Prewriting is the first stage of committing an idea to paper. Prewriting is an unadulterated, imaginative stage in which you conjure up ideas, write them down on paper and determine which ideas will work best for the outline and the final essay. Prewriting is usually not an organized stage, unlike the outline, but it allows you to jot down ideas on paper and contemplate them. There are a few methods of prewriting, including brainstorming, freewriting and clustering.
Brainstorming is quite similar to the freewriting technique. While freewriting will often take the shape of a paragraph, brainstorming is simply a list of words and ideas. If the ideas you have are fragmented and incomplete at this stage, then brainstorming is likely a good choice. With brainstorming, the idea is to write down as many words and ideas in a list form as you possibly can. Writing down this list quickly can also prevent you from forgetting the idea before putting it on paper.
Freewriting is just what is sounds like: freely writing down all the ideas you have on paper before doing any research on the topic. Freewriting is much like stream-of-consciousness writing, in that you simply write whatever is on your mind without worrying about grammar, punctuation, spelling or any other technical writing errors.You also do not need to worry about whether the idea will hold up in the final essay. Later on, you can determine whether these thoughts have any legitimacy in your paper by researching the answers to the questions raised in freewriting.
Clustering, or formulating a mind map, allows you to create a sort of picture of ideas that allow for headings and subheadings. This method of prewriting is more organized than freewriting and is advantageous for more visual learners. Start with a broad idea in the center of your paper and circle it. An example could be "western philosophy." Draw "branches," or lines extending outside this circle. Draw a circle at the end of each line and a subheading within these circles. Examples of subheadings for western philosophy could be "existentalism," "pragmatism" and "moral/political philosophy." Any lines extending from these subheadings should include more detailed information. For example, a line extending out from "existentalism" could be "Friedrich Nietzsche." From there, you can write notes on the basic ideas the philosopher Nietzsche subscribed to.