Editing and Proofreading
Student Learning Outcomes
- Identify techniques of editing and proofreading
- Modify an essay that has already been through the rough draft and revision processes
What Is Editing?
Editing is improving an essay by using various methods of revision. It can involve major and minor changes to an essay’s content, structure, or language. There are multiple stages to editing: content editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading.
In content editing, you can expect to make major changes to your work. Take an early draft of the essay and add or delete content as needed. Perhaps your thesis statement required revision, or you needed more substantial evidence to support your claims. Adjust your introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion accordingly.
In line editing, you may need to rearrange words or phrases to make sure your meaning is clear. Some paragraphs may benefit from restructuring in order to create a sense of flow in the essay. Make sure each paragraph begins with a topic sentence, has supporting details to back up that topic sentence, and ends with a transitional sentence.
In copy editing, pay attention to each sentence’s grammar. Make sure there are no obvious critical errors such as sentence fragments or run-on sentences. Make sure that your tone and tense are consistent. Double-check your formatting to make sure it is styled appropriately (usually MLA, APA, or Chicago).
In proofreading, scan each sentence for misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, or stylistic inconsistencies (such as capitalization). At this point, you are combing through the essay for minor errors that may have been missed previously. This is the final stage in editing before submitting a final draft.
The Steps of Editing and Proofreading
After drafting an essay, it is time to begin editing and proofreading. Start with content editing first. Double-check the overall content and organization of the essay. The writing should be easy to follow and logically ordered. At this point, you may need to change the order of sentences or even move whole paragraphs to ensure the essay has a sense of flow. Make sure that the essay reflects your conceptual intent and responds appropriately to the writing prompt. It is a good idea to recheck the assignment guidelines and make sure that your essay has all of the required components. For example, if your instructor has asked for a five-paragraph essay with an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion, then you know you will need to add a paragraph if there are only four paragraphs in your essay. Now is also a good time to check the word count and page count of your essay. If the essay is too short or too long, then you will need to add or delete sections until it is the appropriate length. Be sure to apply any required formatting to the essay to easily see its length. Any big changes you need to make to your essay should be completed in this step of the editing process.
Once the biggest changes have been made, you can move on to line editing. In this stage of the editing process, you want to look at each paragraph individually, line by line. Check the word choice for syntactical errors. Be careful to avoid clichés. Make sure the language you use is both clear and precise and that the tone you use is appropriate for your topic. If you are writing an essay about a serious issue such as starving children, then you want to maintain a serious tone throughout the essay. It would not be a good idea to insert humor in such a topic. On the other hand, if you are writing an essay about the necessity of attending clown school, then jokes are more likely to be received well, as clowns are associated with entertainment. Now is also a good time to review the order of sentences in each paragraph. It is a good idea to make sure the paragraph has a topic sentence that clearly identifies what the paragraph will discuss and that each subsequent sentence supports that topic sentence. If you notice any sentences that veer off topic or don’t seem to make sense, then you can remove or revise them. Once the topic has been adequately discussed with supporting details, check to make sure there is a transitional sentence at the end of the paragraph. This will signal to readers that the discussion of this topic is complete while pointing readers onward to the next topic your essay will discuss.
Now that organizational issues have been addressed, it is time to begin copy editing. From here on out, your essay should not require any major changes, so it is a good idea to print the essay and mark additional edits with a pen or pencil. In this stage of the editing process, try to find any obvious grammatical errors such as sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and subjects and verbs that disagree. Double-check your spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. In formal essays, it is a good idea to avoid first-person pronouns, contractions, and colloquial language. Scan for these things as you read over your essay. Another issue that is easy to miss is changing verb tense. Make sure it is consistent. Some authors will accidentally switch back and forth between past and present tense. To avoid confusing your readers, pick a tense and stick with it, switching only when necessary (such as showing a shift in time). Likewise, if a sentence begins with a singular noun, then you should use a singular pronoun when referring to that noun, and if a sentence begins with a plural noun, then you should use a plural pronoun. A mistake students often make is to begin a sentence with a noun like “person” and then use “they” as its pronoun. “Person” implies one, whereas “they” implies more than one (unless someone specifically stated they/them are their preferred pronouns). To balance a sentence, use singular and plural nouns and pronouns consistently. One more element to address in this stage of editing is factual inconsistencies. Make sure the information you provide to readers is accurate. This step can be thought of as “fact-checking.” After all of these items have been checked, spend some time reviewing your formatting. If your instructor has requested MLA, APA, or Chicago format, then it is important to check that format’s most recent style guide.
The last step in the editing process is proofreading. The goal of proofreading is to go through the essay one last time searching for minor errors such as incorrect or missing punctuation, misspelled words, and stylistic inconsistencies (such as capitalizing words that are not proper nouns). While your computer’s grammar checker can help point out some errors, you should not rely on it to catch every potential error in your essay. You are your own best editor. However, after looking over your paper several times, your eyes can miss things. The following strategies may help you to catch errors you would have otherwise missed:
- Read the essay aloud. Sometimes your ears will hear an error even if your eyes skip over it.
- Read the essay backward, starting with the final sentence and ending with the first sentence. This will allow you to have a fresh perspective on your sentences.
- Do an initial proofread of the essay, and then physically step away from it. Give yourself some time before you read over it again to give your eyes and your mind a break.
- Have a friend or peer read over the essay to look for mistakes.
- Visit your school’s writing center to help with finishing touches on the essay.
Your Turn
Think about your most recent writing assignment. Once the essay has been drafted and revised, begin the editing and proofreading processes. Take a break between each step in the process so you can approach each step after adequate rest. Keep a log in which you record your editing steps, along with the amount of time you spend on each step, that you can share with your instructor.
Key Terms
- Content editing
- Line editing
- Copy editing
- Proofreading
Summary
Editing and proofreading are two important steps in the writing process. Major edits should be done first, but it is still important to proofread for minor errors before submitting a final draft of an essay.
Reflective Response (Optional)
Now that you have practiced editing and proofreading, what mistakes do you notice yourself making? Which mistakes were easiest to fix? Which mistakes were the most challenging to fix?
