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PREWRITING TRANSCRIPT
Note: Do not copy or reproduce without written permission.
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Welcome back to ENC 1102. I’m Dr. Michael Baker, and today we will be talking about Prewriting.
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Today’s lecture will have two parts: first, we will discuss, briefly, the writing process, and then we will
talk about prewriting itself – the reasons we do it, and how we can do it more effectively.
Much of the information in this video is discussed in more detail in Chapter 19 (which starts on page
1243 in the textbook). Before you start to write a rough draft, you might want to review that chapter for
other tips or for more details on specific topics discussed in this video.
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The writing process has three main stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. The first stage, prewriting,
includes everything you do before you sit down to write your first draft. Here, you are thinking about
your assignment and coming up with ideas and possible topics.
The second stage is the writing stage. This is when you will sit down and write your first draft. We will
cover several different topics related to the writing stage in future videos.
The third stage, rewriting, is when you polish your paper and make it the best it can be. We will cover a
couple different topics in future videos, but for now be aware that rewriting is not simply fixing a few
grammatical mistakes – it requires some pretty serious overhaul.
There is one other thing about the writing stage that is important to note: these stages are roughly
consecutive, but there might be some overlap. During the writing or rewriting stages, you might realize
that you need to add some material you had not thought about before. This could require you to do a
little more prewriting before actually writing that section. So, you might imagine the writing process in
this way…
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…as a sort of Venn diagram. An old ENC 1101 textbook we used to use pictured the writing process in
this format, and I think it’s a good way to visualize things. As you can see, each stage is separate – but
each stage also overlaps with the others. Keep in mind that writing is not always a smooth, sequential,
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step-by-step process. Sometimes we have to shift backward (or forward) into another stage so that we
can move ahead in our overall project.
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So what is the purpose of the prewriting stage, anyway? Why not just sit down and start writing your
paper? Well, if you do that, you will likely end up with a pretty disorganized – and probably bad – paper.
Prewriting actually helps us accomplish several different things.
First, prewriting helps you generate ideas for your paper. In a few minutes we will talk about several
techniques you can use to come up with ideas, but we’ve already talked about one way: looking for
repetitions, strands, and binaries. Often, when we search for those things in a text – or, perhaps in a
small section of a text – we will find things that surprise us, things that we otherwise wouldn’t have even
noticed. Those discoveries can lead to some interesting papers, because they are the types of things that
most people will miss on a first read. And, remember, the field of literary studies likes originality. If
something is too obvious, why write a paper about it? Those hard-to-notice things, however, make great
paper topics.
Second, prewriting is where you do your preliminary research – you explore a general subject or a
particular topic. We will talk more about research in a separate video, but realize that it is an important
component of prewriting.
Third, prewriting helps you develop your thesis – that is, the “debatable claim” that you are going to
make and support in your paper. You might start the prewriting stage with an idea for a thesis in mind,
but you should be willing to change it if your research suggests that your original idea is not “valid” (that
is, that there is not enough evidence to support it). It is better to change directions than it is to stick
stubbornly to a bad topic. This is one reason why you should start your papers early – so you have time
to shift to a different topic, if needed.
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Okay, the writing process isn’t exactly a step-by-step process, but there are some fairly common – and
sequential – steps you can take when you start writing a paper.
The first – and by far the most important – is to read the assignment. If you don’t understand what the
instructor is asking you to do, you can write an amazing paper that has nothing to do with the
assignment. Such a paper will typically receive a failing grade. It’s like when I first started playing tennis.
In the beginning, I seemed to confuse tennis with baseball, because I hit some fantastic “home runs”
way out of the park! …Unfortunately, in tennis you want to keep the ball in bounds and on the court. So,
make sure you understand the “rules” of that particular assignment before you start writing.
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I’ll cover the next two steps together, because you can do them in either order. At this point (for this
class, at least), you will want is choose which text you will write on and identify what topic you will write
about. There are two ways to do these things:
1. If you know what story (or, later, which play or poem) you want to write on, you can start
thinking about possible topics. I suggest you think of at least three to four different topics. That
way, you can choose the one that seems best. The “best” topic will have a few key qualities. It
will be: “original”; have evidence to support it; and, interesting to you.
2. If you don’t know which story you want to write on, narrow your options down to two or three
texts, and then think of several possible topics for each story. At this point, choose the
story/topic that seems best.
