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How to Brainstorm for an Essay

Once you get going on a paper, you can often get into a groove and churn out the bulk of it fairly quickly. But choosing or brainstorming a topic for a paper—especially one with an open-ended prompt—can often be a challenge.

You’ve probably been told to brainstorm ideas for papers since you were in elementary school. Even though you might feel like “brainstorming” is an ineffective method for actually figuring out what to write about, it really works. Everyone thinks through ideas differently, but here are some tips to help you brainstorm more effectively regardless of what learning style works best for you:

Tip #1: Set an end goal for yourself

Develop a goal for your brainstorm. Don’t worry—you can go into brainstorming without knowing exactly what you want to write about, but you should  have an idea of what you hope to gain from your brainstorming session. Do you want to develop a list of potential topics? Do you want to come up with ideas to support an argument? Have some idea about what you want to get out of brainstorming so that you can make more effective use of your time.

Tip #2: Write down all ideas

Sure, some of your ideas will be better than others, but you should write all of them down for you to look back on later. Starting with bad or infeasible ideas might seem counterintuitive, but one idea usually leads to another one. Make a list that includes all of your initial thoughts, and then you can go back through and pick out the best one later. Passing judgment on ideas in this first stage will just slow you down.

Tip #3: Think about what interests you most

Students usually write better essays when they’re exploring subjects that they have some personal interest in. If a professor gives you an open-ended prompt, take it as an opportunity to delve further into a topic you find more interesting. When trying to find a focus for your papers, think back on coursework that you found engaging or that raised further questions for you.

Tip #4: Consider what you want the reader to get from your paper

Do you want to write an engaging piece? A thought-provoking one? An informative one? Think about the end goal of your writing while you go through the initial brainstorming process. Although this might seem counterproductive, considering what you want readers to get out of your writing can help you come up with a focus that both satisfies your readers and satisfies you as a writer.

 Tip #5: Try freewriting

Write for five minutes on a topic of your choice that you think could  be worth pursuing—your idea doesn’t have to be fully fleshed out. This can help you figure out whether it’s worth putting more time into an idea or if it doesn’t really have any weight to it. If you find that you don’t have much to say about a particular topic, you can switch subjects halfway through writing, but this can be a good way to get your creative juices flowing.

Tip #6: Draw a map of your ideas

While some students might prefer the more traditional list methods, for more visual learners, sketching out a word map of ideas may be a useful method for brainstorming. Write the main idea in a circle in the center of your page. Then, write smaller, related ideas in bubbles further from the center of the page and connect them to your initial idea using lines. This is a good way to break down big ideas and to figure out whether they are worth writing about.

 Tip #7: Enlist the help of others

Sometimes it can be difficult coming up with paper topics on your own, and family and friends can prove to be valuable resources when developing ideas. Feel free to brainstorm with another person (or in a group). Many hands make light work—and some students work best when thinking through ideas out loud—so don’t be afraid to ask others for advice when trying to come up with a paper topic.

Tip #8: Find the perfect brainstorming spot

Believe it or not, location can make a BIG difference when you’re trying to come up with a paper topic. Working while watching TV is never a good idea, but you might want to listen to music while doing work, or you might prefer to sit in a quiet study location. Think about where you work best, and pick a spot where you feel that you can be productive.

Tip #9: Play word games to help generate ideas

Whether you hate playing word games or think they’re a ton of fun, you might want to try your hand at a quick round of Words With Friends or a game of Scrabble. These games can help get your brain working, and sometimes ideas can be triggered by words you see. Get a friend to play an old-fashioned board game with you, or try your hand at a mobile app if you’re in a time crunch.

Tip #10: Take a break to let ideas sink in

Brainstorming is a great way to get all of your initial thoughts out there, but sometimes you need a bit more time to process all of those ideas. Stand up and stretch—or even take a walk around the block—and then look back on your list of ideas to see if you have any new thoughts on them.

For many students, the most difficult process of paper writing is simply coming up with an idea about what to write on. Don’t be afraid to get all of your ideas out there through brainstorming, and remember that all ideas are valid. Take the time necessary to sort through all of your ideas, using whatever method works best for you, and then get to writing—but don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board if a new inspiration strikes.

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Brainstorming

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic’s potential.

Introduction

If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain’s energies into a “storm,” you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm.

Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn’t reached completion. Let’s take a look at each case:

When you’ve got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel “blank” about the topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again.

When you’ve got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that you can then arrange according to their logical relations.

Brainstorming techniques

What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm—ideas from professional writers, novice writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time brainstorming about…well, how to brainstorm.

Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others. If the technique you try first doesn’t seem to help you, move right along and try some others.

Freewriting

When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind. You don’t judge the quality of what you write and you don’t worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you can’t think of what to say, you write that down—really. The advantage of this technique is that you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were being too self-conscious.

When you freewrite you can set a time limit (“I’ll write for 15 minutes!”) and even use a kitchen timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit (“I’ll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no matter what tries to interrupt me!”) and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off, which encourages speed and freedom of thought.

The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this:

“This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all the lectures and read the book I can’t think of what to say and I’ve felt this way for four minutes now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I’ll keep thinking nothing during every minute but I’m not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don’t know what else to say about this topic and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather’s study and he smoked and he farmed and I wonder why he didn’t farm tobacco…”

When you’re done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste them into your draft or onto an “ideas” sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you don’t find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic.

Break down the topic into levels

Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm:

• the general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers”
• a specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• a single term or phrase that you sense you’re overusing in the paper. For example: If you see that you’ve written “increased the competition” about a dozen times in your “tropical fruits” paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of the main terms: “increased” and “competition.”

Listing/bulleting

In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. You can base your list on:

• the general topic
• one or more words from your particular thesis claim
• a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea.

For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time, and your specific thesis claims that “the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society,” you could brainstorm two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be easy to prove.

The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20th-century inventions as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be based on the opposite claim, and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with a decline in that society’s quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions and then compare the evidence from all four lists.

Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, …uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you’d better alter your claim to one you can prove.

3 perspectives

Looking at something from different perspectives helps you see it more completely—or at least in a completely different way, sort of like laying on the floor makes your desk look very different to you. To use this strategy, answer the questions for each of the three perspectives, then look for interesting relationships or mismatches you can explore:

• Describe it: Describe your subject in detail. What is your topic? What are its components? What are its interesting and distinguishing features? What are its puzzles? Distinguish your subject from those that are similar to it. How is your subject unlike others?
• Trace it: What is the history of your subject? How has it changed over time? Why? What are the significant events that have influenced your subject?
• Map it: What is your subject related to? What is it influenced by? How? What does it influence? How? Who has a stake in your topic? Why? What fields do you draw on for the study of your subject? Why? How has your subject been approached by others? How is their work related to yours?

Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six “sides” or approaches to the topic. Take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands:

• Describe it.
• Compare it.
• Associate it.
• Analyze it.
• Argue for and against it.

Look over what you’ve written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your topic? What interactions do you notice among the “sides”? That is, do you see patterns repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis? Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should, at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic’s complexities, if not a sharper focus on what you will do with it.

In this technique, complete the following sentence:

____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________.

In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with them.

After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come forward? What patterns or associations do you find?

Clustering/mapping/webbing:

The general idea:

This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together into a sort of “map” or “web” that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it.

To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This big vertical space allows all members room to “storm” at the same time, but you might have to copy down the results onto paper later. If you don’t have big paper at the moment, don’t worry. You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well. Watch our short videos on webbing , drawing relationships , and color coding for demonstrations.

How to do it:

• Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two or three.
• Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it, start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down, move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot down your grandpa’s name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don’t worry about the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas when the activity is over.
• Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these “loners” can also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this part, if you like. If that’s not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in order to see what goes with what.)
• There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will depend on your particular results. Let’s take an example or two in order to illustrate how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you’ve decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular “map” or “cluster set” or “web” that you produce depends on what you need. What does this map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going!

Relationship between the parts

In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet of paper:

Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or lack of patterns, that you see? For a related strategy, watch our short video on drawing relationships .

Journalistic questions

In this technique you would use the “big six” questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also record yourself or use speech-to-text if you’d rather talk out your ideas.

Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or, how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or further note-taking?

For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about “where” and “why” something happened than you know about “what” and “when,” how could you use this lack of balance to direct your research or to shape your paper? How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results?

Thinking outside the box

Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let’s say you are writing a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, “Hmmm, if I were writing about this very same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?”

For example, when discussing “culture” in your English, communications, or cultural studies course, you could incorporate the definition of “culture” that is frequently used in the biological sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those dishes are used to “culture” substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it help you write your paper if you thought of “culture” as a medium upon which certain things will grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether?

Using charts or shapes

If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put some ideas in parallel formation? In a line?

Consider purpose and audience

Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking act: purpose and audience.

What is your purpose?

What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you are writing this draft in this form. For more tips on figuring out the purpose of your assignment, see our handout on understanding assignments .

Who is your audience?

Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need. For more on audience, see our  handout on audience .

Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias

When all else fails…this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe. Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries, thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you’ll learn several things you did not know.

If you’re looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to appreciate the term’s breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow?

If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug “good” into a thesaurus search, you will be given 14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that “good” could be interpreted according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of “good.”

An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may be able to move forward with your ideas.

Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now?

Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you’ve been brainstorming about to complete your “almost ready” paper. If you’re a fan of outlining, prepare one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you’re not a fan, don’t make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there into larger sections of your paper. You don’t have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the introduction later.

We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as reorganizing drafts and argument .

Remember, once you’ve begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits you or the particular project you are working on.

How can technology help?

Need some help brainstorming? Different digital tools can help with a variety of brainstorming strategies:

Look for a text editor that has a focus mode or that is designed to promote free writing (for examples, check out FocusWriter, OmmWriter, WriteRoom, Writer the Internet Typewriter, or Cold Turkey). Eliminating visual distractions on your screen can help you free write for designated periods of time. By eliminating visual distractions on your screen, these tools help you focus on free writing for designated periods of time. If you use Microsoft Word, you might even try “Focus Mode” under the “View” tab.

Clustering/mapping. Websites and applications like Mindomo , TheBrain , and Miro allow you to create concept maps and graphic organizers. These applications often include the following features:

• Connect links, embed documents and media, and integrate notes in your concept maps
• Access your maps across devices
• Search across maps for keywords
• Convert maps into checklists and outlines
• Export maps to other file formats

Testimonials

Check out what other students and writers have tried!

Papers as Puzzles : A UNC student demonstrates a brainstorming strategy for getting started on a paper.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Allen, Roberta, and Marcia Mascolini. 1997. The Process of Writing: Composing Through Critical Thinking . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cameron, Julia. 2002. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity . New York: Putnam.

