How to Begin a Writing Assignment
Prewriting: How to Research and Organize
The writing you're required to do in your lifetime varies—for example, timed writings and essay questions on exams; autobiographical essays for college applications; high-school and college papers on a variety of subjects; business letters, proposals, and reports related to your work. In most of your writing you'll be doing one of the following:
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Describing a person, place, or thing
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Telling a story or recounting an incident
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Reporting information
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Providing instructions or explaining a process
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Arguing a position or proving a point
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Analyzing something—a text, a theory, an attitude, or an event
The techniques you use will overlap. For example, if you're writing a descriptive essay about your Aunt Gladys, you might narrate an incident that reveals her personality.
Most—though not all—college writing assignments focus on argument and analysis. But within an essay arguing a position, you might use descriptive and narrative techniques. In a paper taking a stand against capital punishment, you might include a vivid description of a gas chamber, or recount the steps of an execution, or even narrate an incident. In choosing your approach to any writing task, be guided by your purpose and the best way to fulfill it.
