English Writing[1]: Prewriting

Prewriting Steps:

1. Considering your assignment
2. Thinking about your audiences
3. Identifying your purpose
4. Gathering your ideas (brainstorming)

(1) How to chose a good topic?
    broad subject -> narrow topic
    find a good topic

(2) Audience Analysis

1. Who is your primary audience? And secondary audience? 
2. What's their age?
3. What's their gender?
4. Why are they reading your writing?
5. How much do they have known about your topic?
6. How do they feel about your topic? Are they receptive, hostile, or somewhere in between?

 (3) Audience determines everything of your writing task

• Your topic
• The level of interest
• The level of knowledge
• The words, jargon, or specialized language you used
• The length and types of sentences you write
• The length of your documents
• Your style - your figures of speech
• The tone - your attitude toward your materials

  (4) The four purposes of writing

• To describe
• To persuade
• To narrate
• To explain

  (5) Brainstorming Techniques

1. Listing ideas: free association
2. Webbing: clustering, mapping, or mind mapping
3. Charting
• Venn diagram -- especially helpful for a comparison/contrast essay  ( two circles )
• Storyboard -- shows the events of a story in chronological order
• Two-column chart -- very useful when writing about two related people, places, things, or ideas
4. Freewriting: simple start just writing, don't do any planning, just let your brain roam
   
5. Asking questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Resource Links:

• http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTg4NTkyNjA=.html
• http://www.videoaidedinstruction.com/studyguides.html