Goldberg, Natalie. 2005. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within , rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala.

Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

University of Richmond. n.d. “Main Page.” Writer’s Web. Accessed June 14, 2019. http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Home / News / Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

So, you’ve read and re-read the academic writing assignment that you received from your professor, and now you’re staring at a blank page.

Does your mind feel as blank as the page? Are you Frozen by fear? Rubbing your eyes with exhaustion?

Whether you’re writing an essay for a community college in Boston, Massachusetts or a university in New England, USA, you need to start somewhere. Brainstorming means you use your imagination and prior knowledge to collect thoughts. After gathering a great quantity of ideas, you select the highest quality ideas.

Filling that empty white document can feel like leaping into unknown icy water. Brainstorming is the way to warm up for a deep dive into the EAP topic.

Brainstorming begins with simple questions. What do you know about the topic? What do you want to learn about the topic?

As you brainstorm, you journey farther down the academic writing quest. How do you narrow down a topic into a thesis? How do you gather the examples and evidence necessary for an academic essay?

Here are EAP brainstorming strategies to jumpstart the engine of your creativity.

Brainstorming tip #1: Freewriting

Do you have no ideas? Or the opposite problem—too many ideas?

Freewriting means what it sounds like—you’re free to write whatever comes to mind. The point is not to make it perfect—not even necessarily to make it good—but just to put thoughts on paper—no rules, no revising. You can even write about how you don’t know what to write about.

The only limit you should set for yourself is that you write for a specific period of time—let’s say 30 minutes—or for a specific number of pages—let’s say 2 pages. Non-stop activity gets the juices flowing, and a concrete goal gives you satisfaction. Here’s an example of freewriting:

This essay is supposed to be about the Boston Tea Party but I don’t know anything about US history except that the American Revolution happened a long time ago (when???) somewhere in Massachusetts or maybe I’m wrong. I can’t think of anything else to say and now the clock says two minutes, I’ll keep babbling anyway. Boston, MA, politics, tea. My grandmother used to make tea when I stopped by after my English courses. But that’s not useful for this essay. Or maybe there’s a connection. Hmmm… I remember the professor talked about the taxes in the New English states (colonies?) and my grandmother used to complain about paying high taxes at the market and…

Freewriting stimulates your brain the same way physical exercise wakes up your mind.

Brainstorming tip #2: Making a Cube

Draw a cube in your notebook. Each of the six sides has a task:

Side 1: Describe the topic.

Side 2: Compare the topic.

Side 3: Connect the topic.

Side 4: Classify the topic.

Side 5: Argue for or against the topic.

Side 6: Personalize the topic.

Instead of those 6 tasks, you could replace those verbs with other academic tasks: apply, analyze, question, connect, define, classify, associate, or explain cause and effect—whichever inspire ideas.

Imagine your topic is attending university in the U.S. Next to each point on the cube, you would write words and phrases inspired by the verb at hand:

Side 1: Describe: Exciting, difficult, expensive, growing opportunities, expensive, valuable.

Side 2: Compare: Different from my country. USA = more essay writing, dorms with roommates, critical thinking, fewer standardized exams and lectures, smaller classes.

Side 3: Connect: student visa policies, US immigration law, IELTS, TOEFL iBT, travel restrictions from covid-19, globalization means more English at work.

Side 4: Classify: community colleges (Holyoke, Greenfield), state universities (UMASS Boston), private ivy league (Harvard) graduate schools, MBA, BA, MFA programs.  

Side 5: Argue for : opens doors, better jobs, international workplace, investment in future, social networking, broadens horizons.

Side 6: Personalize: my cousin > engineering degree, MIT internship, campus resources help with culture shock (which worries me.) IELTS stresses me out!!!!  Way to avoid?

This brainy approach works if you like approaching topics from different angles.

Brainstorming tip #3: Clustering

When you cluster, you draw bubbles and connect words and concepts associated with the topic—anything that comes to mind.

This visual method works when you have a lot of random thoughts and you are trying to “see” connections.

Brainstorming tip #4: Bulleting

With this technique, you make bulleted lists with concepts, terms, and ideas. This can help you narrow down from the first list to a second list. The list on the left contains general bullet points, while the list on the right expands on a single bullet to delve deeper.

This method works great if you’re an orderly person who likes making lists.

Brainstorming tip #5: Venn Diagram

  The famous Venn diagram technique works well for brainstorming differences and similarities between two topics. You draw two intersecting circles and write the qualities they share in the middle where the circles intersect and the qualities that are unique in the left and right spaces. For example, let’s say you’re brainstorming differences and similarities between two cities in Massachusetts, Boston and Northampton.

This famous brainstorming method is used in the academic and business worlds because it so clearly shows differences and similarities.

To analyze relationships among three topics, you can make a Venn diagram with three circles. The 3-circle helps visualize and understand complex connections. You brainstorm three basic questions. Which qualities are unique to each? Which traits do any two topics have in common? Which similarities are shared by all three topics?

Brainstorming tip #6: Tree diagram

The tree diagram begins with a central idea that branches off into categories or supporting ideas.

Imagine you’re brainstorming different types of schools in US higher education.

Tree diagrams are perfect for brainstorming classification essays. You could also draw tree diagrams to brainstorm effects, starting with a cause at the top and branching off into increasingly specific downstream effects. Pretty cool, huh?

Brainstorming tip #7: Journalist Dice

Dice aren’t just toys for games and gambling–they can be a tool for writing. Rolling journalist dice is a stimulating way to flesh out narrative essays. Each side of the die corresponds to one of the 6 question words. To make the game fun, roll a die, and write down one answer the question every time you roll. Roll at least a dozen times to write down a variety of details and ideas.

In addition to building a narrative essay, this brainstorming technique can help you develop a compelling story for your college application essay. For the tired and uninspired writer, the game element of rolling dice makes the writing process more engaging and enjoyable. 

Brainstorming tip #8: T diagram

This method works well if you like thinking in terms of opposites.  Can you say “On the one hand” and “On the other hand”? 

What’s next in the writing process?

After your fast and furious brainstorm, the next step is to create an outline. When you outline, you pick your best and brightest ideas. Then you begin organizing them into a coherent, linear argument. You select and sort supporting points, evidence, examples, and elaboration. To learn more about outlining, click here for the next article in our academic writing series. 

The best way to improve your writing is to join an academic or business English course . With guidance from an expert instructor and feedback from a community of peers, you can master the art of academic writing.

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The Writing Process

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• Step 1: Generate Ideas

Brainstorming

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all." —Edward de Bono

Most people have been taught how to brainstorm, but review these instructions to make sure you understand all aspects of it.

• Don't write in complete sentences, just words and phrases, and don't worry about grammar or even spelling;
• Again, do NOT judge or skip any idea, no matter how silly or crazy it may initially seem; you can decide later which ones are useful and which are not, but if you judge now, you may miss a great idea or connection;
• Do this for 15, 20, or (if you're on a roll) even 30 minutes--basically until you think you have enough material to start organizing or, if needed, doing research.

Below is a sample brainstorm for an argument/research paper on the need for a defense shield around the earth:

Photo: "Brainstorm" ©2007 Jonathan Aguila

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• Writing a strong college admissions essay
• Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

• How formal should the tone of your college essay be?
• Taking your college essay to the next level
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Video transcript

Writing Studio

Invention (aka brainstorming), what is “invention”.

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: Invention Return to Writing Studio Handouts

Invention (also referred to as brainstorming) is the stage of the writing process during which writers discover the ideas upon which their essays will focus. During this stage, writers tend to overcome some of the anxiety they might have about writing a paper, and in many cases, actually become excited about it. Although invention usually occurs at the beginning of the writing process, exercises aimed at facilitating invention can be helpful at many stages of writing. Some of the best writers return to this stage a number of times while composing drafts of their essays.

Recommended Invention Techniques

Freewriting.

Read through your assignment and choose a topic, theme, or question that comes to mind. Write for 10-15 minutes in response to this idea – do not lift your pen from the paper or your hands from the keyboard.

When you are finished, read through your draft and underline or circle ideas that might lead you to a thesis for your paper. Consider asking a classmate or friend to read what you’ve written and ask questions about your ideas and topics.

After freewriting, read through what you have written and underline a phrase or sentence that you think is particularly effective or that expresses your ideas most clearly. Write this at the top of a new sheet of paper and use it to guide a new freewrite.

Repeat this process several times. The more you write and select, the more you will be able to refine your ideas.

Talk to Yourself

Some people often find themselves saying, “I know what I want to say. It’s just that I can’t figure out how to put it in writing.” If this is the case for you, try dictating your thoughts on a digital recording device. After several minutes, listen to what you’ve recorded and write down ideas you want to incorporate into your paper.

If you don’t have a recording device, ask a friend to write down some of the main points you make as you talk about your ideas.

List all the ideas you can think of that are connected to the topic or the subject you want to explore. Consider any idea or observation as valid and worthy of listing (go for quantity at this point). List quickly and then set your list aside for a few minutes. Come back and read your list and then do the listing exercise again.

Using Charts or Shapes

Use phrases or words that are central to your topic and try to arrange them spatially in a graph, grid, table, or chart. How do the different spatial representations help you see the relationships among your ideas? If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put the words on a page and draw lines between or around them.

Break Down the Assignment

Sometimes prompts are so complicated that they can seem overwhelming. Students often ask: There’s so much to do, where should I start? Try to break the assignment down into its constituent parts:

• The general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers.”
• A specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition among colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• A single term or phrase that seems to repeat in the material you’ve read or the ideas you’ve been considering. For example, if have you seen the words “increased competition” several times in the class materials you’ve been reading about tropical fruit exports, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase within the context of those readings or focus on variations of each component of the phrase (i.e., “increased” and “competition”).

Once you have identified the major parts of the topic, try to figure out what you are being asked to think about in the assignment. What questions are you expected to answer? Are there related questions that need to be addressed in order to answer the primary questions? If so, what are they?

Defining Terms

In your own words, write definitions for key terms or concepts given in the assignment. Find other definitions of those terms in your course readings, the dictionary, or through conversations and then compare the definitions to your own. Keep these definitions in mind as you begin to write your essay.

Summarizing Positions

Summarize the positions of relevant authors from your course readings or research. Do you agree or disagree with their ideas, methods, or approaches? How do your interests overlap with the positions of the authors in question? Try to be brief in your descriptions. Write a paragraph or up to a page describing a reading or a position.

Get together with a group of classmates and have each person write down her or his tentative topic or thesis at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Pass the sheets around from left to right so that each person can write down a thoughtful question or suggest related ideas to think about.

Compare / Contrast Matrix

If your assignment asks you to compare or contrast two concepts, texts, subjects, etc., try to organize your thoughts in a compare/contrast matrix by focusing on the attributes you will consider in your draft. These attributes should establish the key points of comparison or contrast with which you will deal in your essay.

