The POWER strategy has three stages. The first stage is a prewriting stage before you actually start writing and includes the planning and organizing steps. The second stage is actually writing and includes the write step. The third stage is the post-writing stage and includes the editing and revising stages.
P lan.
  • First start with a clear topic. Be sure you know exactly what you want to write about.

  • At this stage, you need to gather all the information that you will need for your paper.

  • Brainstorm and list all the ideas you have about this topic.

  • Make a list of topics that you need to get more information on.

  • Gather the information from different sources, such as the internet and the library.

  • Take notes on note cards of all information that you want to include in your paper. Write down as much information as possible so that you will not have to go back later and get more information. Do not write complete sentences; just write phrases representing the ideas.
  • Be sure to write in complete references for all the information that you gathered so that they can be included in a bibliography later.
A boy planning out his history paper.
O rganize.
  • Review notes of your ideas and your notecards.

  • Organize these in an outline using the main ideas of your paper as the major headings.

  • You can write each of these main ideas on large or different colored notecards.

  • Arrange each of the notecards from the planning stage under each of the main idea cards.

  • Arrange the notecards in order and number them.

  • Go back and make an outline of major headings, subheadings, and details.
A collection of notecards.
W rite.
  • Use your outlines and notecards as a guide for writing your paper.

  • Write complete sentences for the phrases on the notecards.

  • Do not pay attention to mistakes at this stage. Just make sure that you include all the ideas and that you state these clearly and in order.
A preliminary page.




E dit.
  • Check all spelling, capitalization, punctuation, order of words, and grammar using the SCOPE strategy.

  • Check whether your ideas are well stated using the FAST strategy.

  • It may be helpful to read your paper aloud as a way of checking for errors.




A page with editing marks.
R evise.
  • Based on your editing using SCOPE and FAST, revise your paper.

  • Re-read it one last time before turning it in.



A revision.

 

     

Back to All Strategies