College Writing

College Writing Study Guide In rhetorical studies, coming up with ideas, or �iguring out what you want to write about, is called “invention,” or more literally translated from the ancient Greek, “discovery.” In some cases, you will be “discovering” ideas by reading other texts, but you also have a wealth of personal experience and exposure to draw on. To unlock the good ideas in your mind, you should use pre-writing strategies, which allow you to explore a topic in-depth before starting your paper. 4.2 Pre-Writing There are two broad kinds of pre-writing strategies that help writers generate ideas: structured and unstructured. Structured pre-writing allows you to map out the organization of your paper at the same time that you’re generating ideas. If you often struggle with organizing your papers, then struc- tured pre-writing might be the best option for you. Unstructured pre-writing exercises focus on idea- generation. These exercises allow your mind to wander and make associative connections between the writing prompt and what you already know. If you often �ind yourself staring at a blank sheet of paper without anything to �ill it, unstructured pre -writing exercises will help. Here are some speci�ic exercises that you can try on your next writing assignment. • Structured Pre-Writing o Outlining – below is a sample outline with the structure of a three-paragraph essay. This method perfectly lays out the structure of the essay, and all you hav e to do is �ill in the blanks with your ideas. I. Thesis a. Supporting Point 1 i. Illustration for Supporting Point 1 like facts or statistics ii. Another kind of illustration for Supporting Point 1 like a description of the point in action. b. Supporting Point 2 i. Illustration for Supporting Point 2 c. Supporting Point 3 – the refutation i. What does the opposition believe? ii. Why is the opposition wrong? o Clustering – less structured than an outline, a cluster allows you to draw relationships between ideas. You begin by writing your subject in a circle in the center of a piece of paper, and then you should think of all the other subjects or discussions that central idea sparks. These are in their own circles, which connect to other ideas. Once you have made as many connections as are relevant to your central idea, you can cordon them

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