Last revised: 07/2008 | Adapted for web delivery: 05/2021

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Writing Tips For Lazy Writers

Brainstorming Essay Example | 5 Steps To Unlock Your Writing Potential

Are you staring at a blank page, struggling to find the perfect essay topic? Fear not! In today’s blog post, we’re going to explore the world of essay writing with a handy guide and a real-life brainstorming essay example . Plus, we’ll guide you step-by-step on how easy brainstorming techniques can make your writing better and bring your essays to life.

Table of Contents

What is brainstorming.

Brainstorming is a creative and collaborative technique used to generate a large number of ideas or solutions to a problem. It’s a process that encourages free thinking and open discussion to explore various possibilities. The main goal of brainstorming is to break away from typical thinking, allowing individuals or a group to come up with diverse and innovative ideas.

In essay writing, brainstorming means gathering thoughts, and ideas and exploring various aspects of the topic before starting to write. It helps overcome initial challenges, sparks creativity, and organizes thoughts for a well-crafted essay.

Why Brainstorming in Essay Writing Matters?

Brainstorming in essay writing matters because it helps you develop many ideas and organize your thoughts before you start writing. It’s like a creative warm-up that breaks down any barriers you might have in your mind. This process is important because:

• Gets Creative Ideas Flowing:  Brainstorming encourages you to think freely, which means you can come up with different and interesting ideas for your essay.
• Beats Writer’s Block:  Sometimes it’s hard to start writing because you don’t know where to begin. Brainstorming helps you get over this “writer’s block” by giving you a plan and getting your ideas flowing.
• Makes Your Essay Unique: I t lets you think outside the box, making your essay more creative and different from others.
• Helps You Plan:  Before you dive into writing, brainstorming helps you organize your thoughts. You can figure out what you want to say and how to say it, making your essay well-organized and easy to understand.
• Creates a Strong Thesis:  Brainstorming helps you come up with a clear and strong thesis statement – the main point of your essay.
• Encourages Working Together:  If you’re brainstorming with others, it’s a chance to share ideas and work together. This can make your essay even better with different perspectives.
• Saves Time:  Spending time brainstorming at the beginning can save time later. It makes the actual writing part smoother because you’ve already thought about what you want to say.

In short, brainstorming is like a friendly helper that gets your ideas flowing and makes your essay-writing experience easier and more successful.

Step-by-step Guide: Brainstorming Essay Writing Process

Let’s break down the step-by-step guide to the brainstorming essay process:

Step 1: Selecting a Topic

• Importance of choosing a relevant and engaging topic:  Understand why picking the right topic matters – it sets the tone for your essay and keeps your readers interested.
• Brainstorming ideas for potential essay topics:  Generate a list of potential topics by thinking about your interests, relevant issues, or any prompts provided. Consider what will captivate your audience.

Step 2: Creating a Mind Map

• Building a mind map to explore various aspects of the chosen topic:  Draw a central circle with your chosen topic and branch out with related ideas. This visual representation helps uncover different angles and perspectives.
• Connecting related ideas and concepts for a comprehensive overview: I dentify connections between the ideas on your mind map. This step helps create a holistic understanding of your chosen topic.

Step 3: Free Writing Exercise

• Setting a timer and allowing for a continuous flow of ideas: S et aside a specific time, perhaps 10-15 minutes, and write down everything that comes to mind about your topic. Allow your thoughts to flow freely, and don’t fret over achieving perfection.
• Reviewing the results and identifying key points for the essay:  Review what you’ve written. Identify the key points that stand out and could form the basis of your essay. Look for themes and patterns.

Step 4: Listing Key Points

• Make a list of the critical points and ideas you’ve gathered. These will be the building blocks for your essay.
• Arrange the listed points in a logical order. This organization will serve as the initial structure for your essay, providing a roadmap for the writing process.

Step 5. Group Brainstorming

If possible, collaborate with peers or colleagues to brainstorm ideas collectively. This approach often brings fresh insights and diverse viewpoints to enhance your essay.

Additional Tips:

• Tools like online surveys or polls can help gather feedback and ideas on potential topics from your peers or audience, aiding in the selection process.
• Use online collaborative platforms like  Miro , or  Padlet  to create a virtual board where contributors can add and discuss potential topics.

By following these steps, you’ll have a solid foundation for your essay, with a carefully selected topic, organized key points, and a wealth of ideas to draw from.

Brainstorming Essay Example

Brainstorming Essay Example:  “The Power of Music and Its Impact on Our Emotions”

Step 1: Selecting a Topic – Brainstorming Essay Example

• Let’s explore the powerful connection between music and emotions, a topic that many people find interesting and relatable.
• Think about different aspects of music and emotions. Consider topics like the influence of music on mood, its role in expressing feelings, or how it connects people across cultures.

Step 2: Creating a Mind Map – Brainstorming Essay Example

• Start by drawing a circle in the middle with “The Power of Music and Emotions.”
• Branch out with related ideas like
• (1) music’s influence on mood,
• (2) its expression of feelings, and
• (3)its cultural impact.
• Identify connections between these ideas. For example, how certain genres evoke specific emotions or how cultural background shapes individual responses to music. This holistic understanding helps in exploring the profound relationship between music and emotions.

Step 3: Free Writing Exercise – Brainstorming Essay Example

• Take 10-15 minutes to freely write about the power of music on emotions. Write down everything that comes to mind – whether it’s personal experiences, favorite songs, or the way certain melodies make you feel.
• After the free writing exercise, review your notes. Identify key points like the emotional impact of specific songs, the universality of certain musical themes, and how music can serve as a personal soundtrack to life.

Step 4: Listing Key Points – Brainstorming Essay Example

• Make a list of the critical points and ideas you’ve gathered:
• The emotional impact of specific songs.
• The universality of certain musical themes.
• How music serves as a personal soundtrack to life.
• Organize these points logically. Start with the emotional impact, delve into the universality of musical themes, and then explore how music becomes a personal soundtrack. This structure provides a roadmap for your essay.

Step 5: Group Brainstorming – Brainstorming Essay Example

• Engage in virtual group brainstorming using tools like collaborative platforms.
• Discuss with others how music impacts their emotions, share favorite songs, and explore cultural differences in musical preferences. This collective approach enriches your essay with diverse insights.

By following these steps, you’ll have a well-defined essay topic, and diverse ideas to create an engaging exploration of the power of music and its impact on our emotions.

When you write, brainstorming is like exploring. You can connect thoughts and discover the heart of your essay. Brainstorming is your compass, guiding you through the journey of turning ideas into words on paper. So, embrace the power of brainstorming and let your ideas flourish!

Ref:  Study.com  |  EasyBib  |  Florida Gulf Coast University

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Brainstorming Types and methods of brainstorming

After you have understood the title , the next step of the writing process is to generate ideas. The best way to do this is by a process called 'brainstorming'. The page gives information on what brainstorming is , as well as describing three useful brainstorming techniques, namely clustering , listing , and freewriting .

What is brainstorming?

For another look at the same content, check out YouTube or Youku , or the infographic .

Brainstorming is a technique which is used to get as many ideas as you can, as quickly as you can. The words 'many' and quickly' are important. A common mistake students make when brainstorming is to stop after writing down only a few ideas. This is not 'brainstorming'. As the word 'storm' suggests, it is something which should have much energy and power, leading to a flood of ideas. Although brainstorming may take some time, it will save you time in the long run. There is nothing worse than racing confidently into an essay then getting stuck for ideas halfway through (i.e. 'writer's block').

Clustering, also called mind-mapping, is a visual brainstorming technique. It is especially useful for visual learners . The advantage of this technique is that ideas are organised on the page, making it easier to move to the outlining stage of the process. As a result, it is the most popular brainstorming method with students.

Below is an example of the clustering style of brainstorming. This was for a short (250 word) essay, written under exam conditions, with the title: 'Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the internet'.

Listing, as its name suggests, is a brainstorming technique in which you make a list of ideas. The advantage of this technique is that it enables ideas to be generated more quickly than with clustering, as the ideas can be written in any order.

Below are two examples of the listing style of brainstorming. Both are for the same title as above, namely 'Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the internet'.

Freewriting

Freewriting is a brainstorming activity in which the writer writes anything they can about a topic, in continuous prose, hoping that one idea will lead to another. The advantage of this technique is that it might enable you to generate ideas when the other methods fail. However, it is not generally favoured by students of academic writing. It takes more time, and the writing you produce will be disorganised and will need to be discarded at the end. It is more useful when writing creative works such as stories. Try this method if you think this will be a good technique for you:

• Write the topic at the top of your paper.
• Write as much as you can about the topic. Include as many supporting facts, details, and examples as you can, but do not worry if you do not have many at this stage.
• After you have run out of ideas, reread your passage and circle/highlight the ideas which seem useful.
• Group the related ideas together, then use them to write an outline . If necessary, generate more ideas first using one of the methods on this page.

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 03 March 2022.

Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.

Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).

Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.

Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).

Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.

Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.

How should I start brainstorming topics for my college essay?

Most colleges provide open-ended prompts. Using the topic as inspiration, think about critical milestones or essential lessons you learned during your academic career. Tell stories about real-life experiences that have shaped the person you are. Write them down to brainstorm ideas. Choose stories that highlight your best traits.

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6 Creative Ways to Brainstorm an Essay

The process of brainstorming destroys the barriers to creativity and allows us to generate ideas, find solutions quickly, and do our best work. Brainstorming helps you deal with much of the uncertainty and anxiety around essay writing.  The following list of brainstorming methods includes both individual and group approaches  that can be applied to choosing an essay pro mpt, developing an essay prompt, establishing a writing approach, and anything else your creative mind can conjure.

Individual Brainstorming Techniques

Brainstorming may give rise to images of groups shooting ideas back and forth. However, you don’t need anyone else to brainstorm with the following techniques. Note: these techniques are not limited to individuals; they will also work in groups.

The word storm technique is about creating groups of word clouds so you can visualize an idea or encourage the process of creative writing to begin. Feel free to use a whiteboard and a marker or a pen and paper. Start with a simple word in the middle of the sheet or board (usually, the one describing the topic of your essay best) and use association to come up with any other word related to it. Finally, group these together based on some connection between them.

Mind Mapping

Another way to use associations and organize ideas is by mind mapping. This works better than lists as it emphasizes the visual element, which is proven to help us remember better. Start with a single word/idea again and imagine that any other word you write connected to it is the branch of a tree. This is especially useful with complex essay topics, which you can break down into easy to follow steps.

hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(2405229, 'dbddaf63-c9ab-4cae-9492-52f39e084f6a', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"});

Group brainstorming techniques.