Learning Objectives
- Use prewriting strategies to choose a topic and narrow the focus.
You are not alone if you think a blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on the computer screen is a scary sight. Many writers, students, and employees find that beginning to write can be intimidating. However, experienced writers remind themselves that writing, like other everyday activities, is a process when faced with a blank page. Everything from writing to cooking, bike riding, and learning to use a new cell phone will get significantly easier with practice.
Just as you need a recipe, ingredients, and proper tools to cook a delicious meal, you also need a plan, resources, and adequate time to create a good written composition. In other words, writing is a process that requires following steps and using strategies to accomplish your goals.
These are the five steps in the writing process:
- Prewriting
- Outlining the structure of ideas
- Writing a rough draft
- Revising
- Editing
Effective writing can be described as good ideas that are expressed well and arranged in the proper order. This chapter will allow you to work on all these important aspects of writing. Although many more prewriting strategies exist, this chapter covers six: using experience and observations, freewriting, asking questions, brainstorming, mapping, and searching the Internet. Using the strategies in this chapter can help you overcome the fear of the blank page and confidently begin the writing process.
Prewriting
Prewriting is the stage of the writing process during which you transfer your abstract thoughts into more concrete ideas in ink on paper (or in type on a computer screen). Although prewriting techniques can be helpful in all stages of the writing process, the following four strategies are best used when initially deciding on a topic:
- Using experience and observations
- Reading
- Freewriting
- Asking questions
At this stage in the writing process, choosing a general topic is OK. Later, you will learn more prewriting strategies that will narrow the focus of the topic.
Choosing a Topic
In addition to understanding that writing is a process, writers also understand that choosing a good general topic for an assignment is an essential step. Sometimes, your instructor will give you an idea to begin an assignment, and other times, your instructor will ask you to come up with a topic on your own. A good topic not only covers what an assignment will be about but also fits its purpose and audience.
In this chapter, you will follow a writer named Mariah as she prepares a piece of writing. You will also be planning one of your own. The first important step is to tell yourself why you are writing (to inform, to explain, or for some other purpose) and for whom you are writing. Write your purpose and audience on your own sheet of paper, and keep the paper close by as you read and complete exercises in this chapter.
My purpose: ____________________________________________
My audience: ___________________________________________
Using Experience and Observations
When selecting a topic, you may also want to consider something that interests you or something based on your own life and personal experiences. Even everyday observations can lead to interesting topics. After writers think about their experiences and observations, they often take notes on paper to better develop their thoughts. These notes help writers discover what they have to say about their topic.
Tip
Have you seen an attention-grabbing story on your local news channel?
Many current issues appear on television, in magazines, and on the Internet. These can all provide inspiration for your writing.
Reading
Reading plays a vital role in all the stages of the writing process, but it first figures in the development of ideas and topics. Different kinds of documents can help you choose a topic and also develop that topic. For example, a magazine advertising the latest research on the threat of global warming may catch your eye in the supermarket. This cover may interest you, and you may consider global warming as a topic. Or maybe a novel’s courtroom drama sparks your curiosity of a particular lawsuit or legal controversy.
After you choose a topic, critical reading is essential to the development of a topic. While reading almost any document, you evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about his main idea and his support. When you judge the author’s argument, you discover more about not only the author’s opinion but also your own. If this step already seems daunting, remember that even the best writers need to use prewriting strategies to generate ideas.
Tip
The steps in the writing process may seem time-consuming at first, but following these steps will save you time in the future.
The more you plan in the beginning by reading and using prewriting strategies, the less time you may spend writing and editing later because your ideas will develop more swiftly.
Prewriting strategies depend on your critical reading skills. Reading prewriting exercises (and outlines and drafts later in the writing process) will further develop your topic and ideas. As you continue to follow the writing process, you will see how Mariah uses critical reading skills to assess her own prewriting exercises.
Freewriting
Freewriting is an exercise in which you write freely about any topic for a set amount of time (usually three to five minutes). During the time limit, you may jot down any thoughts that come to your mind. Try not to worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Instead, write as quickly as you can without stopping. If you get stuck, copy the same word or phrase repeatedly until you develop a new thought.
Writing often comes easier when you have a personal connection with your chosen topic. Remember, to generate ideas in your freewriting; you may also think about readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking. Doing this may lead your thoughts in interesting directions.
Quickly recording your thoughts on paper will help you discover what you have to say about a topic. When writing quickly, try not to doubt or question your ideas. Allow yourself to write freely and unselfconsciously. Once you start writing with few limitations, you may find you have more to say than you first realized. Your flow of thoughts can lead you to discover even more ideas about the topic. Freewriting may even lead you to discover another topic that excites you even more.
Look at Mariah’s example. The instructor allowed the class members to choose their own topics, and Mariah thought about her experiences as a communications major. She used this freewriting exercise to help her generate more concrete ideas from her experience.
Tip
Some prewriting strategies can be used together. For example, you could use experience and observations to develop a topic related to your course studies. Then, you could use freewriting to describe your topic in more detail and figure out what you have to say about it.
Exercise 1
Freewrite about one event you have recently experienced. With this event in mind, write without stopping for five minutes. After you finish, read over what you wrote. Does anything stand out to you as a good general topic to write about?
Asking Questions
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? You pose these kinds of questions in everyday situations to get more information. Who will be my partner for the project? When is the next meeting? Why is my car making that odd noise? Even the title of this chapter begins with the question, “How do I begin?”
You seek the answers to these questions to gain knowledge, to better understand your daily experiences, and to plan for the future. Asking these types of questions will also help you with the writing process. As you choose your topic, answering these questions can help you revisit your ideas and generate new ways to think about your topic. You may also discover aspects of the topic that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to learn more about. All these idea-gathering techniques will help you plan for future work on your assignment.
When Mariah reread her freewriting notes, she found she had rambled and disjointed her thoughts. She realized that the topic that interested her most was the one she started with the media. She then decided to explore that topic by asking herself questions about it. She aimed to refine media into a topic she felt comfortable writing about. To see how asking questions can help you choose a topic, take a look at the following chart that Mariah completed to record her questions and answers. She asked herself the questions that reporters and journalists use to gather information for their stories. The questions are often called the 5WH questions after their initial letters.
