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The Secret to Crush Your Writer’s Block and Improve Your Essays

Writer's Block

It isn’t always easy to listen to the suggestions of our teachers, but pre-writing is one of those suggestions that could greatly improve a student’s grades. Yes, as hard as it is to admit, sometimes listening to the advice of our instructors is the only way to become better students… or in this case, better writers.

For some people writing seems to come naturally. For others, writing is a process. And for many more, writing is a problem to tackle that requires many hours of procrastination, planning, writing, re-writing… Despite how much people need to pre-write so few actually do. However, if students seriously want to improve their grades for their essays, pre-writing is a definite necessity.

Let’s face it: there are some people who are always prone to coming down with writer’s block. My theory is that it is the state of mind of students that hold back their writing. A lack of confidence and concentration are sure-fire ways of keeping a student from beginning to write. The only way to break that block is to come down on that block full force with a hammer – and pre-writing techniques are your best hammering option.

There are many reasons to pre-write, such as improving the organization of your paper. Often students who feel intimidated to write are incapable of even getting themselves to start. However, I feel that if a student actually puts in the effort to try planning out whatever potential ideas he or she has, then it is the first step in feeling more confident. Having any form of a plan is a good way of reassuring a person’s self-esteem.

Planning not only relieves stress; it can also save students massive amounts of time in the writing process. I have seen numerous students who write rough draft after rough draft, and end up wasting so much time by re-writing the same essay numerous times over. A lot of time could be saved if the proper preparation was taken before the essay was started.

I know it may feel like a hassle for some of the more mature writers, but even those of us who are comfortable with our writing should make use of the pre-writing techniques. Just the other day, I forced myself to take out a pen and paper to cluster the numerous ideas I had floating around in my head for a long paper I had to write. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and exactly what examples to use, I just couldn’t decide what order to put everything in until I decided to outline my ideas. The longer the essay, the more information and ideas there are to consider, which gives all the more reason to buckle down and try to organize your ideas.

Pre-writing is also a great way to strengthen your essay and earn higher grades. When students try to just bang out an essay without any planning, they don’t give themselves time to plan for details and examples. All too many times, I have seen students write an okay essay, but the reason they received a whole letter grade lower is because they lacked the proper details in their essay or the proper organization. If the students had just planned ahead by pre-writing some ideas and figured out the best form of organization, they could have impressed their teacher so much more.

All it takes is just a little extra effort on the student’s part. It isn’t always easy to start writing an essay, but the whole writing process is simplified so much more when students pre-write. And, the results are so much better, too.

How many of the rest of you actually use a prewriting technique? Do you find it useful when you do?