While all of the previous methods can work for either individual or group brainstorming, these next techniques work best with more than one person.

Brain Writing

Gather 2 or more people together and present to them the same problem (the topic of the essay). Each individual will write an idea on a piece of paper or index card. Then everyone passes the index card to their left or right.

After receiving another’s card, you add a comment or improvement to the idea directly below it. Continue this until everyone has commented on each card. After one or more sessions, collect all ideas and write them on a whiteboard. Let the discussion ensue.

Rapid Ideation

Rapid ideation is an intensive session of idea generation that can produce massive results. Experts in all fields have used it to think of big ideas in a short amount of time, and it might be what you’re looking for to proceed with writing your essay. There are many methods connected to this approach, such as SCAMPER (the technique that uses action verbs to help the idea generation process) and gamestorming (for those interested in gamification).

Figure Storming

Figure storming is an unusual technique that involves thinking of a person from history that all people in the group know and trying to figure out what that person would do to solve the problem you’re discussing. This method encourages individuals to explore outside perspectives in a new, fun way.

Brain Netting

Brain netting, a fancy name for online brainstorming, allows a group of people located in different parts of the world to collaborate (which brings extra opinions and resources to the table). The principles of any other brainstorming session are the same, except you are drawing from a larger and more diverse set of people. There are a wide variety of tools at your disposal such as Google Docs. Get connected and get creative.

Brainstorming is a crucial element in the process of writing a good essay. It is the foundation from which you construct your narrative. Use the above techniques to facilitate your creative process and distinguish yourself from the large pools of essays in your classroom or your admissions process. If you are still struggling with your essay, check out our deconstruction of the notorious Costco Essay that got one student into 5 Ivy League schools.

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3.0: Brainstorming helps you develop your ideas

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(1300 words)

Whether you are assigned a particular topic or are allowed to choose your own topic within certain guidelines, the next step is to explore the ideas that you might write about in more detail. This process is called “brainstorming,” though some instructors and textbooks might refer to similar techniques as “invention” or “pre-writing.” Regardless of what it’s called, the goal is the same: to lay the foundation for focusing in on a particular topic and the working thesis of a research-writing project.

I recommend you keep three general concepts in mind when trying any approach to brainstorming with your writing:

• Not all of these approaches to brainstorming will work equally well for everyone or work equally well for all topics.  Your results will vary and that’s okay. If one of these techniques doesn’t work for you, try another and see how that goes.
• When trying any of these techniques, you can’t censor yourself.   Allow yourself the freedom to brainstorm about some things that you think are bad or even silly ideas. Getting out the “bad” or “silly” ideas has a way of allowing the good ideas to come through. Besides, you might be surprised about how some topics that initially seem bad or silly turn out to actually be good with a little brainstorming.
• Even if you know what topic you want to write about, brainstorm.  Even if you know you want to write about a particular topic, you should try to consider some other topics in brainstorming because you never know what other things you could have written about if you don’t consider the possibilities. Besides, you still should do some brainstorming to shape your idea into a topic and then focus it into a working thesis.

Freewriting 

One of the most common and effective brainstorming techniques for writing classes, freewriting, is also easy to master. All you do is write about anything that comes into your head without stopping for a short time—five minutes or so. The key part of this activity though is  you cannot stop for any reason!  Even if you don’t know what to write about, write “I don’t know what to write about” until something else comes to mind. And don’t worry—something else usually does come to mind.

Looping or Targeted Freewriting 

Looping is similar to freewriting in that you write without stopping, but the difference is you are trying to be more focused in your writing. You can use a more specific topic to “loop” back to if you would like, or, if you do the more open-ended freewriting first, you can do a more targeted freewriting about one of the things you found to be a potentially workable idea. For example, you might freewrite with something general and abstract in mind, perhaps the question “what would make a good idea for a research project?” For a more targeted freewriting exercise, you would consider a more specific questions, such as “How could I explore and write about the research idea I have on computer crime?”

Group Idea Bouncing 

One of the best ways we all get different ideas is to talk with others. The same is true for finding a topic for research: sometimes, “bouncing” ideas off of each other in small groups is a great place to start, and it can be a lot of fun.

Here’s one way to do it: name someone in a small group as the recorder. Each person in turn should give an idea for a potential topic, and the recorder should write it down. Every person should take a turn quickly “bouncing” an idea out for the others—no “I don’t know” or “come back to me!” Remember: no ideas are bad or silly or stupid at this point, so do not censor yourself or your group members.

Clustering 

Clustering is a visual technique that can often help people see several different angles on their ideas. It can be an especially effective way to explore the details of a topic idea you develop with freewriting or looping. On a blank sheet of paper, write a one or two word description of your idea in the middle and circle it. Around that circle, write down one or two word descriptions of different aspects or characteristics of your main idea. Draw circles around those terms and then connect them to the main idea. Keep building outward, making “clusters” of the main idea as you go. Eventually, you should get a grouping of clusters that looks something like the illustration below.

Figure 6.3.16.3.1

Journalist Questions 

One of the key elements of journalistic style is that journalists answer the basic questions of “What?” “Who?” “Where?” “When?” “How?” and “Why?” These are all good questions to consider in brainstorming for your idea, though clearly, these questions are not always equally applicable to all ideas. Here are some examples of the sort of journalistic questions you might want to ask yourself about your idea:

• What is my idea? What are the key terms of my idea?
• Who are the people involved in my idea? Who is performing the action of my topic? Who are the people affected by my idea?
• Where does my idea take place? Where did it come from? Is it restricted to a particular time and place?
• When did my idea happen? How does it relate to the other events that might have taken place at a similar time? Are there events that happened before or after my idea that might have effected it?
• How did my idea happen, or how is it still happening?
• Why did my idea happen, or why is it still happening?

Brainstorming with Computers 

Computers are a great tool for fostering these and other collaborative brainstorming techniques. For example, group idea bouncing can be used effectively with Internet “chat rooms,” with instant messaging software, or with local area network discussion tools.

You can also collaborate on your brainstorming activities with computers with little more than simple word processing or email; Here are three variations on a similar theme:

• Email exchange:  This exercise is conducted as an exchange over email. Each person in a small group does a looping/targeted freewriting to discover ideas for things she is interested in doing more research about. Then, each person in the group can post his looping/targeted freewriting to all of the other members of the group simultaneously. Email also allows for members of the group to collaborate with each other while not being in the same place--after all, email messages can be sent over great distances--and not at the same time.
• “Musical computers:”  This approach is similar to the previous two exercises, but instead of exchanging diskettes or email messages, members of a group of students exchange computer stations in a computer lab. Here’s how it works: a group (up to an entire class of students) does a looping/targeted freewriting at a computer station for a set period of time. When time is up, everyone needs to find a different computer in the fashion of the children’s game “musical chairs.” Once at the new computer station, the new writer comments on the original freewriting exercise. The process can be repeated several times until everyone has had a chance to provide feedback on four or five different original freewritings.

Example 5.2

• By yourself, work with at least two of the brainstorming techniques described above or other brainstorming techniques described by your instructor.
• Working with others in a small group, work with at least two of the brainstorming techniques described above or other brainstorming techniques described by your instructor. For example, have all the members of the small group each complete their own freewriting or clustering activity on the topic of her choice. Then, compare results. How do each of you react to different exercises? Are some techniques more useful for some?

Brainstorming: 10 Examples, Techniques, and Benefits

Brainstorming is the divergent thinking process of gathering a large number of ideas in a short amount of time, which you will parse and improve upon in future steps.

Commonly, it takes place on a piece of paper or large board where you can visually dump your ideas. However, it can also occur in your mind. It may also be either done individually or in groups (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018).

Definition of Brainstorming

The word brainstorming was first coined in the 1940s by advertising executive Alex F. Osbornn (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Osborn defined it as a way to generate a large number of ideas in a short amount of time without any criticism or judgement.

Importantly, brainstorming is about generating as many ideas as possible in order to help push through a plateau or brain block. Ideally, it will help bring out creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in order to generate fresh and innovative ideas (Litchfield, 2008).

One of the key benefits of brainstorming is that it allows an individual or group to think freely and suspend judgement of ideas.

This can lead to the creation and consideration of ideas that may not have been considered otherwise. Even a seemingly useless idea may lead to a fruitful breakthrough.

History of Brainstorming

While the act of brainstorming has likely been used for thousands of years, the term itself has its roots in the 1930s when Osborn, along with his colleagues at an advertising agency, began using group creativity sessions to generate ideas for their clients (Putman & Paulus, 2009).

With a new term coined, the concept became refined and made more explicit. Today, it has become a popular tool used in both organizations and people’s personal lives to generate new ideas and solve problems.

Popular ideas behind brainstorming have evolved over the years and brainstorming strategies have been adapted to suit different situations, industries, and needs (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

For example, it can be used for anything from coming up with vacation ideas with your family to coming up with new product lines for large multinational corporations.

Stages of Brainstorming

The brainstorming process typically involves three stages: preparation, ideation, and evaluation (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

• Preparation: The focus of the preparation stage should be on setting the rules, structure, and culture around the session. It may, for example, encourage team members to come to the team with sufficient background knowledge, and ensure all people in the group know the importance of creating a non-judgemental environment.
• Ideation: The ideation stage involves sharing ideas which will be added to the brainstorming notes, such as on a flipboard or shared screen during a group video call (Litchfield, 2008). This is where the actual idea generation takes place. Participants are encouraged to share their ideas knowing that there is ‘no silly idea’ at this point in time.
• Evaluation: With a wide range of ideas collected, the group needs to categorize, review, and select the most promising ideas. This may involve drawing connections between ideas, merging ideas together, and finding identifying problems with certain ideas. At this stage, it’s important to ensure the chosen ideas have alignment with the objective.

10 Examples of Brainstorming

Below are some possible situations in which brainstorming can be highly effective.

Example 1: Product Development

Brainstorming can be used to generate new product ideas or improve upon existing ones. For example, a team of designers, engineers, and marketers could brainstorm ideas for a new smartphone that incorporates cutting-edge technology and features. Importantly, the team should be composed of product market experts and, ideally, people with prior knowledge about issues with the current product iteration, consumer feedback, and gaps in the marketplace.

Example 2: Marketing Campaigns

Brainstorming is common in marketing and advertising, and in fact, the term was coined by a marketing professional.

Generally, this session would involve bringing together a team of creatives with good knowledge of the market as well as cutting-edge marketing techniques in order to come up with a campaign idea. For example, a team of marketers could brainstorm ideas for a new social media campaign that leverages the power of influencers to reach the audience.

Example 3: Brainstorming for a Novel

Brainstorming can be an excellent approach to improve writing techniques, especially when writing a novel.

In this situation, I would gather some fellow writers or personal tutors who have experience developing plots, characters and themes and go over the things that could work better in your novel.