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Who? | I use media. Students, teachers, parents, employers, and employees use media. |
| What? | The media can be a lot of things. Television, radio, e-mail (I think), newspapers, magazines, books. |
| Where? | The media is almost everywhere now. It's in homes, at work, in cars, even on cell phones! |
| When? | Hmm. This is a good question. I don't know why there is mass media. Maybe we have it because we have the technology now. People who live far away from their families have to stay in touch. |
| How? | Media is possible because of technology inventions, but I don't know how they all work! |
Tip
Prewriting is very purpose-driven; it does not follow a set of hard-and-fast rules. The purpose of prewriting is to find and explore ideas so that you will be prepared to write. A prewriting technique like asking questions can help you find and explore a topic. The key to effective prewriting is using the best techniques for your thinking process. Freewriting may not seem to fit your thinking process but keep an open mind. It may work better than you think. Perhaps brainstorming a list of topics might better fit your personal style. Mariah found freewriting and asking questions to be fruitful strategies to use. In your own prewriting, use the 5WH questions in any way that benefits your planning.
Exercise 2
Choose a general topic idea from the prewriting you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 1". Then read each question and use your own paper to answer the 5WH questions. As with Mariah, when she explored her writing topic in more detail, it is OK if you do not know all the answers. If you do not know an answer, use your own opinion to speculate or guess. You may also use factual information from books or articles you previously read on your topic. Later in the chapter, you will read about additional ways (like searching the Internet) to answer your questions and explore your guesses.
5WH Questions
- Who? ______________________________________________________
- What? _____________________________________________________
- Where? ____________________________________________________
- When? _____________________________________________________
- Why? ______________________________________________________
- How? ______________________________________________________
Now that you have completed some of the prewriting exercises, you may feel less anxious about starting a paper from scratch. With some ideas down on paper (or saved on a computer), writers are often more comfortable continuing the writing process. After identifying a good general topic, you, too, are ready to continue the process.
Exercises 3
Write your general topic on your own sheet of paper, under where you recorded your purpose and audience. Choose it from among the topics you listed or explored during the prewriting you have done so far. Make sure it is one you feel comfortable with and feel capable of writing about.
My general topic: ____________________________________________
Tip
You may find that you need to adjust your topic as you move through the writing stages (and as you complete the exercises in this chapter).
If the topic you have chosen is not working, you can repeat the prewriting activities until you find a better one.
More Prewriting Techniques
The prewriting techniques of freewriting and asking questions helped Mariah think more about her topic, but the following prewriting strategies can help her (and you) narrow the focus of the topic:
- Brainstorming
- Idea mapping
- Searching the Internet
Narrowing the Focus
Narrowing the focus means breaking the topic into subtopics or more specific points. Generating many subtopics will help you eventually select the ones that fit the assignment and appeal to you and your audience.
After rereading her syllabus, Mariah realized that her general topic, mass media, was too broad for her class’s short paper requirement. Three pages are insufficient to cover all the concerns in mass media today. Mariah also realized that although her readers are other communications majors who are interested in the topic, they may want to read a paper about a particular issue in mass media.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is similar to list-making. You can make a list alone or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general topic across the top. Underneath your topic, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general topic as a broad category and the list items as things that fit in that category. Often you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper topic.
The following is Mariah’s brainstorming list:
- Mass Media: magazines, newspapers, broadcasting, radio, television, DVD, gaming/video games, internet, cell phones, smartphones, text messages, tiny cameras, GPS
From this list, Mariah could narrow her focus to a particular technology under the broad category of mass media.
Connecting the Pieces: Writing at Work
Imagine you have to write an e-mail to your current boss explaining your prior work experience, but you do not know where to start. Before you begin the e-mail, you can use the brainstorming technique to generate a list of employers, duties, and responsibilities that fall under the general topic “work experience.”
Idea Mapping
Idea mapping allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. This technique is also known as clustering because ideas are broken down and clustered, or grouped together. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused topic from the connections mapped. Using idea mapping, you might discover interesting connections between topics that you had not thought of before.
To create an idea map, start with your general topic in a circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Then write specific ideas around it and use lines or arrows to connect them together. Add and cluster as many ideas as you can think of.
In addition to brainstorming, Mariah tried idea mapping. Review the following idea map that Mariah created:
Figure 3.2 Idea Map
Image Text Description
Notice Mariah’s largest circle contains her general topic, mass media. Then, the general topic branches into two subtopics written in two smaller circles: television and radio. The subtopic television branches into even more specific topics: cable and DVDs. From there, Mariah drew more circles and wrote more specific ideas: high definition and digital recording from cable and Blu-ray from DVDs. The radio topic made Mariah draw connections between music, downloads versus CDs, and, finally, piracy.
From this idea map, Mariah saw she could consider narrowing the focus of her mass media topic to the more specific topic of music piracy.
Searching the Internet
Using search engines on the Internet is a good way to see what kinds of websites are available on your topic. Writers use search engines not only to understand more about the topic’s specific issues but also to get better acquainted with their audience.
Tip
Look back at the chart you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 2". Did you guess at any of the answers?
Searching the Internet may help you find answers to your questions and confirm your guesses. Be choosy about the websites you use. Make sure they are reliable sources for the kind of information you seek.
When you search the Internet, type keywords from your broad topic or words from your narrowed focus into your browser’s search engine (many good general and specialized search engines are available for you to try). Then, look over the results for relevant and interesting articles.
Results from an Internet search show writers the following information:
- Who is talking about the topic
- How the topic is being discussed
- hat specific points are currently being discussed about the topic
Tip
If the search engine results are not what you are looking for, revise your keywords and search again.
Some search engines also offer suggestions for related searches that may give you better results.
Mariah typed the words music piracy from her idea map into the search engine Google.
