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Collecting Details

How much collecting should you do? When you know a lot about a topic, perhaps freewriting or listing will provide enough details. But when you know very little about a writing idea, you may need two or three collecting strategies. The next two pages list many of these strategies.

Gathering Your Thoughts

■ Focused Freewriting

Explore your topic from different angles by writing freely for at least 5–10 minutes. (See page 34.)

■ Flash Drafting

Complete a freely written version of your actual paper. This will tell you how much you need to learn.

■ Listing

Jot down details you already know about your topic and also questions you have about it. List for as long as you can.

■ Clustering

Create a cluster with your specific topic as the nucleus word.