By analyzing my plot structure and understanding my character’s traits based on their backstory, I could get valuable insight into how to make the story more engaging.

Example 4: Brainstorming for Business Strategic Plans

Brainstorming is an excellent way to devise strategic plans for higher-level business development.

It helps you visualize how your business may look like in the future while allowing feedback from team members involved in the development process to obtain insights from all departments.

A team of executives may get together around a single table with reports and data sheets explaining different growth areas of the company.

Example 5: Brainstorming New Classroom Ideas

Brainstorming is one of the best ways for teachers to develop new ideas for curriculum building and lesson planning.

Teachers should consider mingling with colleagues who have years teaching experience engaging students around different scenarios shaping them towards positive cognitive outcomes.

Example 6: Brainstorming Home Decor Projects

When renovating a home, brainstorming can help skyrocket creativity while considering factors like budget, style, and functionality.

Collaborating with an interior designer or friends who have taste in home decor and DIY projects can be useful in generating interesting ideas that match the requirements of the homeowner.

Example 7: Brainstorming for Event Planning

Brainstorming is an essential tool when it comes to event planning as it helps to identify key themes, vendors, catering, and decoration ideas.

The best part of brainstorming is involving event planners together with their clients in a room or a virtual hangout session to discuss their vision for the occasion and generate ideas in real-time.

Example 8: Brainstorming Personal Life Goals

Brainstorming can help you set achievable personal goals while shedding light on your desires.

At times like these having a life coach might come in handy who can incorporate exercises where you jot down all the things you desire either professionally or personally such as traveling to other countries or buying a new house.

See Also: A List of 151 Goals for Life

Example 9: Brainstorming UX Designs

In the development of digital products such as web applications or mobile apps brainstorming plays a key role.

Through group discussions between UX designers and developers they’ll emphasize ways of enhancing user experience by identifying areas where previous iterations had no success.

Example 10: Brainstorming Career Choices

Brainstorming can help young people finishing high school to create a roadmap towards the best career for them.

At this time of life, people usually don’t have a clear idea of the job they will do, but they may have a clear idea of what they are good at, what they enjoy doing, and the general direction they want to go (white collar, blue collar, etc.).

The process of deciding what to do may involve seeking out mentors or attending career fairs where people can offer guidance and support.

Techniques for Effective Brainstorming

There are several techniques that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018). Generally, this involves putting in place clear group norms , including:

• Encouraging all participants to share their ideas
• Avoiding criticism and judgement
• Using visual aids to stimulate creativity
• Building on others’ ideas
• Combining ideas to create new solutions
• Setting a time limit to encourage rapid idea generation

Benefits of Brainstorming

The benefits of brainstorming are numerous. It can help people and organizations generate new ideas, solve complex problems, and make better decisions.

In the workplace, it can also improve team morale and strengthen team cohesion . By engaging individuals in idea generation, companies can create a culture of innovation and creativity.

1. Innovation

Firstly, brainstorming plays a significant role in boosting innovation (Litchfield, 2008).

When we sit together and come up with different creative ideas, we tend to approach situations with new perspectives that we often overlook alone. Sometimes our minds can only go so far when left to its devices!

The act of bouncing thoughts off one another elevates creativity tremendously. Brainstorming as a group often produces new solutions that wouldn’t have surfaced otherwise (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018).

2. Problem Solving

Secondly, brainstorming is incredibly beneficial for problem-solving .

While we all face challenges in life, brainstorming can act as a beneficial tool for addressing and overcoming those issues.

When faced with a problem, having multiple people collaborate during the decision-making process leads to better outcomes than relying solely on one person’s point of view (Litchfield, 2008).

In addition, when each member contributes equally unique views and suggestions about possible solutions without dismissing others’ input or ideas, new strategies can arise which become successful approaches (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

3. Team Morale and Cohesion

A side-effect of brainstorming as a group is that it can make a stronger group dynamic . Its key principles include inclusion, open-mindedness, and working together.

Coincidentally, this can also make work much more enjoyable!

Collaborating as a team creates cohesiveness within the company culture because all persons contribute towards achieving mutual goals rather than accomplishing solo achievements only related to their title or job description (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Support from team members through both triumphs and failures can increase mutual respect among colleagues for each other while creating social bonds.

4. Culture of Innovation

Lastly, creating a culture of innovation becomes achievable when utilizing brainstorming tasks regularly within the company environment.

Brainstorming can lead to creative solutions that would not be possible without the open-minded, free-flowing brainstorming process (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Challenges of Brainstorming

While brainstorming can be a highly effective tool for generating ideas and solutions, it is not without its challenges. Some common challenges include:

• Groupthink : where individuals conform to the group’s opinions and ideas (Putman & Paulus, 2009). This may happen if one dominant person leads the brainstorming session in a particular direction.
• Unequal Participation: some participants may dominate the discussion while others are minimally involved. Less experienced or peripheral members of the group may be pushed aside.
• Lack of Focus: a brainstorming session can become unfocused and start to lack direction. While creativity and open-mindedness is useful, the session may also drift away from its original goals and end up failing to be fit for purpose.
• Criticism and Judgement: depending on the group culture, ideas may be criticized or judged prematurely, which can undermine the purpose of brainstorming. This is where positive workplace culture is highly important (Litchfield, 2008).
• Not conducive to Convergent Thinking : brainstorming is a type of divergent thinking, where people try to come up with multiple solutions to one problem. This is only useful at certain times (Putman & Paulus, 2009). Often, we need to do the opposite: come up with one solution by bringing together multiple pre-determined answers.

Sometimes, it can be beneficial for individuals to brainstorm on their own before coming together to share their ideas as a group (in education, we call this the think-pair-share method).

Brainstorming is a powerful tool that can be used to generate new ideas, solve complex problems, and make better decisions. By understanding the process, techniques, and benefits of brainstorming, individuals and organizations can unlock their creative potential and drive innovation and growth. While it is not without its challenges, careful planning, facilitation, and participation can help avoid these pitfalls and lead to successful and productive brainstorming sessions.

Al-Samarraie, H., & Hurmuzan, S. (2018). A review of brainstorming techniques in higher education.  Thinking Skills and creativity ,  27 , 78-91.

Litchfield, R. C. (2008). Brainstorming reconsidered: A goal-based view.  Academy of Management Review ,  33 (3), 649-668.

Putman, V. L., & Paulus, P. B. (2009). Brainstorming, brainstorming rules and decision making.  The Journal of creative behavior ,  43 (1), 29-40.

Paulus, P. B., & Kenworthy, J. B. (2019). Effective brainstorming.  The Oxford handbook of group creativity and innovation , 287-386.

Paulus, P. B., Kohn, N. W., & Arditti, L. E. (2011). Effects of quantity and quality instructions on brainstorming.  The Journal of Creative Behavior ,  45 (1), 38-46.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is IQ? (Intelligence Quotient)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University

2 thoughts on “Brainstorming: 10 Examples, Techniques, and Benefits”

Hi dear Thank you for your useful contents. How can I have PDF files of these Examples, Techniques, And Benefits or every thing about problem solving techniques and examples? my best regards Alireza Khorasani

Send me an email and I’ll get it sent out to you! Best, Chris.

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College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start

Bonus Material: College Essay Brainstorming Questions  

The college essay is an extremely important component of your college application. Yes, college admissions officers do care about standardized test scores, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation.

All of these application components can help officers assess a student’s academic and professional potential (and much more).

The college application essay, however, gives students a chance to share their unique voice with an admissions officer. It’s like a brief interview, where students can give officers a powerful glimpse of who they are outside of their application in roughly 650 words.

So what do you say in those 650 words? How do you pick the right essay topic?

It’s all about the brainstorming process. In general, the more time you can devote to gathering potential essay topics  before  you start writing, the better. Gathering this material can also be helpful for writing supplemental essays down the road.

In this post, we provide actionable tips for guiding your college essay brainstorming process. After reading this article, students will be well poised to gather topics and eventually select the “right” essay topic .

We also give students access to 30 free college essay brainstorming questions to get started. Grab these below.

Download College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Here’s what we cover:

The Importance of College Essay Brainstorming

• 8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips
• Bonus : 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

We define the college essay as a “demonstration of character, values, and/or voice.” It is an introspective, personal essay that (ideally) adds significant value to a student’s overall application.

Many students are not well-versed in writing this kind of essay. Indeed, most students are familiar with the concept of the academic essay, with its neat five paragraphs. Very few have had a lot of time in high school classrooms to write deeply reflective pieces, and concise ones at that. (Remember: you only have 650 words or fewer to craft your response!)

That’s why brainstorming is so essential  to the college essay writing process. It’s your key to pinpointing the right topic, which we define as one with the potential to generate an essay that aligns with these 7 winning qualities .

It can also be valuable for gathering potential topics for supplemental essay responses, which many competitive colleges require.

For these very reasons, we spend a significant amount of time brainstorming in our college essay mentoring programs and summer workshops. Students who are able to gather a lot of material in this time tend to have an easier job down the road choosing the right topic, creating an outline, and eventually writing that first draft.

What’s more, they might surprise themselves in what they are able to pull from their many life experiences! It’s not uncommon for an essay student to choose a certain topic they never would have considered prior to brainstorming.

The tips outlined in the next section reflect this great value of brainstorming, and are the same we offer our college essay students at the start of their process.

8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips

Don’t let that blank page intimidate you! Follow these tips to guide your brainstorming process and remember that this stage should and will take time.

1. Know the standards

Students should feel very comfortable with colleges’ general expectations for the essay  before  they start brainstorming. If you haven’t done so already, please check out the following PrepMaven posts:

• What is the College Essay?

7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

• 11 College Essays That Worked
• What College Admissions Officers Look For

It can also be helpful to review the Common Application’s essay prompts . While students don’t necessarily have to respond to a  specific  prompt, these provide insight into the type of essay colleges are seeking.

2. No topic is “too small” (but some are “too big”)

Students only have 650 words (or fewer) to write their essays. That’s not a lot of space! For this reason, don’t shy away from seemingly “small” topics as you brainstorm.

One student who earned Ivy League acceptance, for example, wrote about her passion for hot sauce in her college essay!

On the same note, if you come up with “big” topics, such as cultural identity, a long-term extracurricular activity, or a religious belief, do your best to highlight specific components of these topics, or one representative experience. The best college essays don’t say everything there is to say about such large topics. Rather, they focus skillfully on one smaller component of a potentially bigger picture.

3. Write down all the details for every topic

When you land upon a topic, mine it for details. Write down everything you can think of about that experience, idea, or memory. Many of our students like to use bulleted lists in a Google Doc for doing this.

It’s important to squeeze out every possible detail so that you can fully assess a topic’s potential! In many cases, such details will become college essay topics themselves.

