Prewriting is something I always do before I write my essay. It can help you organize your thoughts and structure the shape of your essay. It prevents you from making vague statements and confused arguments. There are many types of prewriting, but here are the three types which I find to be most effective for building an essay.

Brainstorming is one of the more familiar types of prewriting. This involves meditating for a significant period of time on the given topic of the essay. By focusing intensely on the topic, you can clear up your head. This will give you the space to clarify and deepen your thoughts as well as the chance to grab new ideas. Brainstorming also involves a lot of questioning. By constantly questioning the topic at hand and the thoughts in your mind, you can expand the scope of your essay.

Another common type of prewriting is free-writing. Since this is an experimental kind of prewriting, there is a chance that you may have a lot of fun with this. Free-writing is when you write without stopping for a certain amount of time. You do not need to worry about grammar or syntax. Free-writing is similar to giving your essay a test-run. You write whatever is on your mind that is related to the topic. From there, you see what thoughts and ideas need to be changed or kept intact for your essay.

Personally, before I write my essay, I always mind-map. Mind-mapping, also known as clustering, is a form of prewriting that uses diagrams to help structure the writer’s ideas and thoughts. A mind-map usually begins with a large circle which represents the topic of the essay. From there, other smaller circles that represent the subtopics of the essay are connected to the large circle. After that, facts and points of interest are connected to the smaller circles. And it goes on and on. Out of all the types of prewriting, mind-mapping is arguably the most helpful since it actually lets you see the shape of your essay.