WOVEN text 21: Exploring, Planning, and Drafting.

In order for us to do a great job on the final essay, it is necessary for us to go through the tips and ideas about how to select the topic, how to develop and how to contour the structure. WOVEN text 21 provides us extraordinary ideas of the topics I mentioned above.

21a Exploring a topic:

Although it seems so trivial that people always tend to forget about it, it is crucial for us to always brainstorm about the picture/the structure of our essay. Once you get the general map about what you are writing, you process of composing will be smooth and easy.


The steps are elaborated as follows:
Brainstorming:
It shouldn't take a long time, just spend five to ten minutes to think about what are the possible topic/points you can emphasize or even expand.
Free writing:
"Free writing is a method of exploring a topic by writing about it for a period of time without stopping." Just like what WOVEN text points out, free writing is a process that "automagically" provokes the insights and ideas. You may not use very much of what you are free writing about, however, the potentials it provides is very essential and important.
Looping:
Free writing -- summarize the intriguing idea in one sentence -- think about more ideas, to back up the statements, or to expand the topic -- repeat the process
Keeping a journal:
Writers always don't get all the ideas at one time, it will be extremely helpful for you to jot down the ideas and thoughts when they come up in your mind randomly. If possible, create a map of your main points will help you to "logicalize" your ideas so that you can make sure you articulate them very well.
Asking questions:
Another basic strategy for exploring a topic and generating ideas is simply to ask and answer questions. Asking and answering just basic questions will help you articulate the statements for one more time. (Those questions includes those to describe a topic, to explain a topic, and to persuade.)


FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS: USE YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE TO EXPLORE IDEAS!! I've found this method to be extremely helpful.For generating and exploring ideas — the work of much brainstorming, freewriting, looping, clustering, and questioning — consider using your native language; it may help you come up with good ideas quickly and spontaneously. 

21b Narrowing a topic:

After exploring ideas, you may have found a topic that interests you and would also be interesting to your audience. Due to the words limit or time limit, the topic, however, may be too large to be manageable. If this is the case, narrow your topic in order to focus on a more workable idea. In my own perspective, always try to weigh each of your statements first -- to see to what degree are that closely related to the topic, and then, seek out how much back up statements you can use in order to let the audience fully understand what you are trying to persuading or elaborating.

21c Drafting a Working Thesis:

A working thesis should have two parts: a topic part, which states the topic, and a comment part, which makes an important point about the topic.

A thesis states the main idea of a piece of writing. Most kinds of college writing contain a thesis statement, often near the beginning, which functions as a promise to readers, letting them know what the writer will discuss. Though you may not have a final thesis when you begin to write, you should establish a tentative working thesis early on in your writing process. The word working is important here because the working thesis may well change as you write. Even so, a working thesis focuses your thinking and research and helps keep you on track.

FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS: STATING A THESIS EXPLICITLY. Besides that, always let others to proof read what your thesis is, just to make sure that it is not awkward to some degree and it is on the right track.

21d Gathering Information:

Online research; Library research; Field research:
Basically, you can do three kinds of research to support your thesis: library research, which includes books, periodicals, and databases; online research, which gives you access to texts, visuals, and people on the Internet; and field research, which includes personal observation, interviews, surveys, and other means of gathering information directly. 

Writing often calls for research. An assignment may specify that you conduct research on your topic and cite your sources. Or you may find that you don’t know enough about your topic to write about it effectively without doing research. Sometimes you need to do research at various stages of your writing process — early on, to help you understand or define your topic, and later on, to find additional examples and illustrations to support your thesis. Once you have developed a working thesis, consider what additional information you might need.