Figure 3.3 Useful Search Engine Results
Not all the results online search engines return will be useful or reliable. Carefully consider an online source's reliability before selecting a topic based on it. Remember that factual information can be verified in other sources, both online and in print. If you have doubts about any information you find, either do not use it or identify it as potentially unreliable.
The results from Mariah’s search included websites from university publications, personal blogs, online news sources, and lots of legal cases sponsored by the recording industry. Reading legal jargon made Mariah uncomfortable with the results, so she decided to look further. Reviewing her map, she realized that she was more interested in consumer aspects of mass media, so she refocused her search on media technology and the sometimes confusing array of expensive products that fill electronics stores. Now, Mariah considers a paper topic on the products that have fed the mass media boom in everyday lives.
Exercises 4
In 3.1 "Exercise 2" you chose a possible topic and explored it by answering questions about it using the 5WH questions. However, this topic may still be too broad. Here, in "Exercise 4", choose and complete one of the prewriting strategies to narrow the focus. Use either brainstorming, idea mapping, or searching the Internet.
Collaboration
Please share with a classmate and compare your answers. Share what you found and what interests you about the possible topic(s).
Prewriting strategies are a vital first step in the writing process. First, they help you choose a broad topic, and then they help you narrow the focus of the topic to a more specific idea. An effective topic ensures that you are ready for the next step.
Topic Checklist
Developing a Good Topic
The following checklist can help you decide if your narrowed topic is good for your assignment.
- Am I interested in this topic?
- Would my audience be interested?
- Do I have prior knowledge or experience with this topic? If so, would I be comfortable exploring this topic and sharing my experiences?
- Do I want to learn more about this topic?
- Is this topic specific?
- Does it fit the length of the assignment?
Key Takeaways
Often, your instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading:
- All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin the writing process.
- The steps in the writing process are prewriting, outlining, writing a rough draft, revising, and editing.
- Prewriting is the transfer of ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
- A good topic interests the writer, appeals to the audience, and fits the purpose of the assignment.
- Writers often choose a general topic first and then narrow the focus to a more specific topic.
Learning Objectives
- Use prewriting strategies to choose a topic and narrow the focus.
You are not alone if you think a blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on the computer screen is a scary sight. Many writers, students, and employees find that beginning to write can be intimidating. However, experienced writers remind themselves that writing, like other everyday activities, is a process when faced with a blank page. Everything from writing to cooking, bike riding, and learning to use a new cell phone will get significantly easier with practice.
Just as you need a recipe, ingredients, and proper tools to cook a delicious meal, you also need a plan, resources, and adequate time to create a good written composition. In other words, writing is a process that requires following steps and using strategies to accomplish your goals.
These are the five steps in the writing process:
- Prewriting
- Outlining the structure of ideas
- Writing a rough draft
- Revising
- Editing
Effective writing can be described as good ideas that are expressed well and arranged in the proper order. This chapter will allow you to work on all these important aspects of writing. Although many more prewriting strategies exist, this chapter covers six: using experience and observations, freewriting, asking questions, brainstorming, mapping, and searching the Internet. Using the strategies in this chapter can help you overcome the fear of the blank page and confidently begin the writing process.
Prewriting
Prewriting is the stage of the writing process during which you transfer your abstract thoughts into more concrete ideas in ink on paper (or in type on a computer screen). Although prewriting techniques can be helpful in all stages of the writing process, the following four strategies are best used when initially deciding on a topic:
- Using experience and observations
- Reading
- Freewriting
- Asking questions
At this stage in the writing process, choosing a general topic is OK. Later, you will learn more prewriting strategies that will narrow the focus of the topic.
Choosing a Topic
In addition to understanding that writing is a process, writers also understand that choosing a good general topic for an assignment is an essential step. Sometimes, your instructor will give you an idea to begin an assignment, and other times, your instructor will ask you to come up with a topic on your own. A good topic not only covers what an assignment will be about but also fits its purpose and audience.
In this chapter, you will follow a writer named Mariah as she prepares a piece of writing. You will also be planning one of your own. The first important step is to tell yourself why you are writing (to inform, to explain, or for some other purpose) and for whom you are writing. Write your purpose and audience on your own sheet of paper, and keep the paper close by as you read and complete exercises in this chapter.
My purpose: ____________________________________________
My audience: ___________________________________________
Using Experience and Observations
When selecting a topic, you may also want to consider something that interests you or something based on your own life and personal experiences. Even everyday observations can lead to interesting topics. After writers think about their experiences and observations, they often take notes on paper to better develop their thoughts. These notes help writers discover what they have to say about their topic.
Tip
Have you seen an attention-grabbing story on your local news channel?
Many current issues appear on television, in magazines, and on the Internet. These can all provide inspiration for your writing.
Reading
Reading plays a vital role in all the stages of the writing process, but it first figures in the development of ideas and topics. Different kinds of documents can help you choose a topic and also develop that topic. For example, a magazine advertising the latest research on the threat of global warming may catch your eye in the supermarket. This cover may interest you, and you may consider global warming as a topic. Or maybe a novel’s courtroom drama sparks your curiosity of a particular lawsuit or legal controversy.
After you choose a topic, critical reading is essential to the development of a topic. While reading almost any document, you evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about his main idea and his support. When you judge the author’s argument, you discover more about not only the author’s opinion but also your own. If this step already seems daunting, remember that even the best writers need to use prewriting strategies to generate ideas.
Tip
The steps in the writing process may seem time-consuming at first, but following these steps will save you time in the future.
The more you plan in the beginning by reading and using prewriting strategies, the less time you may spend writing and editing later because your ideas will develop more swiftly.
Prewriting strategies depend on your critical reading skills. Reading prewriting exercises (and outlines and drafts later in the writing process) will further develop your topic and ideas. As you continue to follow the writing process, you will see how Mariah uses critical reading skills to assess her own prewriting exercises.
Freewriting
Freewriting is an exercise in which you write freely about any topic for a set amount of time (usually three to five minutes). During the time limit, you may jot down any thoughts that come to your mind. Try not to worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Instead, write as quickly as you can without stopping. If you get stuck, copy the same word or phrase repeatedly until you develop a new thought.
