Pre-writing, as you may well guess, refers to the process of preparation that takes place before you begin writing your first draft. You will find that dedicating a little bit of time to the pre-writing phase (rather than just diving in heads-first to your first draft) will help you develop fuller, better organized, and more cohesive essays. Minding the pre-writing process will also help you save time later, during the editing phase, as you will avoid writing sloppy or ill-planned essays. The following is a list of a few pre-writing steps, in addition to a few helpful videos. Some of these videos are a bit dry, but all offer great advice, I promise!
Brainstorming: see my post “Subject Matter” for general topics which will help get you started on the brainstorming process. Here is a helpful video that provides some ideas for brainstorming strategies:
Organization: you want your essay to read like an essay, not a list of brainstormed ideas! So, you will want to organize your essay around a central concept or idea (See my post “Sample Gilman Essay #2: Spain” for a great example of a well-organized essay). You will also want to think about the progression and flow of your essay—write up an outline for your essay so that you can be sure there is a logical progression from one idea or topic to the next. Here is a nice video to help get you thinking about the organization of your essay (you can consider a scholarship essay as an informative essay about yourself):
And here is a goofy video that will help you use transitions to organize your essay and create a smooth flow for your writing:
Considering your audience (determining your tone): I recommend you check out my post “Style” for more advice on the best tone to use for your scholarship essay. The questions that you must answer at this phase of your writing: why am I writing? Who am I writing for? See this video for help answering these questions:
Scholarship Sojourn 