Pre-Writing Strategies

At CHS, pre-writing is required for most formal ELA writing assignments. Pre-writing is an important step in the writing process because it is where we establish our purpose, identify our audience, and collect and organize our ideas. There are both informal and formal types of pre-writing. Here are a few of the most common types of pre-writing. You should ALWAYS format your pre-writing according to your instructor’s wishes.

INFORMAL PRE-WRITING:

Brainstorming on Paper:

• Since we all think and organize differently, this is probably the most common type of pre-writing.
• For some people, it helps to re-write the task in their own words and then just start brainstorming and jotting down as many points as they can to accomplish/ prove the task at hand. Later, they might narrow down the points which they have come up with that are the strongest and elaborate from there by looking up quotes which might help prove each point.
• There is no specific format when it comes to brainstorming, which is why many people prefer it.
• If you need a little more directions with your informal pre-writing, a cluster is a good option:

FORMAL PRE-WRITING:

The Outline:

• Often teachers will assign a specific style of pre-writing. The outline is probably the most common type of formally assigned pre-writing.
• A formal outline has a specific format that must be followed, which sounds intimidating, but if you complete one successfully, the next step of drafting, is much easier.
• A formal MLA outline is broken down using a series of upper and lower case Roman numerals, letters and regular numbers.
• See the following page for the basic format for an outline according to MLA (Modern Language Association)

The Formal Outline

There are two types of outlines: the topic outline (which uses only short phrases throughout) and the sentence outline (which uses complete sentences throughout). At CHS, we use encourage use of the sentence outline as it is more comprehensive and thorough.

Labeling parts of an outline:

The MLA handbook encourages the following labels for the descending parts of an outline:

I. [roman numerals]

A. [capital letters]

1. [numbers]

a. [lower case letters]

(1) [numbers in parentheses]

(a) [lower case letters in parentheses]

A proper final outline should:

• be typed
• be double spaced
• use proper Roman numerals and proper numbers/ letters throughout
• align everything properly (each part should look uniform)
• include breakdowns which exhibit that each point is thoroughly proven
• start with the thesis statement
• use complete sentences throughout
• see sample below