Writing often comes easier when you have a personal connection with your chosen topic. Remember, to generate ideas in your freewriting; you may also think about readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking. Doing this may lead your thoughts in interesting directions.
Quickly recording your thoughts on paper will help you discover what you have to say about a topic. When writing quickly, try not to doubt or question your ideas. Allow yourself to write freely and unselfconsciously. Once you start writing with few limitations, you may find you have more to say than you first realized. Your flow of thoughts can lead you to discover even more ideas about the topic. Freewriting may even lead you to discover another topic that excites you even more.
Look at Mariah’s example. The instructor allowed the class members to choose their own topics, and Mariah thought about her experiences as a communications major. She used this freewriting exercise to help her generate more concrete ideas from her experience.
Tip
Some prewriting strategies can be used together. For example, you could use experience and observations to develop a topic related to your course studies. Then, you could use freewriting to describe your topic in more detail and figure out what you have to say about it.
Exercise 1
Freewrite about one event you have recently experienced. With this event in mind, write without stopping for five minutes. After you finish, read over what you wrote. Does anything stand out to you as a good general topic to write about?
Asking Questions
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? You pose these kinds of questions in everyday situations to get more information. Who will be my partner for the project? When is the next meeting? Why is my car making that odd noise? Even the title of this chapter begins with the question, “How do I begin?”
You seek the answers to these questions to gain knowledge, to better understand your daily experiences, and to plan for the future. Asking these types of questions will also help you with the writing process. As you choose your topic, answering these questions can help you revisit your ideas and generate new ways to think about your topic. You may also discover aspects of the topic that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to learn more about. All these idea-gathering techniques will help you plan for future work on your assignment.
When Mariah reread her freewriting notes, she found she had rambled and disjointed her thoughts. She realized that the topic that interested her most was the one she started with the media. She then decided to explore that topic by asking herself questions about it. She aimed to refine media into a topic she felt comfortable writing about. To see how asking questions can help you choose a topic, take a look at the following chart that Mariah completed to record her questions and answers. She asked herself the questions that reporters and journalists use to gather information for their stories. The questions are often called the 5WH questions after their initial letters.
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Who? | I use media. Students, teachers, parents, employers, and employees use media. |
| What? | The media can be a lot of things. Television, radio, e-mail (I think), newspapers, magazines, books. |
| Where? | The media is almost everywhere now. It's in homes, at work, in cars, even on cell phones! |
| When? | Hmm. This is a good question. I don't know why there is mass media. Maybe we have it because we have the technology now. People who live far away from their families have to stay in touch. |
| How? | Media is possible because of technology inventions, but I don't know how they all work! |
Tip
Prewriting is very purpose-driven; it does not follow a set of hard-and-fast rules. The purpose of prewriting is to find and explore ideas so that you will be prepared to write. A prewriting technique like asking questions can help you find and explore a topic. The key to effective prewriting is using the best techniques for your thinking process. Freewriting may not seem to fit your thinking process but keep an open mind. It may work better than you think. Perhaps brainstorming a list of topics might better fit your personal style. Mariah found freewriting and asking questions to be fruitful strategies to use. In your own prewriting, use the 5WH questions in any way that benefits your planning.
Exercise 2
Choose a general topic idea from the prewriting you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 1". Then read each question and use your own paper to answer the 5WH questions. As with Mariah, when she explored her writing topic in more detail, it is OK if you do not know all the answers. If you do not know an answer, use your own opinion to speculate or guess. You may also use factual information from books or articles you previously read on your topic. Later in the chapter, you will read about additional ways (like searching the Internet) to answer your questions and explore your guesses.
5WH Questions
- Who? ______________________________________________________
- What? _____________________________________________________
- Where? ____________________________________________________
- When? _____________________________________________________
- Why? ______________________________________________________
- How? ______________________________________________________
Now that you have completed some of the prewriting exercises, you may feel less anxious about starting a paper from scratch. With some ideas down on paper (or saved on a computer), writers are often more comfortable continuing the writing process. After identifying a good general topic, you, too, are ready to continue the process.
Exercises 3
Write your general topic on your own sheet of paper, under where you recorded your purpose and audience. Choose it from among the topics you listed or explored during the prewriting you have done so far. Make sure it is one you feel comfortable with and feel capable of writing about.
My general topic: ____________________________________________
Tip
You may find that you need to adjust your topic as you move through the writing stages (and as you complete the exercises in this chapter).
If the topic you have chosen is not working, you can repeat the prewriting activities until you find a better one.
More Prewriting Techniques
The prewriting techniques of freewriting and asking questions helped Mariah think more about her topic, but the following prewriting strategies can help her (and you) narrow the focus of the topic:
- Brainstorming
- Idea mapping
- Searching the Internet
Narrowing the Focus
Narrowing the focus means breaking the topic into subtopics or more specific points. Generating many subtopics will help you eventually select the ones that fit the assignment and appeal to you and your audience.
After rereading her syllabus, Mariah realized that her general topic, mass media, was too broad for her class’s short paper requirement. Three pages are insufficient to cover all the concerns in mass media today. Mariah also realized that although her readers are other communications majors who are interested in the topic, they may want to read a paper about a particular issue in mass media.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is similar to list-making. You can make a list alone or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general topic across the top. Underneath your topic, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general topic as a broad category and the list items as things that fit in that category. Often you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper topic.
The following is Mariah’s brainstorming list:
- Mass Media: magazines, newspapers, broadcasting, radio, television, DVD, gaming/video games, internet, cell phones, smartphones, text messages, tiny cameras, GPS
From this list, Mariah could narrow her focus to a particular technology under the broad category of mass media.
Connecting the Pieces: Writing at Work
Imagine you have to write an e-mail to your current boss explaining your prior work experience, but you do not know where to start. Before you begin the e-mail, you can use the brainstorming technique to generate a list of employers, duties, and responsibilities that fall under the general topic “work experience.”
Idea Mapping
Idea mapping allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. This technique is also known as clustering because ideas are broken down and clustered, or grouped together. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused topic from the connections mapped. Using idea mapping, you might discover interesting connections between topics that you had not thought of before.
