Free Writing

 

As a freshman in college, I’m going to talk about a technique I learned in the composition class and I found extremely helpful called free writing. Free writing is a prewriting technique where someone writes nonstop for a period of time without paying full attention to the grammar, topic and even spelling for the sake of formulating ideas, and the results are basically raw materials that get sculpted later on in the writing process.  

Free writing and an example
Free writing is an easy thing to do, and the idea is simple: grab a sheet of paper or a keyboard to write on for 10 continuous minutes, and don’t stop or look back at what you wrote so far, and if you don’t know what to say, just write “I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write’’ until you come up with a word, a sentence or a thought to write about next. 

Here’s an example of free writing: 

<span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Here I am writing what’s on my head, okay the topic is about global warming. I’ll write about the sky first then the cause of GW. what else, what else, I know what’s next. No I don’t know yet. I’ll just type until something pops up in my head.. yes! Emissions and cars. My previous car’s exhaust was broken and carbon was coming out of it, now that’s a minor cause. now what about greenhouse gases? I think I’ll make a research of GH gases after I finish brainstorming… and so on  <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;"> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;">

Effectiveness
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">It’s been proven that this kind of exercises is effective to improve your writing in general, and specifically for the tone of the writing, and by that I mean imprinting the voices in your head that you’re free writing about directly into the paper. This comes in handy later when you relate to an experience that you had with the topic, and therefore you have a solid tone. However, don’t expect to have a good paper on the first time. This exercise must be done a couple of times a week until you get used to warming up your brain in order to obtain the habit of thinking and writing.

Benefits
<span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">There are quite a lot of benefits that a free writer may gain by free writing, aside from improving the quality of writing; this technique trains writers to write without thinking about writing itself, simply by overcoming resistance to writing.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The second benefit of free writing is creating a chain of new thoughts. As ideas come while focusing hard in the free writing exercise, one slight deviation of your pattern of thoughts might change your writing, and perhaps you will end up having the first paragraph of your first novel.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I saved the best for the least, which is a benefit that not only students find helpful, also professors make a use of. It’s having the ability to un-stuck yourself whenever you feel like ideas are gone and won’t come back. I’m pretty sure that I get stuck each time I write a paper, specifically, when I reach to the conclusion. When that happens, I just get the stream of thoughts into action and I find myself trying to choose in between two or three ideas instead of only one.

over all
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="line-height: 200%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Free writing simply opens new possibilities and concepts. Not only in writing wise, but also in personal lives. By free writing, we can get past many obstacles in life. We can be creative.