Personal Essay Prewriting
Candace Thompson
ENG/220: University Academic Writing
Professor Epi Enari
April 26, 2015

Personal Essay Prewriting Writing is what you make of it. Choosing a topic that you are passionate about sets up for a potentially great essay. That is why after looking at the topic choices, the one that I would choose jumped out at me. I have chosen to write about an important event that had an impact on my life. Furthermore, the event that will be discussed is the moment I became a mother. Being that this is a topic that I feel passionate about, my game plan jumped out very quickly. The first prewriting strategy that came to mind to use was focused freewriting. I have a specific topic to narrow in on and it is a subject very near and dear to my heart. For me, this means that my words basically jump onto the screen. As I began writing, I had easily written a five hundred plus word piece of writing before u even realized it. This assignment made it necessary to experiment with more than one prewriting technique. This allows you to generate as many ideas as possible regarding your topic. And even though freewriting seemed like a great plan for my essay, I was more than willing to experiment with some other strategies to make my paper even better. That is why I also decided to try out both the outline and invisible writing techniques. Invisible writing is pretty similar to the free write technique that I originally used. However, by not being able to see what I am typing, it allows for me to avoid stopping and making changes in the midst of writing. Creating an outline allows for me to get an idea of how I would like to set up my paper. It would give me a clear idea of what I wanted my thesis to be, supporting evidence, and conclusion. By having a plan like this, it allowed for me to fill in the gaps, also known as content, fairly easily.