To create an idea map, start with your general topic in a circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Then write specific ideas around it and use lines or arrows to connect them together. Add and cluster as many ideas as you can think of.
In addition to brainstorming, Mariah tried idea mapping. Review the following idea map that Mariah created:
Figure 3.2 Idea Map
Image Text Description
Notice Mariah’s largest circle contains her general topic, mass media. Then, the general topic branches into two subtopics written in two smaller circles: television and radio. The subtopic television branches into even more specific topics: cable and DVDs. From there, Mariah drew more circles and wrote more specific ideas: high definition and digital recording from cable and Blu-ray from DVDs. The radio topic made Mariah draw connections between music, downloads versus CDs, and, finally, piracy.
From this idea map, Mariah saw she could consider narrowing the focus of her mass media topic to the more specific topic of music piracy.
Searching the Internet
Using search engines on the Internet is a good way to see what kinds of websites are available on your topic. Writers use search engines not only to understand more about the topic’s specific issues but also to get better acquainted with their audience.
Tip
Look back at the chart you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 2". Did you guess at any of the answers?
Searching the Internet may help you find answers to your questions and confirm your guesses. Be choosy about the websites you use. Make sure they are reliable sources for the kind of information you seek.
When you search the Internet, type keywords from your broad topic or words from your narrowed focus into your browser’s search engine (many good general and specialized search engines are available for you to try). Then, look over the results for relevant and interesting articles.
Results from an Internet search show writers the following information:
- Who is talking about the topic
- How the topic is being discussed
- hat specific points are currently being discussed about the topic
Tip
If the search engine results are not what you are looking for, revise your keywords and search again.
Some search engines also offer suggestions for related searches that may give you better results.
Mariah typed the words music piracy from her idea map into the search engine Google.
Figure 3.3 Useful Search Engine Results
Not all the results online search engines return will be useful or reliable. Carefully consider an online source's reliability before selecting a topic based on it. Remember that factual information can be verified in other sources, both online and in print. If you have doubts about any information you find, either do not use it or identify it as potentially unreliable.
The results from Mariah’s search included websites from university publications, personal blogs, online news sources, and lots of legal cases sponsored by the recording industry. Reading legal jargon made Mariah uncomfortable with the results, so she decided to look further. Reviewing her map, she realized that she was more interested in consumer aspects of mass media, so she refocused her search on media technology and the sometimes confusing array of expensive products that fill electronics stores. Now, Mariah considers a paper topic on the products that have fed the mass media boom in everyday lives.
Exercises 4
In 3.1 "Exercise 2" you chose a possible topic and explored it by answering questions about it using the 5WH questions. However, this topic may still be too broad. Here, in "Exercise 4", choose and complete one of the prewriting strategies to narrow the focus. Use either brainstorming, idea mapping, or searching the Internet.
Collaboration
Please share with a classmate and compare your answers. Share what you found and what interests you about the possible topic(s).
Prewriting strategies are a vital first step in the writing process. First, they help you choose a broad topic, and then they help you narrow the focus of the topic to a more specific idea. An effective topic ensures that you are ready for the next step.
Topic Checklist
Developing a Good Topic
The following checklist can help you decide if your narrowed topic is good for your assignment.
- Am I interested in this topic?
- Would my audience be interested?
- Do I have prior knowledge or experience with this topic? If so, would I be comfortable exploring this topic and sharing my experiences?
- Do I want to learn more about this topic?
- Is this topic specific?
- Does it fit the length of the assignment?
Key Takeaways
Often, your instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading:
- All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin the writing process.
- The steps in the writing process are prewriting, outlining, writing a rough draft, revising, and editing.
- Prewriting is the transfer of ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
- A good topic interests the writer, appeals to the audience, and fits the purpose of the assignment.
- Writers often choose a general topic first and then narrow the focus to a more specific topic.
Learning Objectives
- Use prewriting strategies to choose a topic and narrow the focus.
You are not alone if you think a blank sheet of paper or a blinking cursor on the computer screen is a scary sight. Many writers, students, and employees find that beginning to write can be intimidating. However, experienced writers remind themselves that writing, like other everyday activities, is a process when faced with a blank page. Everything from writing to cooking, bike riding, and learning to use a new cell phone will get significantly easier with practice.
Just as you need a recipe, ingredients, and proper tools to cook a delicious meal, you also need a plan, resources, and adequate time to create a good written composition. In other words, writing is a process that requires following steps and using strategies to accomplish your goals.
These are the five steps in the writing process:
- Prewriting
- Outlining the structure of ideas
- Writing a rough draft
- Revising
- Editing
Effective writing can be described as good ideas that are expressed well and arranged in the proper order. This chapter will allow you to work on all these important aspects of writing. Although many more prewriting strategies exist, this chapter covers six: using experience and observations, freewriting, asking questions, brainstorming, mapping, and searching the Internet. Using the strategies in this chapter can help you overcome the fear of the blank page and confidently begin the writing process.
Prewriting
Prewriting is the stage of the writing process during which you transfer your abstract thoughts into more concrete ideas in ink on paper (or in type on a computer screen). Although prewriting techniques can be helpful in all stages of the writing process, the following four strategies are best used when initially deciding on a topic:
- Using experience and observations
- Reading
- Freewriting
- Asking questions
At this stage in the writing process, choosing a general topic is OK. Later, you will learn more prewriting strategies that will narrow the focus of the topic.
Choosing a Topic
In addition to understanding that writing is a process, writers also understand that choosing a good general topic for an assignment is an essential step. Sometimes, your instructor will give you an idea to begin an assignment, and other times, your instructor will ask you to come up with a topic on your own. A good topic not only covers what an assignment will be about but also fits its purpose and audience.
In this chapter, you will follow a writer named Mariah as she prepares a piece of writing. You will also be planning one of your own. The first important step is to tell yourself why you are writing (to inform, to explain, or for some other purpose) and for whom you are writing. Write your purpose and audience on your own sheet of paper, and keep the paper close by as you read and complete exercises in this chapter.
