The Importance of Pre-Writing

Did you know that the planning or pre-writing you do for your essay can have big, big benefits? People who do some type of planning are more likely to stay on the given topic and to make sure that they include all of their important ideas. Doing both of these things can lead to a high GED essay score.

The type of planning or pre-writing that you do is your choice! You could make a list, an outline, or use "clustering." (For more about the "clustering" method of pre-writing, visit this previously-held online workshop.) Your planning should not take any more than 3-5 minutes and can consist of just words or phrases. This is where you'll make your essay's "map" so you know the route your writing should take! (To see a past blog topic about essays, click this link.)

Let's practice making a short outline. Suppose the essay topic is asking you to identify a person you admire and to talk about why you look up to that person. Take a look at my outline below and then show me your outline!


Topic: A person I admire - my husband
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Paragraph 2: Reason #1 - very caring/supportive
Paragraph 3: Reason #2 - successful career change
Paragraph 4: Conclusion


That wasn't too hard to do, was it? It was quick, but got me to pick out some key ideas and formulate the components of my essay. From here, I could easily build my essay. Yipppeeee!