4. Work by category

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the possible topics out there–and don’t worry, this is common–gather ideas by category. Here are some sample category examples:

• Travel experiences
• Extracurricular activities
• Family life
• Culture and heritage
• Interests and hobbies
• Challenges (non-academic)

Categories can help you build a general portrait of who you are, at least to start. Once you have a few ideas per category, start diving deeper into those ideas and generating further details about each one.

5. Ask the right questions

It is often easier for students to generate a rich pool of potential topics by answering questions designed to encourage deep reflection and introspection. Of course, this begs the question: what should I be asking myself?

Take a look at these 30 questions  we ask our students in our college essay workshops and mentorship programs at the beginning of their process.

Once you’ve answered these questions fully and to the best of your ability, you’ll be poised for essay topic selection.

6. Keep it to yourself, mostly

Many college essay students risk writing about what their parents, friends, or teachers want them to write about. Others risk writing “what colleges want to hear.” Yet authenticity is one of the most important qualities of a successful college essay!

That’s why we encourage students to brainstorm independently. You are the only one in the world most familiar with your life experiences, after all! Consult family members, friends, or mentors only once you are further along in the essay writing process, or if you need clarification on the details of a specific experience. This will ensure you gather topics that are true to you first and foremost.

7. Maintain orderly notes

Brainstorming can be messy. Establish a system early on for maintaining orderly notes! Some tools that can come in handy:

• Bulleted or numbered lists
• Index cards
• Color-coding (digital or manual)
• Google Docs

8. Consider takeaways for each topic

As you compile topics, save time and start thinking in terms of “takeaways” for each. This will allow you to assess a topic’s potential for demonstrating your character, values, and/or voice.

Ask yourself for each topic : What values does this showcase? What does this say about me specifically? What meaningful reflections does it invite? What aspect of my voice is apparent here?

Download 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

You can jumpstart your college essay brainstorming process right now by downloading our college essay brainstorming questions.

With this free download, you’ll get:

• 30 of the best brainstorming questions we ask our students
• Guidance for next steps

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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Where to Begin? 6 Personal Essay Brainstorming Exercises

←8 Do’s and Don’ts for Crafting Your College Essay

Creating the First Draft of Your College Application Essay →

The Common App publishes a list of 7 prompts each year. They ultimately ask for similar types of responses, regardless of slight alterations year-to-year. The Common App prompts provide you with a forum to write about yourself, using whatever anecdote or vehicle you wish in order to communicate something profound and genuine about yourself to adcoms.

If this feat seems daunting or spellbindingly vague to you, you are not alone. For virtually every student applying to college, the moment when you sit down to draft your personal statement is likely the first—and may end up being the only—time in your life when you are pushed to describe your entire identity succinctly and eloquently. So, where to begin?

As with any writing assignment, the best way to approach the personal essay is to brainstorm what it is you want the entire essay to communicate about you to the adcom that will be considering you for admission. Read on for 4 surprising brainstorming exercises that will lead you to an effective personal statement strategy.

1. Consider the four core questions.

When writing your personal statement, there are four questions that your essay should answer:

• “Who am I?”
• “Why am I here?”
• “What is unique about me?”
• “What matters to me?”

These questions are important because they help bring awareness to the kind of person you are and touch on things such as your personality traits, your journey throughout high school, the interests and skills that make you unique, and what’s important to you. Colleges want to understand how you became who you are, and where you’re going (successful alumni reflect well on their school, after all!).

2. Try freeform writing.

To help answer these questions and start brainstorming, freeform writing is a good place to start. Begin by writing down 3-5 aspects of your personality or experiences and spend some time constructing narratives out of these different combinations.

This process of getting some ideas on paper and seeing how they can relate to each other can help you better identify a prompt that works for you. For example, you might note that you enjoy tutoring students in STEM, and are now working with a local school to create a Women in STEM initiative in your school district. You may also have tried previous initiatives that failed. These experiences could be constructed and applied to a number of Common App prompts. You could address a specific identity or interest you have associated with STEM, discuss what you learned from your failed initiatives, explore how you challenged the lack of women in STEM programs in your school district, envision solving for the lack of women involved in the science and mathematics fields, etc.

3. Make a list of opinions you firmly hold and explain them.

This exercise requires you to think about aspects of your identity that you have actively chosen. While exercise #4 asks you to consider what parts of your identity you have struggled to overcome, this exercise asks you to consider what aspects of your identity you are most proud of—those opinions that you hold because you chose to believe in something specific of your own accord.

This is an important brainstorming exercise because it should get you thinking about things you are passionate about. Ultimately, you will want to write your personal statement about something that defines you, gets you excited, and can exhibit your ability to think and speak for yourself. So now, before you start writing, make a list of the things that you care about most, and explain why you feel that way about them.

This list can include everything from your political affiliation to your stance on McDonald’s decision in the past year to serve breakfast for longer. The point of this exercise is that there is no right or wrong way of going about it, no topic that is more worthwhile than any other so long as you are passionate about it.

4. Make a list of your character flaws.

While the ultimate goal of the personal essay is to present yourself in as positive a light as possible to adcoms, the challenge is to do so in a way that is realistic and genuine. To do this, you’ll need to do some serious thinking about what types of character flaws accompany your best traits.

There are two main reasons why we suggest that students not shy away from talking about their own shortcomings as well as their achievements. The first reason is quite simple: a personal statement that paints a picture of its writer as perfect and without flaws will come across as dishonest and unrealistic. Obviously, you want to avoid this at all costs. Second, and even more important, if you are able to write a personal statement that acknowledges your flaws and recognizes that you are imperfect, it will reflect positively on you and vouch for your maturity.

If it feels counterintuitive or scary to dwell on anything other than successes, do not fret: that is the expected reaction to this advice. But if done correctly, acknowledging that you are not perfect can add genuineness to any personal essay. So, how to discuss character flaws? There are several ways to go about this.

One way is to discuss a character flaw that you have always struggled with and worked to improve upon throughout your life. In this scenario, discussing flaws can help introduce a discussion about growth or maturation and give your personal statement a nice narrative arc. Yet another way to discuss your character flaws is to acknowledge how certain struggles or personal shortcomings have shaped your identity, allowing you to go into more detail about the ways in which you were able to better yourself by identifying a flaw in yourself and being willing to fix it.

The thinking here is that students have no difficulty remembering all of the accomplishments, productive experiences, and glowing achievements that they want to include in their personal statements. After all, it is easy to write about these things. It is much harder to force yourself to think about aspects of your identity that rankle, and to think about how these things have shaped you.

5. Reflect on your choices and why you made them.

Another brainstorming exercise that can help you think of a topic is to reflect on what choices you’ve made and why. Once you come up with a list, it will be easier to see what you value and the direction in which you can take your essay.

Think about some of these questions to get the juices flowing:

• Why are they my best friend?
• Under what circumstances did we become friends?
• When did we last fight?
• If I had to spend 10 days doing the same exercise or physical activity, what would I choose? Why?
• Say I had to pick one food, and my three closest friends or family members could only eat that food for one week. What would that food be and why?
• Say I had to start a business selling something, and I would achieve the average level of success (financially, socially, etc) within that business, what would I choose to do?
• What movie would I want to take the place of a character in and which character would I want to play? Why?
• What class or teacher did I like most, and why? What class or teacher did I dislike most, and why?
• If I had to choose between singing, doing standup comedy, or dancing in front of 18,000 people, what would I choose? Why?

6. Make a list of anecdotes, childhood memories, or stories about yourself. Then choose one and make it your “vehicle.”

Finally, you should conclude your brainstorming session by searching for a vehicle: an anecdote that you can use to frame your personal statement.

You can use anecdotes in your personal statement in a number of ways. Some students choose to open with one, others close with one, and still others will use two or three anecdotes in order to add color and rhetorical flair to the points they are trying to make about themselves. The best types of anecdotes are the ones that tell the most about you or give insight into your character.

When we help students write their personal statements, we usually begin by brainstorming a few potential anecdotes to use in your essay. But if you are wondering what the point is of using an anecdote— Why use one at all when I could save words and just talk about myself ?—it’s useful to first understand why telling a story or two makes your personal statement stronger.

Ultimately, you will want your personal statement to communicate something about your character and personality that is unique and appealing to schools. When an adcom reads your personal statement, they are looking to hear about you in general, they are looking to learn something unique or special about you (so they can differentiate you from other applicants), and they are also looking for evidence that you would be a valuable addition to their community. But the fact of the matter is that these are fairly broad and vague directives to write about if you don’t have something specific to focus on.

This is where the anecdotes come in to save the day! They help instigate a conversation about yourself, your personality, your identity, and your character while also giving you something concrete to talk about. This is why we call it a “vehicle”—it can exist in its own right, but it carries with it important information about you as well.

Now that you know what the purpose of this vehicle is, it should be a little easier to brainstorm the anecdote(s) that you choose to frame your personal statement with. If you are not yet sure what to write about in your personal statement, you can start brainstorming anecdotes from your childhood, from favorite family stories to fond memories, from hilarious vacation mishaps to particularly tender moments. Do your parents have favorite stories to tell about you? Write those into your list as well.

Once you have a collection of stories to work with, you may begin to see certain patterns forming. Perhaps all of your favorite stories take place in the same setting—a vacation home that meant a lot to you or in the classroom of your favorite teacher. Maybe, you will realize that all of your fondest memories involve a certain activity or hobby of yours. Or, alternatively, you may notice that one story from your childhood mirrors or foreshadows a like, dislike, or accomplishment that would come to fruition later in your life.

If you already know what you want to say about yourself, you can come at the same exercise from another angle: try to think of several anecdotes that could be potential vehicles for the message about yourself that you want to transmit. If you want to illustrate that you love to learn, try to think pointedly about where that love comes from or what you have done that proves this. In this case, remember that any given anecdote can reveal more than one thing about you.

It is hard to imagine all of the possible personal statements that could come out of this brainstorming session, but it is almost certain that this exercise will help you come up with several concrete points to make about yourself and provide you with a tangible way to say those things.

Final Thoughts

If after doing these six brainstorming exercises, you still don’t feel ready to write your personal statement, fear not! Writing a personal essay is daunting and won’t be done in three steps, or even three days! 

For more guidance, check out these blog posts:

How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges

How to Come Up With an Idea for a Personal Statement

How to Write the Common App Essays

Mastering the Personal Statement

5 Tips for Editing Your College Essays

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Brainstorming Essay Topics for IELTS Writing Task 2

One of the most common mistakes students make when approaching their IELTS Task 2 Writing test is to just start writing. If you start to write before you think about what you are going to say, your essay may be incoherent and irrelevant—and your band score will suffer. The best way to fix this? Brainstorm IELTS Writing Task 2 topics before you write! In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can come up with essay topics for a variety of IELTS Task 2 Question Types to create the most coherent and relevant opinion essays possible.

