PREWRITING TECHNIQUES Cubing Mind Mapping Outlining

Many people do not want to take the time to prewrite. What they fail to understand is that the more time they take to plan, the less time it will actually take to "do" the job. Take the time to prewrite and the process of writing the paper will be easier and quicker.

CUBING

Before you try to mind map or outline your information, you must establish your focus and decide exactly what angles you will cover in your paper. You need a specific thesis statement before you can organize the paper. While looking for your thesis idea, try CUBING, a technique for swiftly considering a subject from 6 points of view. The emphasis is on swiftly and 6. This process will help you become more familiar with your material so that when you write, you can do so from a position of authority.

Often writers can't get going on a subject because they are locked in on a single way of looking at the topic -- and that's where cubing works very well. Cubing lets you have a single point of view for only 3 to 5 minutes and then moves you to the next point of view.

Before you start cubing, read through all your note cards once refresh your memory about what you have read. When you've finished cubing, you've spent 18 to 30 minutes, and you've really loosened up the soil of your mind. This technique moves very swiftly and is quite structured.

1. Use all six sides of the cube.

2. Move fast. Don't allow yourself more than 3 to 5 minutes on each side of the cube.

This is not an exercise in describing, analyzing, or arguing. It is a technique to help you learn to look at a subject from a variety of perspectives. Consequently, doing just one of the sides won't work. Doing just one side is like a mechanical assignment -- "describe the picture." You may decide after doing all six sides that you do want to describe it; but by then your decision will be meaningful and intelligent, based on your having something to say in the form of a description.

The energy in this creating technique comes from shifting your perspective on the subject often. By moving around the cube, one side after another, in rapid succession, you see that you can look at your subject from a lot of different ways. You are not hunting for something to say from each perspective; you are taking a quick run into your mind for whatever presents itself on that angle, and the quickness of the run is important. It is the quick switch that makes the cubing work.

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Mind Mapping

Before you really get down to organizing your information into an outline, try mind mapping. This method enables right-brained people to start the organization process and to become familiar with the material at the same time. Mind mapping is NOT linear, which makes it easy to place information as you come across it. This technique comes in handy for many purposes, but for research paper writing, it is a valuable prewriting step.

An important characteristic of mind mapping is that it uses pictures and key words instead of long sentences. Try this experiment. When you hear the word strawberry, what comes to mind? Some people think of whipped cream or chocolate, some think of seeds stuck in their teeth, some picture shortcake, and some feel the sweetness on their tongues. Few, if any, people think "a strawberry is a small, red fruit that grows on a small plant, is full of vitamin C, and ripens in early summer." The point: We think in images and key words, not long sentences. The process of creating a mind map requires you to think of a picture or key word that represents the idea at hand. As you go through your note cards and transfer the information on them to pictures and key words, you are deepening your understanding of the material and beginning to plan how you will present it.

Here is a mind map that Claudia DelFiacco, a 1999 graduate of Elk Grove High School, did before she wrote her research paper junior year.

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1. Place the title above the outline. It is not one of the numbered or lettered topics.
2. The terms introduction, body, and conclusion should not be included in the outline. They are not topics to be discussed in the composition. they are merely organizational units in the author's mind as he plans.
3. Use Roman numerals for the main topics. Subtopics are given letters and numbers as follows: capital letters, Arabic numerals, small letters, Arabic numerals in parenthesis, small letters in parenthesis. See the sample outline below.
4. Indent subtopics so that all letters or numbers of the same kind will come directly under one another in a vertical line.
5. Begin each topic with a capital letter. Do not capitalize words other than the first in a topic or subtopic unless they are proper nouns or proper adjectives.
6. In a topic outline, do not follow topics with a period.
7. There must never be, under any topic, a long subtopic; there must be either two or more subtopics or none at all. Subtopics are divisions of the topic above them. A topic cannot be divided into fewer than two pats.
8. As a rule, main topics should be parallel in form, and subtopics under the same topic should be parallel in form. If in a list of topics, the first is a noun, the others should be nouns; if it is an adjective, the others should be adjectives, etc. Topics in the form o phrases should not be mixed with topics in the form of nouns or a noun and its modifiers. Subtopics need not be parallel with main topics.
9. Do not mix the topic and sentence forms of outline.
10. For each number or letter in an outline, there must be a topic. Never place an a, for instance, next to a I, like this: Ia.

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