Live Life Team
Prewriting techniques are important in the writing process because it makes the actual writing process easier. Initial steps in prewriting are cubing and mapping.
Cubing is a technique where you consider a subject from six points of view. It will help you determine your focus and decide what angle of the topic you would include in your writings. Cubing helps writers who get stuck in one angle of a study by allowing them to look at a single point of view for a few minutes and then move to the next point of view.
When cubing, imagine a cube as a solid block with each side having different ideas written on it. Use all of the six sides of the cube and think fast. Do not exceed three to five minutes in focusing on one side of the topic. You should be able to describe, compare, associate, analyse, apply, and argue for or against an idea. Through this technique, you will able to look at your subject from different perspectives.
Before organising your information by outlining, it would help to do mind-mapping. Mind-mapping allows right-brained people to familiarise with the topic and begin organising their thoughts. It is not a linear process, making it easy to put information as it comes to your mind. Mind mapping enables you to use key words and images instead of long sentences in describing an idea. Through this approach, your understanding of the material will deepen and you will find it easier to plan how you to present it. You can then easily proceed with the other prewriting techniques and then to the actual writing process.
