to the fact that the essay writing process is highly demanding. That can explain why students find it extremely hard to sit down for hours compiling an essay prior to its submission. Essay writing should be considered as a process. One that will take you more than just one or two hours to accomplish. Before anyone can produce a well-written final draft, they need to properly consider these steps. Perhaps one of the most important stages when you start writing an essay is the prewriting stage.

Prewriting Stage
A prewriting stage refers to the essay writing stage where an individual prepares ideas for their essay before they can begin writing. This practice is very helpful especially when it comes to writing long essay. The process generally provides you with a structure and meaning to the related topic which in-turn allows you to research for materials before you can embark on writing. Besides that this strategy also helps you get organized in order to minimize frustrations when writing. In a nut shell, the prewriting exercise should help you to create ideas, allows you to focus on the same, assist you to create a topic and above all helps you to develop a logical structure for your essay.

Prewriting Strategies
Also, it is very important to have a crystal understanding of all essay writing terms and concepts. You can use the essay writing glossary or the site for clarifying unknown words.

Do you sometimes suffer from the so called ”writer’s block”? If you are a victim, then these prewriting strategies will help you to overcome that hurdle.

a) Think of what you are going to write
Consider taking a few days to just think about what you are going to write about. It is very important for an individual to think about the subject so they can be spot on when it comes to writing. Ask yourself questions related to the subject matter which should act as your writing guide. This can occur anywhere, while driving, taking a shower or even when mowing the lawn. The most important thing to do here is to just think about the subject.

b) Brainstorming
The best way to approach this step is to set a time limit for the same. You do not have to take an entire day brainstorming when you have other things to do. Consider brainstorming for about 10 minutes before moving on to the next step. The main idea behind brainstorming is to allow you to keep focus and prevent you from getting overwhelmed. This step can indeed help you to narrow down on your topic of discussion. Once you’ve decided the topic to write on, move to the next step.

c) Freewriting
This step also requires an individual to limit their time for maximum efficiency. Once you’re through with that, summarize your topic in one sentence and start writing whether it’s on a word document or a piece of paper. The trick here is to not stop writing, just write anything that crosses your mind without even considering your grammar or spelling mistakes. The point is to not get stuck. Only stop when the set time lapses. When you through with writing, go back and read whatever it is that you have written this time underlining the relevant idea.

d) Listing
In some cases, there are individuals who find a hard time trying to let ideas flow out on a page in as far as their freewriting activity is concerned. Such individual need to try out the listing technique. This technique can also enhance the process of generating ideas. The step basically involves creating a list of all your ideas to make it easier for you to remember them. It also makes it easier to map your ideas.

e) Research
In an event where you have all your ideas ready for writing, you might also want to research further so that you can find out what other writers have written about the topic. The importance of this step cannot be overemphasized because it’ll help you to back up and interpret your reading of the work to see whether you are doing the right thing.

f) Evaluate
With all above steps, chances are that you might end up generating more ideas that you had anticipated. This evaluation step should help you filter some of the ideas. Limit yourself to only the best and most illustrative ideas that you can find.

g) Clustering
For an essay to be logical and legible, it needs to be well organized. The clustering exercise is a technique that allows an individual to come up with ideas and give suggestions on how the different ideas are logically related. By doing so, the writer is in a better position of getting a sense of how the essay will eventually be organized. To achieve this, one draws circles and attempts to link them based on how they are related to one another.

It’s a great way of identifying the parts within any given topic which will act as the source for the content of your essay.

Once you are through with all the aforementioned step you can then move to the next phase of your essay writing process and perhaps start writing the essay.