Before you Write, Think
“Before you write, think” is a quote by William Arthur Ward, one that has taken a different meaning in our current time than the one it initially used to have back in the time it was written. In a society being significantly impacted by social media, people from all around the world, use their social media accounts to publically express their opinion on a matter, or even give updates to their friends about their daily activities. Thus, a problem that appeared before us is that people on social media, sometimes don’t think about the context of their posts/status updates, etc., either writing things that shouldn’t be expressed publically (swearing, cursing, badmouthing, etc. etc.) or, making a fool out of themselves by not being prepared as when it comes to writing their post, by being misinformed, or not being entirely correct when it comes to explaining what they want, leading their post to become full of “empty” words. Also, chances are, your post/tweet/status update may be retweeted or shared, generally being seen by plenty of people, which is a good thing, if you are proud of what you said, but what if you said something you may regret later?
So, this is leading me to note how important it is to carefully plan out what you write on the internet because once it’s out there, it’s out there for good, and people are going to see it, so you can’t un-write what you’ve already written.
How Do I Plan Out Before I Write?
Here are some tips on how to successfully plan out your post before even writing it.
- Spend time thinking about what it is that you want to write before actually writing it. Don’t immediately go writing whatever comes to mind, the second you think about an idea for a post, spend some time to consider how the things you want to talk about, can be said appropriately, this way, you will have a general plan and idea of all the topics you want to discuss, never having anybody again say that what you wrote was not well thought out. This, however, can be a daunting task, since a majority of our society’s population are really not that much into thinking before they act. As Thomas A. Edison stated: “Five percent of people think; Ten percent of people think they think, And the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.“
- Organize the layout of your post. After you’re done compiling all the ideas you want to fit into your text, try and place them in order, group the ones that fit together. This way, you will have a general idea of how your text will be looking without before even getting to the writing part.
- Write a rough draft. Don’t go all out yet, get a rough first idea of what your text will be like, by writing a rough draft, following the plan you have already made. Then, you can proceed to add/remove parts of it or change the order of some of your ideas written in the text. Do it this quite a few times, until you’ve found out the perfect one, which will be good enough for you to put out there.
- Read it out loud. Once you’re done with your post, read it aloud, just to know how it will sound like to the people that are on the receiving end. Correct any final mistakes, maybe even change some words here and there to make it look even better.
- And then you’re done, just click the corresponding “post” button of whatever platform you are using, and just wait for all the views, likes and shares to come flowing in!
Why Is It Good To Think Before I Write?
There are plenty of good reasons why it’s a good thing to always plan out the things you want to write, here are 4 of them.
- Protecting yours/others’ reputation. By mindlessly writing whatever comes in mind, you might accidentally write something on a post/tweet/review, that might hurt yours, or somebody else’s reputation, which, especially on the internet, is a hard thing to fix.
- Protecting your career. For some people, writing is their job, and learning how to properly prepare themselves for when they are about to do their job, is a skill that must be earned.
- Get a better understanding of your topic. If you start thinking about your topic, organizing the material you have, you start getting a deeper understanding of your topic, subsequently creating a more severe essay, with higher educational value.
- Become easier to understand. By carefully planning and organizing the layout of your ideas in an essay, you end up having the message you want to spread, get across easier, thus making you more understandable to people.
Summing up, writing is an essential part of our everyday lives, from social media to work, even in our daily activities. Throughout the years, the same problems that have surfaced in speaking, have traversed into writing as well, people don’t think before putting out whatever comes into mind. This sort of activity can have enormous consequences depending on the seriousness of the topic at hand, thus, avoiding it is a key to having a better life. So, next time you plan on writing something, no matter how big or small it is, spend the time needed to carefully plan out whatever it is you want to say, gather up your ideas and then organize them, so they make sense to the people that are reading it. I guarantee you that anything you write will be better appreciated by your audience.