Do note that you should do some research while you’re thinking about these topics. Sometimes,
research can lead you to some great paper topics. Again, refer to the “Research” video on how to do
that (this video will be assigned in the next week or so). But, also notice that I have put “Preliminary
research” at the bottom of this list, and in parentheses. That’s because you might want to do research at
various points in the prewriting stage. First, it can help you settle on a text and a topic; second, as we’ll
see in a moment, you should do some more research once you’ve formulated your thesis.
Anyway, now that you have selected a text, chosen a topic, and have done some preliminary research,
you should start articulating your “thesis” (and, yes, there will be a future video on thesis statements,
too!). At this point, you should do some “targeted” research and look up information related specifically
to your thesis. This post-thesis research includes rereading the story itself, as well as looking for
scholarly books and articles. Again, look for the “Thesis” video in another week or two.
Once you know your argument, and have listed some of your points, start developing an outline. This
outline will be your “roadmap,” and will help keep you on task. Otherwise, you might end up rambling in
a disorganized way. That is not effective writing, so always have a step-by-step plan of the things that
you want to say.
Now, I’ve promised to talk about a few specific techniques that will help you generate ideas, so let’s go
ahead and do that.
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As I mentioned earlier, you already know one technique – looking for repetitions, strands, and binaries. I
find this particular technique works well, but three others are also worth discussing: freewriting,
brainstorming, and clustering.
First, let’s talk about freewriting. There are a few unique things about freewriting. For one thing, when
you freewrite, you set yourself a time limit of about 10-15 minutes. Use a stop watch, alarm clock, or
even an oven timer so that you don’t have to keep looking at the clock yourself. That’s because during
this timeframe, your goal is to write non-stop – don’t worry about grammar, word choices, staying on a
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particular topic, or anything. Just write whatever comes to mind, and if nothing comes to mind keep
writing anyway. You can write something repetitive, like, “Thinking thinking thinking” or you might just
start repeating your last sentence. Usually after a few seconds your mind will kick back into gear, and
you’ll start writing new thoughts again. The key is to keep writing throughout the entire time limit.
And, as I said, don’t worry about grammar or anything. No one is going to grade – or even read – your
freewriting. This is just to help you get some thoughts on paper, so don’t “censor” yourself. Even if
something sounds stupid as you’re writing it, keep writing!
Now, technically, while freewriting you are supposed to write anything that comes to mind, but I
recommend a specific form of freewriting that some people call “focused freewriting.” This is when you
freewrite on a particular topic. Try sitting down and saying, “I’m going to freewrite for 15 minutes on
Kate Chopin’s ‘The Story of an Hour.’” Yes, as you write your thoughts might drift away from the story,
but try to return to that topic at hand whenever you drift away for too long.
On the next slide, I have a short example of freewriting on Chopin’s story…
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“It’s pretty obvious that Mrs. Mallard (Louise) longs for freedom. She’s actually pretty happy when her
husband dies, although that seems weird to me. It would suck to live back then. Anyways, it seems
weird that the sense of freedom at first sounds like its going to be a bad thing – it’s like she knew
something was coming, but she was afraid of it. But I guess a lot of people are afraid of new freedoms,
like it can be scary getting behind the wheel of car for the first time, or moving off to college. Thinking,
thinking, thinking so maybe Chopin is making a statements about how women at the time both wanted
freedom but were afraid of it, too.”
As you can see, I started off with a specific topic: freedom in “The Story of an Hour.” But, pretty quickly I
start drifting in and out of the concept of freedom. I have some random thoughts, such as “It would suck
to live back then,” as well as some personal reactions to events in the story, such as when I say,
“although that seems weird to me.” I also use some slang words like “anyways,” and have a couple typos
(such as “a statements,” which uses the singular “a” with the plural “statements”). Oh, and did you
notice that at one point I didn’t know what else to write? So, I typed “Thinking, thinking, thinking…”
Now, please note that this does not represent 15 minutes of writing. I just wanted to give you an
example of what freewriting might look like. But, while a lot of this is pretty much “junk” if I tried to
submit it as a paper – it’s too disorganized, has typos, and so on – there are some pretty interesting
ideas that come up: “so maybe Chopin is making a statement about how women at the time both
wanted freedom but were afraid of it, too.”
