When beginning a writing assignment one must gather ideas which can be devised by many different methods and formulate a general plan and outline. First, you must "assess the situation" (p. 4) in the following ways. Identifying the subject whether the instructor provides one or you select one on your own. Search the destination from where you will retrieve your sources of information whether it be from personal experience, reading materials, observations or interviews and questionaires. Determine the purpose of your writing assignment which includes understanding what is expected as to the length and document designs and deadlines from the instructor. The type of audience also must be considered.
There are several ways in which you can begin generating ideas. Talking with friends or family, annotating the reading, taking notes as you read, listing, clustering, freewriting, asking the journalist's questions or keeping a journal. A tentative thesis should also be created towards the beginning to start a centralized main point to stay on track with your subject. Next, sketch a formal outline to capture your ideas and thoughts.
Freewriting will be my first attempt to gather my ideas for my writing assignment. For the most part, freewriting seems like a successful way to let your ideas flow and then you can sift through them and take what you want to use from them. Annotating texts and taking notes is another technique that I would like to try. It seems like it is a good way to highlight the main points and also ask yourself questions along the way to analyze what the author was trying to relay. The first essay should be bittersweet; I am excited to try out these techniques yet fearful of how successful I will be.
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