My Pre-Writing Ritual

As an experienced college student (with a double major in English), I have come to learn a thing or two about writing. It has become routine to produce pieces of writing(essays, summaries, responses etc.) on a daily basis for me. I'm lucky in that I enjoy writing and look to it as an outlet. Throughout my career as a student I've played with and adapted certain rituals that help me to produce my best writing.

Pre-writing to me, is the most important part of the writing process. I use pre-writing to put any and all of my ideas out on paper. In grade school, I was often subject to using graphic organizers. Although I currently don't use them in my pre-writing process, I still see the significance in organizing my thoughts before actually writing them.

When I am trying to produce my best writing, I usually like to think about what it is I am going to discuss for a day or so. I then take all of my scattered thoughts and ideas and simply put them down on paper. I've found this to be tremendously beneficial because I am able to document all of my ideas first. I then go back to this paper and organize it in a strategic way. What ideas are related? What should I keep and what should I cut? If I need to provide evidence, this is where I make note of the evidence.

Creating this small organizer is highly beneficial because it keeps my writing on task. It only takes a short amount of time, however it tremendously improves the quality of my writing.

UPDATE: In terms of my pre-writing ritual for my informational piece on folktales, I used my strategy of creating a bulleted organizer of ideas. First, I researched my topic and found the necessary information. I then combined this research with my ideas in my organizer. I found this to be very beneficial for me because I had already decided what information I wanted to use and where to apply it. When it came time to actually write my piece, I had already created an extensive outline to follow. This allowed me to focus on fluidity, grammar and other writing strategies instead of organization and content.