I’m not sure yet what I would do with that statement, but it’s an interesting observation. It might lead to
a paper topic.
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Brainstorming is probably the prewriting technique that I use the most. When I brainstorm about a
topic, I often just make a list of things that are related to my topic. Sometimes the list can be pretty
random, particularly if I only know what story I want to write about, but I have settled on a topic yet. In
these cases, I write down random ideas and observations about the story. In other cases, I might have a
specific topic in mind already, and I am thinking of things that could support my argument.
As with freewriting, however, you shouldn’t “edit” yourself when brainstorming. No idea is too dumb
(don’t worry; you will recognize and eliminate the dumb ideas later). Here is an example of some
brainstorming I did on Chopin’s story:
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“Heart” in first and last sentences
“Open” used 9x
She wants to be free (“free, free, free!”)
Patches of blue sky emerging thru clouds
Mallard = type of duck (point??)
“goddess of Victory”
“new spring life”
It’s okay to write down obvious things from the text, like cool quotations or images – you might use
some of them as evidence later. But, you can also write down reactions, thoughts, observations,
connections, or whatever comes to your mind. You should also refer to your notes on the story, whether
they are on a separate piece of paper or in the margins of your book. Here, I noticed phrases that I had
underlined in my book, like “goddess of Victory.” That’s a striking image, and it might be important to
something I might want to write about.
But let’s look at something else that I wrote down: “Mallard = type of duck.” I’m not sure if this
observation matters, but it might. It’s possible that Chopin used this name as a reference to that type of
duck. Why would she? I don’t know. Maybe mallard ducks are particularly migratory, or maybe they are
a type of bird that doesn’t mate for life, or maybe female mallards are bigger than the males and boss
the males around. I don’t know. But, it might be worth researching mallards to see if there is a reason
that Chopin chose this name. If I see a possible reason, that could become a paragraph in my paper.
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Clustering is another commonly used prewriting technique. Basically, in clustering, you start with an idea
– such as “freedom” in “The Story of an Hour.” You write that word in the middle of a page, and draw a
small circle around it. Then, you write down related ideas, and draw lines that connect ideas that are
closely associated with each other.
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For example, if I write “freedom” in the center of the page, I might notice that the concept of freedom
comes out in the story’s language – through its use of words like “free” and “open.” I might then suggest
that the concept of freedom is apparent in the story’s images, too – such as the emerging patches of
blue sky, and the “new spring” comparison. On a different note, I might think about Louise herself. After
all, she is the one who (briefly) gains freedom in the story. She seems repressed; she doesn’t seem to be
in love with her husband; there is mention of heart trouble, which might be related to the fact that she
isn’t in love with her husband. This cluster is less obviously about “freedom,” but remember that I’m just
coming up with ideas at this point.
Anyway, it is important to note that you can use any or all of these prewriting techniques at various
points of the writing process. You can do them to help you think of ideas. Or, once you have a paper
topic, you can use brainstorming or clustering to help you organize your ideas – either technique can
help you develop a good outline of your paper. But feel free to return to these techniques later in the
writing process, as well. When you reach the rewriting stage, for instance, you might realize that your
paper is not as organized as it should be. Again, brainstorming or clustering can help you see better
ways to organize your points or your evidence.
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Wait, what? You mean there’s going to be a quiz on this stuff? Remember – pay attention, and keep
good notes!
So, what are the three stages of the writing process? [SHORT PAUSE]
And, what are some of the unique attributes of freewriting? [SHORT PAUSE] For one thing, it’s timed.
How else might you describe it?
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Okay, in review, today we learned that there are three stages of the writing process: prewriting, writing,
and rewriting. But, those stages are not mutually exclusive of each other, and you can use the prewriting
techniques we discussed today in the later stages as well.
We then talked about prewriting: the various reasons we do it (for example: it helps us generate ideas,
and explore a topic); the general steps we need to take (remember: the first thing you should always do
is to read the instructions carefully!); and, the various methods you can use (for example, brainstorming,
or looking for repetitions/strands/binaries).
Whatever you do, don’t skip the prewriting stage. With a little groundwork, your papers will be much
stronger.
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The main sources for this lecture were our Norton textbook, and the Writing Analytically and Nexus
textbooks.