My purpose: ____________________________________________
My audience: ___________________________________________
Using Experience and Observations
When selecting a topic, you may also want to consider something that interests you or something based on your own life and personal experiences. Even everyday observations can lead to interesting topics. After writers think about their experiences and observations, they often take notes on paper to better develop their thoughts. These notes help writers discover what they have to say about their topic.
Tip
Have you seen an attention-grabbing story on your local news channel?
Many current issues appear on television, in magazines, and on the Internet. These can all provide inspiration for your writing.
Reading
Reading plays a vital role in all the stages of the writing process, but it first figures in the development of ideas and topics. Different kinds of documents can help you choose a topic and also develop that topic. For example, a magazine advertising the latest research on the threat of global warming may catch your eye in the supermarket. This cover may interest you, and you may consider global warming as a topic. Or maybe a novel’s courtroom drama sparks your curiosity of a particular lawsuit or legal controversy.
After you choose a topic, critical reading is essential to the development of a topic. While reading almost any document, you evaluate the author’s point of view by thinking about his main idea and his support. When you judge the author’s argument, you discover more about not only the author’s opinion but also your own. If this step already seems daunting, remember that even the best writers need to use prewriting strategies to generate ideas.
Tip
The steps in the writing process may seem time-consuming at first, but following these steps will save you time in the future.
The more you plan in the beginning by reading and using prewriting strategies, the less time you may spend writing and editing later because your ideas will develop more swiftly.
Prewriting strategies depend on your critical reading skills. Reading prewriting exercises (and outlines and drafts later in the writing process) will further develop your topic and ideas. As you continue to follow the writing process, you will see how Mariah uses critical reading skills to assess her own prewriting exercises.
Freewriting
Freewriting is an exercise in which you write freely about any topic for a set amount of time (usually three to five minutes). During the time limit, you may jot down any thoughts that come to your mind. Try not to worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Instead, write as quickly as you can without stopping. If you get stuck, copy the same word or phrase repeatedly until you develop a new thought.
Writing often comes easier when you have a personal connection with your chosen topic. Remember, to generate ideas in your freewriting; you may also think about readings that you have enjoyed or that have challenged your thinking. Doing this may lead your thoughts in interesting directions.
Quickly recording your thoughts on paper will help you discover what you have to say about a topic. When writing quickly, try not to doubt or question your ideas. Allow yourself to write freely and unselfconsciously. Once you start writing with few limitations, you may find you have more to say than you first realized. Your flow of thoughts can lead you to discover even more ideas about the topic. Freewriting may even lead you to discover another topic that excites you even more.
Look at Mariah’s example. The instructor allowed the class members to choose their own topics, and Mariah thought about her experiences as a communications major. She used this freewriting exercise to help her generate more concrete ideas from her experience.
Tip
Some prewriting strategies can be used together. For example, you could use experience and observations to develop a topic related to your course studies. Then, you could use freewriting to describe your topic in more detail and figure out what you have to say about it.
Exercise 1
Freewrite about one event you have recently experienced. With this event in mind, write without stopping for five minutes. After you finish, read over what you wrote. Does anything stand out to you as a good general topic to write about?
Asking Questions
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? You pose these kinds of questions in everyday situations to get more information. Who will be my partner for the project? When is the next meeting? Why is my car making that odd noise? Even the title of this chapter begins with the question, “How do I begin?”
You seek the answers to these questions to gain knowledge, to better understand your daily experiences, and to plan for the future. Asking these types of questions will also help you with the writing process. As you choose your topic, answering these questions can help you revisit your ideas and generate new ways to think about your topic. You may also discover aspects of the topic that are unfamiliar to you and that you would like to learn more about. All these idea-gathering techniques will help you plan for future work on your assignment.
When Mariah reread her freewriting notes, she found she had rambled and disjointed her thoughts. She realized that the topic that interested her most was the one she started with the media. She then decided to explore that topic by asking herself questions about it. She aimed to refine media into a topic she felt comfortable writing about. To see how asking questions can help you choose a topic, take a look at the following chart that Mariah completed to record her questions and answers. She asked herself the questions that reporters and journalists use to gather information for their stories. The questions are often called the 5WH questions after their initial letters.
| Questions | Answers |
|---|---|
| Who? | I use media. Students, teachers, parents, employers, and employees use media. |
| What? | The media can be a lot of things. Television, radio, e-mail (I think), newspapers, magazines, books. |
| Where? | The media is almost everywhere now. It's in homes, at work, in cars, even on cell phones! |
| When? | Hmm. This is a good question. I don't know why there is mass media. Maybe we have it because we have the technology now. People who live far away from their families have to stay in touch. |
| How? | Media is possible because of technology inventions, but I don't know how they all work! |
Tip
Prewriting is very purpose-driven; it does not follow a set of hard-and-fast rules. The purpose of prewriting is to find and explore ideas so that you will be prepared to write. A prewriting technique like asking questions can help you find and explore a topic. The key to effective prewriting is using the best techniques for your thinking process. Freewriting may not seem to fit your thinking process but keep an open mind. It may work better than you think. Perhaps brainstorming a list of topics might better fit your personal style. Mariah found freewriting and asking questions to be fruitful strategies to use. In your own prewriting, use the 5WH questions in any way that benefits your planning.
Exercise 2
Choose a general topic idea from the prewriting you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 1". Then read each question and use your own paper to answer the 5WH questions. As with Mariah, when she explored her writing topic in more detail, it is OK if you do not know all the answers. If you do not know an answer, use your own opinion to speculate or guess. You may also use factual information from books or articles you previously read on your topic. Later in the chapter, you will read about additional ways (like searching the Internet) to answer your questions and explore your guesses.
5WH Questions
- Who? ______________________________________________________
- What? _____________________________________________________
- Where? ____________________________________________________
- When? _____________________________________________________
- Why? ______________________________________________________
- How? ______________________________________________________
Now that you have completed some of the prewriting exercises, you may feel less anxious about starting a paper from scratch. With some ideas down on paper (or saved on a computer), writers are often more comfortable continuing the writing process. After identifying a good general topic, you, too, are ready to continue the process.
