Prewriting Strategies From the Very Beginning

Many students believe that the writing process begins when they sit in front of their computer and start typing. Although getting those first few words onto the page is an important step in the writing process, there are some things you can do before you type to make the process easier. In fact, the act of writing begins when you start reading your assigned articles.

One of the easiest ways to streamline your writing is to be a good reader. But what makes someone a good reader?

A good reader makes smart use of their time by actively reading the text. Most of us have probably had the experience of reading an article or a chapter in a textbook late at night and having no recollection of what we actually read the next day! This often means that we were passively reading; our eyes might have been moving across the page, but we weren’t really taking in the information in a meaningful way.

One way to make sure you are being an active reader taking in necessary information is through note-taking. Effective note-taking could mean paraphrasing ideas from various articles, highlighting key passages, or keeping track of key terms that authors use across articles. The most important thing about note-taking is to write down information that you think is important and to be sure to include where the information came from. No matter how informal your notes are, you should always include a citation at the end, just to be safe. There is nothing worse than having the perfect piece of information to support your thesis – and realizing that you forgot to write down which article it came from!

You don’t need to keep highly detailed, encyclopedic notes on every article you read, but it helps to jot down a few key ideas to help refresh your memory when you are ready to write that big course paper. For instance, what was the main argument? What methodology did the researchers use? What conclusions did they come to? What were some of the main themes? Keeping track of this material will help your brain actively take in the information, rather than defaulting to scanning the pages passively and not truly taking in the information.

If you are reading multiple articles for one paper, you can also start synthesizing the main  ideas by as you read by thinking about how these articles relate to one another. Do the authors of Article A agree with the Authors of Article B? Do they take different approaches? Was something less effective in one article? These notes may feel random or disjointed at first, but they will help you start to see patterns in your readings and will help you build your thesis before you even sit down to type.

Another important element of being an effective reader and, by extension, an effective writer, is to stay organized. Your notes won’t be of any use to you if you can’t remember where you put them! Thus, once you get into the habit of taking notes as you are reading, try to keep your notes in a single notebook or in a separate Word document to keep the most important information readily available. Keeping these notes all in one place you don’t waste precious time hunting through multiple notebooks or multiple documents in your computer.

By making sure you are being smart about how you read and how you keep track of what you read, you will make the writing process just that much easier for yourself! As daunting as academic writing can seem at times, you can make the process smoother and saving yourself time before you even sit down to write!

The Walden University Writing Center creates content to help students with a range of topics related to scholarly writing, APA style, and the writing process. We host webinars, and offer paper reviews, live chat, and a podcast. You can check out all of our resources by visiting our Walden University Writing Center home page.

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