Getting Started with IELTS Task 2 Essay Topics

Remember: on IELTS Academic Task 2 and the IELTS General Training Task 2, you’ll be writing a formal essay about an important issue facing the modern world or affective people’s lives. You won’t have outside resources with which to research the topic, so you’ll be relying on your own opinion. Because of this, factual accuracy is less important than the overall main ideas, cohesion, vocabulary (complexity, synonyms), and grammatical range (complex sentences) you show in your essay.

The biggest problem when students don’t brainstorm in IELTS essay writing is that it can make their essay choppy and off-topic. Together, coherence and relevance make up 50% of your score on the essay ! (Vocabulary/lexical resource and grammar are the other 50%.) Therefore, it is 100% essential that you spend 3 to 5 minutes planning your IELTS Task 2 writing —before you begin writing.

As the bulk of your points will be picked up in your two body paragraphs, I recommend that you start your essay by first brainstorming what ideas you will write about and what relevant examples you will include to back up your own knowledge. Let’s look at how to do this in IELTS writing Task 2 . First, here’s the overall process that you’ll use.

• Understand the type of question being asked.
• Brainstorm ideas.
• Choose an idea/ideas.
• Take short notes about your ideas.
• Start writing!

With that in mind, let’s look at each of these steps in greater detail.

Step-by-Step Guide to Brainstorming IELTS Writing Task 2

Step 1: understand the type of question being asked..

In another post, we examined the 5 main types of questions that you might see in the IELTS exam. Classifying IELTS questions into one of these categories according to common topics will help you make sure that you are answering the task response correctly. Look at the example Task 2 question below. How would you classify it?

Write at least 250 words.

This is a Problem + Solution question type, so keep that in mind as you start to brainstorm!

Step 2: Brainstorm ideas.

Let your mind wander for 30 to 60 seconds with all the possible ideas that instantly come to your mind. There is no need to make notes here, just mentally explore as many ideas as possible. These can be the negative effects or a negative impact of the problem, with a solution about how to avoid negative development of the situation—or they can be a positive suggestion, coming up with better ways to address the issue through a more positive development of the topic.

As you’ll see, these are the same types of ideas, just framed differently. The main point? Be sure you come up with examples in response to the direct questions the prompt is asking you.

Below, I have written out some of the thoughts and IELTS Writing Task 2 topics that initially came to my mind when I read the questions above.

Q2: Use unoccupied housing for other purposes; limit rent prices; government support for the poor; tax breaks for charging less rent; workers telecommute/live outside city

Step 3: Choose the idea.

Whilst brainstorming ideas, several ideas should come to your head. You need to choose one for each question you need to answer. However, before you decide to go with an idea, ask yourself these questions:

• Does my idea relate exactly to the question?
• Can I explain this idea with reasons and examples? (It is better to choose an idea that you can explain clearly over your best idea.)
• Is it a simple idea? (You have limited time and words to explain your idea. If the idea is too complex you will not be able to develop it fully and this will cost you points! A simple idea can still impress the examiner as long as you develop it well and provide relevant reasons and examples.)

Step 4: Write down short notes around your chosen ideas.

In the ‘Problem + Solution’ type question in IELTS Task 2 writing, there are usually two questions that need to be answered. You must first come up with an idea that answers the first question, and then provide an example that backs up that idea. Then you must come up with an idea for the second question and provide and example that backs up the second idea. Below are the ideas I went with and the examples I created on the above IELTS writing Task 2 question.

Q2: Limit rent prices, government support for poor Reason: Rent limits = more affordable hosing, support for poor = poor have more money for living/rent Example: Food subsidy = less money spent on food = more money for housing

Step 5: Start writing!

Now that you have the main ideas confirmed, your essay is practically written. The Q1 and Q2 notes can form two body paragraphs! And you can have a similar two body paragraph outline for other question types. For Advantage/disadvantage, for instance, you might have one body paragraph for advantages and one for disadvantages.

Just follow this simple formula for constructing your essay and you will complete Task 2 within 40 minutes. And to see how this formula worked for a full essay based on the outline above, check out a full sample response based on the question and notes above . I would also encourage you to look at similarly structured responses for common IELTS Writing Task 2 question types .

Again, brainstorming and prewriting a brief outline serve as the foundation for all of those model essays. Brainstorming may seem like a lot of work to start, but trust me, by brainstorming and planning your ideas first, you will save time and energy in the long run. By building this strong foundation, your essays will actually become easier to write, and you’ll be able to write them more quickly!

IELTS Essay Topics with Answers: Let’s Practice!

Practice makes perfect! Work with a variety of essay topics for IELTS to brainstorm the types of ideas that would best answer the questions. Here are just a few IELTS writing topics with answers (IELTS Academic) to get you started!

• Advantage/Disadvantage Essay
• Two-Part Question Essay
• Discussion Essay
• Agree/Disagree Essay
• You may wish to write your own response for each topic before you read the sample essay/model answers.

A Final Word on IELTS Task 2 Topics

The more you practice English writing topics for the IELTS, the easier it will be to brainstorm and find essay topics for IELTS! This will take a lot of the pressure and stress off of you as you focus on IELTS essay questions.

As you practice, keep in mind that you should stick to one idea and one example per paragraph! On the IELTS test, too many ideas and examples complicate your essay. By separating your IELTS Writing Task 2 topics into a clear, efficient organizational structure, you’ll show the IELTS examiners exactly how great your ideas actually are!

Eliot Friesen-Meyers is the Senior Curriculum Manager for Magoosh IELTS and TOEFL. He attended Goshen College (B.A.), New York University (M.A.), and Harvard University (M.T.S.), gaining experience and skills in curriculum development, ESOL instruction, online teaching and learning, and IELTS and TOEFL test prep education. Eliot’s teaching career started with Literacy Americorps in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later, taught ESL programs at Northeastern University, University of California-Irvine, and Harold Washington College. Eliot was also a speaker at the 2019 TESOL International Conference . With over 10 years of experience, he understands the challenges students face and loves helping them overcome those challenges. Come join Eliot on Youtube , Facebook , and Instagram . Recent blog posts Complete Guide to IELTS Writing Task 1 Complete Guide to IELTS Writing Task 2

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20 responses to “Brainstorming Essay Topics for IELTS Writing Task 2”

How get eassly 6 band in ielts .when you have only one month time only.

That depends a lot on what your current IELTS performance is. Your exact one-month study plan should focus on your weaknesses while building on your strengths.

It definitely is possible to get a good score on the IELTS in a month though, and many students have gotten a 6 or higher with just one month of study. Here on the blog, we have a few posts about one month IELTS study plans. See Kuangyan’s weekly IELTS study template , and her general advice for one month of IELTS study .

Hi my IELTS score is L 5.5 R 3.5 W 5.5 S 5.5 overall 5.0 can I go for rechecking because I need 5 to get admission.

I’m afraid that we can’t provide any more advice than what we already wrote in this blog post. I recommend that you read it carefully and take a look at some of the earlier comments before you make any decisions 🙂

I got 5.5 score bt i wanna got each 6 score then how can i get 6each score plz tell me

There’s no simple answer to that question, Seerat. After all, the best way to improve depends on your own strengths and weaknesses in IELTS Writing Task 2. Fortunately, Magoosh now offers a complete guide to IELTS Writing Task 2 . That guide should have some tips that will work for you personally as you boost your IELTS score by a half-band. 🙂

Result of 23 Sept exam was L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-5.5 After EOR in speaking band score increased by 5.5 to 6.5

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Declared result of 23 Sept exam L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-5.5 After EOR L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-6.5

I’m wondering, if “one idea and one example per paragraph” is enough, and you could lose points for that?

I often see in most blogs or essay examples, they suggest to provide a few ideas and examples per paragraph.

Also, could I generally stick to this template ( https://magoosh.com/ielts/the-best-ielts-task-2-writing-template/ ) EVERY TIME and for ALL type of task 2 questions for a 8+ score?

By the way, I enjoyed reading this blog, very nice work!

I generally do recommend sticking to one idea and one supporting detail per paragraph, because it keeps the essay simple. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the essay will have fewer ideas and details. It can simply mean that the essay has more paragraphs, since each paragraph can only have one idea and one detail.

If you want to write more complex paragraphs, that’s certainly alright… provided you can do a good job writing them. Use more complicate paragraphs carefully, as they are– of course– a bit more difficult to write.

Hi Gwendolyn, thank you for helping out all those who are aspiring to take IELTS exam. I would appreciate if you could please give feedback on below attempt for writing task 2. Thank you in advance 🙂

“Prevention is better than cure”. Researching and treating diseases is too costly so it would be better to invest in preventative measures. To what extent do you agree?

“It is better to be safe than sorry”, treatment of diseases is not affordable in today’s world, rather being precautious and opting for spending on measures to stay healthy is ideal option. In my opinion, it is important to maintain good health than spending on expensive treatments later on. Though, we cannot ignore the importance of science and research to cure deadly diseases. For instance, tuberculosis, heart attack, kidney transplant etcetera. People suffering from above mentioned diseases can only be saved by the access of medical science, surely the treatment is expensive, but when it comes to life, nothing is too pricey. However, cost involved in taking preventative measures is much cheaper than curing the disease. To illustrate, diseases like malaria, dengue, typhoid are very easy to catch, especially, in rainy season. Curing such diseases is not affordable, it is therefore, best to invest in precautionate devices such as mosquito killing machines, maintaining hygiene in and around house, wearing clothes to cover body areas that are prone to mosquito bites. Furthermore, the pain of treatment and the side effects of medications is far more adverse. For instance, treating an ankle that got fractured in the gym is more painful than wearing personal protective equipment during exercise, which could avoid such injuries, so it makes more sense to invest in ppe than to pay for treating injuries, which occur due to failure of taking prevention. To conclude, I agree that being cautious about our health and well-being is very important but the progress made by science and research in treating serious illness is invaluable too. People should enforce safety, to keep healthy, or else, they have no option but to go for dearer treatments which don’t come without side effects.

I enjoyed this article as it is very clear.

FYI i just wanted to point out a couple of typos in case you want to correct them:

with all the possible ideas that come to instantly come to your mind.(step 2)

your easy will relate to the task response(step 5)

Thanks again,

Thanks for your kind words on this article, Chris. And thanks for bringing these typos to my attention! I just fixed them. 🙂

mam my reading section is not improving please help me in that part how i can achieve good band score in reading

How you can improve in IELTS Reading depends a lot on your current Reading challenges. Fortunately, Magoosh has a Complete Guide to IELTS Reading that should help you with any challenge you’re facing. 🙂

Thanks for this helpful content. I have a question and I’ll appreciate if you can make it clear for me.