Exercises 3
Write your general topic on your own sheet of paper, under where you recorded your purpose and audience. Choose it from among the topics you listed or explored during the prewriting you have done so far. Make sure it is one you feel comfortable with and feel capable of writing about.
My general topic: ____________________________________________
Tip
You may find that you need to adjust your topic as you move through the writing stages (and as you complete the exercises in this chapter).
If the topic you have chosen is not working, you can repeat the prewriting activities until you find a better one.
More Prewriting Techniques
The prewriting techniques of freewriting and asking questions helped Mariah think more about her topic, but the following prewriting strategies can help her (and you) narrow the focus of the topic:
- Brainstorming
- Idea mapping
- Searching the Internet
Narrowing the Focus
Narrowing the focus means breaking the topic into subtopics or more specific points. Generating many subtopics will help you eventually select the ones that fit the assignment and appeal to you and your audience.
After rereading her syllabus, Mariah realized that her general topic, mass media, was too broad for her class’s short paper requirement. Three pages are insufficient to cover all the concerns in mass media today. Mariah also realized that although her readers are other communications majors who are interested in the topic, they may want to read a paper about a particular issue in mass media.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is similar to list-making. You can make a list alone or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general topic across the top. Underneath your topic, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general topic as a broad category and the list items as things that fit in that category. Often you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper topic.
The following is Mariah’s brainstorming list:
- Mass Media: magazines, newspapers, broadcasting, radio, television, DVD, gaming/video games, internet, cell phones, smartphones, text messages, tiny cameras, GPS
From this list, Mariah could narrow her focus to a particular technology under the broad category of mass media.
Connecting the Pieces: Writing at Work
Imagine you have to write an e-mail to your current boss explaining your prior work experience, but you do not know where to start. Before you begin the e-mail, you can use the brainstorming technique to generate a list of employers, duties, and responsibilities that fall under the general topic “work experience.”
Idea Mapping
Idea mapping allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. This technique is also known as clustering because ideas are broken down and clustered, or grouped together. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused topic from the connections mapped. Using idea mapping, you might discover interesting connections between topics that you had not thought of before.
To create an idea map, start with your general topic in a circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Then write specific ideas around it and use lines or arrows to connect them together. Add and cluster as many ideas as you can think of.
In addition to brainstorming, Mariah tried idea mapping. Review the following idea map that Mariah created:
Figure 3.2 Idea Map
Notice Mariah’s largest circle contains her general topic, mass media. Then, the general topic branches into two subtopics written in two smaller circles: television and radio. The subtopic television branches into even more specific topics: cable and DVDs. From there, Mariah drew more circles and wrote more specific ideas: high definition and digital recording from cable and Blu-ray from DVDs. The radio topic made Mariah draw connections between music, downloads versus CDs, and, finally, piracy.
From this idea map, Mariah saw she could consider narrowing the focus of her mass media topic to the more specific topic of music piracy.
Searching the Internet
Using search engines on the Internet is a good way to see what kinds of websites are available on your topic. Writers use search engines not only to understand more about the topic’s specific issues but also to get better acquainted with their audience.
Tip
Look back at the chart you completed in 3.1 "Exercise 2". Did you guess at any of the answers?
Searching the Internet may help you find answers to your questions and confirm your guesses. Be choosy about the websites you use. Make sure they are reliable sources for the kind of information you seek.
When you search the Internet, type keywords from your broad topic or words from your narrowed focus into your browser’s search engine (many good general and specialized search engines are available for you to try). Then, look over the results for relevant and interesting articles.
Results from an Internet search show writers the following information:
- Who is talking about the topic
- How the topic is being discussed
- hat specific points are currently being discussed about the topic
Tip
If the search engine results are not what you are looking for, revise your keywords and search again.
Some search engines also offer suggestions for related searches that may give you better results.
Mariah typed the words music piracy from her idea map into the search engine Google.
Figure 3.3 Useful Search Engine Results
Not all the results online search engines return will be useful or reliable. Carefully consider an online source's reliability before selecting a topic based on it. Remember that factual information can be verified in other sources, both online and in print. If you have doubts about any information you find, either do not use it or identify it as potentially unreliable.
The results from Mariah’s search included websites from university publications, personal blogs, online news sources, and lots of legal cases sponsored by the recording industry. Reading legal jargon made Mariah uncomfortable with the results, so she decided to look further. Reviewing her map, she realized that she was more interested in consumer aspects of mass media, so she refocused her search on media technology and the sometimes confusing array of expensive products that fill electronics stores. Now, Mariah considers a paper topic on the products that have fed the mass media boom in everyday lives.
Exercises 4
In 3.1 "Exercise 2" you chose a possible topic and explored it by answering questions about it using the 5WH questions. However, this topic may still be too broad. Here, in "Exercise 4", choose and complete one of the prewriting strategies to narrow the focus. Use either brainstorming, idea mapping, or searching the Internet.
Collaboration
Please share with a classmate and compare your answers. Share what you found and what interests you about the possible topic(s).
Prewriting strategies are a vital first step in the writing process. First, they help you choose a broad topic, and then they help you narrow the focus of the topic to a more specific idea. An effective topic ensures that you are ready for the next step.
Topic Checklist
Developing a Good Topic
The following checklist can help you decide if your narrowed topic is good for your assignment.
- Am I interested in this topic?
- Would my audience be interested?
- Do I have prior knowledge or experience with this topic? If so, would I be comfortable exploring this topic and sharing my experiences?
- Do I want to learn more about this topic?
- Is this topic specific?
- Does it fit the length of the assignment?
Key Takeaways
Often, your instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading:
- All writers rely on steps and strategies to begin the writing process.
- The steps in the writing process are prewriting, outlining, writing a rough draft, revising, and editing.
- Prewriting is the transfer of ideas from abstract thoughts into words, phrases, and sentences on paper.
- A good topic interests the writer, appeals to the audience, and fits the purpose of the assignment.
- Writers often choose a general topic first and then narrow the focus to a more specific topic.