Can I explain more than one idea for each question? For example and for this sample question I have 2 ideas around the questions (lack of exercising and eating junk food).

Is it possible to explain both ideas for each question or I have to choose only one of these ideas?

You can certainly have more than one idea for the question. You can write 2 different body paragraphs explaining your examples. 🙂 Having more support for your viewpoint on the Task 2 essay can make your essay stronger. With that said, you should make sure that both of your ideas address the prompt and are very clear for the reader/grader to understand.

I secured S 7, L 6, W 6, R 5.5, I need 6 in Reading. Should I fill rechecking form ?

Hi Shefali,

There are usually no changes to the reading score even after a re-score. So, it’d probably be a better use of your time to retake the exam than request a re-score of the Reading section.

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Brainstorming for LL Narrative

• Post author By Qusai
• Post date May 12, 2024
• No Comments on Brainstorming for LL Narrative

OPEN ENDED QUESTION

Instructions: Please respond to the questions that follow with as much detail and description that you can. The more you put into reflecting now on the complexities of your language and literacy development, the better off you’ll be in completing our major assignment for our first phase of this course. Take as much space as you need.

When it comes to your experiences with language (speaking and listening) and literacy (reading and writing), what specific moments in your life can you recall that are particularly vivid or that emerge as being significant to you? Yes, it could be an example from your earliest memories of learning to speak, read, and write (in school or elsewhere), but it doesn’t have to be. It could be a memorable encounter—a moment of tension, confusion, or triumph. It could be about experiences developing additional dialects/languages and advanced literacies (i.e., learning to speak/write in different peer groups, at school, at work, with family, online, in different locations across the nation or world, etc. Please select 3 moments to describe. Then, explain why each is interesting or significant.

What specific materials or artifacts (i.e., objects, writing, learning materials, pictures, video recordings, etc.) from your past can you locate/recall and that in some way represent a meaningful moment in your reading/writing development? This can be something like a journal or book, but also anything at all (e.g., a toy, piece of furniture, cereal box, art supplies, etc.) What memories and feelings can you extract from these examples you’ve gathered/recalled? Explain.

For better or worse, who and what impacted how, when, and why you developed your languages and literacies? Who in your family, at school, among your peer group, or in your community played a part? How did your particular situation or experience shape your literacy? That is, what sorts of issues, experiences, organizations, or life circumstances played a part? What kinds of languages and literacies did you gain from those people and your particular situation? How? Why? Explain.

In what ways do you see your language, reading, and writing capabilities as having social consequences or impacting your life circumstances—that is, what advantages did/do you have and what disadvantages did/do you face as a result of your language and literacy learning?

How might your experience with language and literacy connect to larger social realities (e.g., of your life, family, generation, gender, race, culture, nation, geographic location, historical moment, etc.)?

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Living room

Faith popcorn, the futurist living above the store, with plenty of old world comforts..

By Joanne Kaufman Photography by Katherine Marks

Faith Popcorn, thought leader, trend-spotter and flamboyant futurist, never saw townhouse ownership in her own future.

In the early 1990s, Ms. Popcorn (originally Plotkin) was living in a small studio apartment with a Murphy bed, a rental turned co-op. She felt wonderfully comfortable there — until a friend from California, who “had this gorgeous place in Beverly Hills,” came to visit. “She embarrassed me,” Ms. Popcorn recalled. “She said: ‘You are moving! This is ridiculous.’”

The implicit message: Ms. Popcorn needed at long last to act like an adult.

She is, in fact, skittish about revealing her age, preferring to say she is a decade younger than Willie Nelson, whom she adores and who just turned 91. (Go ahead and do the math — we’ll wait.) But Ms. Popcorn is happy to have it known that her consulting firm, BrainReserve , which provides marketing advice to companies like PepsiCo, Home Depot, Pfizer, American Express and Comcast, celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. These days, she works from home: The Upper East Side townhouse she bought in 1995 serves as home and headquarters.

“We’ve had so many different kinds of people here, company presidents and chairmen, no names but heads of countries,” Ms. Popcorn said. “We brainstorm. We think together.” And because many of BrainReserve’s clients run Fortune 500 companies, and many of those top executives are men, the house is decorated in a sort of corporate baronial style.

“I chose the furniture with the goal in mind of making men comfortable,” Ms. Popcorn said of the custom-made sofas and chairs , many tufted and all upholstered in velvet. “It’s not about big and small but about neutral colors.”

There is blue-gray velvet in the ground-floor entryway and taupe velvet in the second-floor living room, a space that can seat 18.

Ms. Popcorn owns more than 35 pieces of Palissy majolica , between the townhouse and her home in Wainscott, N.Y. She became interested in the ceramic style after reading about it in Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” “I love animals of all shapes and kinds,” she said, “and Palissy’s vases and plates with snakes, fish, lizards and snails lying pondside celebrate abundant animal life.”

The Pullman kitchen between the living room and the dining room, one of three kitchens in the house, is hidden by a wine-colored velvet curtain.

But the silver bar cart , about the size of a vintage Volkswagen, is out by the staircase, fully stocked and always open for business.

As soon as she found this narrow five-story stucco building in Lenox Hill, Ms. Popcorn was a goner. “It was like a canal house,” she said. “Beautiful.”

The real estate agent said it was in foreclosure. Ms. Popcorn said she didn’t have any money. But her company was doing well, and she ran the numbers: If she gave up her office space on Madison Avenue and moved operations to the house, she could swing it.

“I didn’t realize at the time that the house needed everything ,” Ms. Popcorn said. “I made so many rookie errors. It was the longest closing in Citibank history. I didn’t have the guts. I thought, Oh, I’ll just lose the 10 percent deposit.”

But, Ms. Popcorn continued, “I squeaked through somehow, and then I was so happy because a couple of years later, I adopted my first daughter.” Later, she adopted another daughter. Their childhood portraits, painted by Joe Duffy, an artist and designer, are on display in the dining room on the second floor.

Ms. Popcorn bought the Warhol prints from the writer Fran Lebowitz. “She must have needed the money,” Ms. Popcorn said. “I know they were for sale, and at the time I didn’t have any money. I really did not have money, and I think Fran wanted $1,000 a piece for them. But a friend told me, ‘Buy them.’ Everything seems cheap in retrospect.”

Ms. Popcorn is fond of saying she lives above the store. In fact, her bedroom and study are above the living room and dining room, the site of business meetings and business meals.

There’s more Palissy majolica above the fireplace.

When Ms. Popcorn was worried about taking on the expense of the house, her sister told her that their grandmother, who had owned several buildings in Lower Manhattan, would have wanted her to have it. That fortified her to complete the transaction and to undertake a comprehensive renovation.

Standing on the terrace, she said, “At some point I realized that my bedroom here was at exactly the tree line of where it was when I stayed at my grandmother’s apartment.”

In the ’80s, Ms. Popcorn accurately foretold the trends of “cocooning,” the desire to isolate from a scary world, and “icon toppling,” the rejection of pillars of society like government and religion. Another term she coined, “cashing out,” from the early 1990s, recognized the eagerness to find work/life balance — and to leave the corporate world altogether. And Ms. Popcorn came up with “AtmosFear” long before climate change and Covid-19 became front-page news.

Visitors to the home seem to expect something straight out of tomorrowland. “Everybody who comes here is like, ‘Oh!’” Ms. Popcorn noted. “Maybe they’re surprised it’s retro. But I didn’t want clients to be in something that felt like a spaceship. I felt I should put them in an unchallenging, comfortable place not defined by time.”

It’s clear from the look of her study on the third floor that Ms. Popcorn, too, prizes comfort. Throw pillows crowd the sofa. More velvet — here, it’s claret-colored. Several pieces of majolica are on the mantelpiece …

… along with ceramic Japanese Chins , a tribute to the seven members of the breed Ms. Popcorn has had over the years.

Behind her desk are photos of Judy Garland . “When I was young, people told me I looked like her,” she said.

Guests tend to fall into one of two categories: friends running away from their own homes (there’s a very nice guest room with a compact kitchen on the top floor) or clients buffeted by ill winds and tough choices.

“We’re helping them reposition their companies,” Ms. Popcorn said. “No matter what decade you’re in, the future is painful because the future means change. It means rethinking things. Sometimes it means they have to buy new technology. It means figuring out if they have enough of this or that thing.”

Ms. Popcorn likens her house to a refined version of the Factory, Andy Warhol’s New York City studio. “I love the fact that he worked there, he entertained there, he was crazy there,” she said. “My feeling is that if you love your work and you love your life, there is no need to separate them. It’s one big, beautiful thing.”

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The State of Real Estate

Whether you’re renting, buying or selling, here’s a look at real estate trends..

A couple’s tiny cabin in the Catskills, one of the few extant examples of a popular 1970s design, had no heat or toilet . But it was theirs for $85,000.

Fueled by the public’s love of reality TV and desire to view luxury homes,  real estate agents are chasing fame  as fervently as they chase deals.

Property is generally worth less if it’s owned by a Black American. Here’s how the “Black tax” has affected homeownership  for Black Americans.

It’s not that easy to tell fake Donald Judd furniture from the real thing. See if you can do a better job  than Kim Kardashian.

A utilitarian walk-in shower works just as well as something nicer, so why spend the time and effort — and the money — to upgrade it? Here’s why .

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Brainstormen over essays met meer dan 100 ideeën in 2024

Presenteren

Meneer Vu • 03 april, 2024 • 10 min gelezen

We zijn er allemaal geweest. Leraren wijzen ons een essay toe dat volgende week moet worden ingeleverd. Wij trillen. Waar moeten we over schrijven? Welke problemen aanpakken? Zou het essay origineel genoeg zijn? Dus, hoe doen we brainstorm essays ?

Het is alsof je je in een onontgonnen afgrond waagt. Maar maak je geen zorgen, want het maken van een brainstorm voor het schrijven van essays kan je echt helpen bij het plannen, uitvoeren en vastleggen van die A+

Hier leest u hoe u kunt brainstormen voor essays …

Inhoudsopgave

Verlovingstips met ahaslides, wat is brainstormen.

• Schrijf ideeën onbewust
• Teken een mindmap
• Ga op Pinterest
• Probeer een Venn-diagram
• Gebruik een T-kaart
• Online hulpmiddelen
• Meer AhaSlides-hulpmiddelen
• Laatste zeg
• 14 regels voor brainstormen om u te helpen bij het maken van creatieve ideeën in 2024
• 10 brainstorm vragen voor School en Werk in 2024

Eenvoudige brainstormsjablonen

Ontvang vandaag nog gratis brainstormsjablonen! Meld u gratis aan en neem wat u wilt uit de sjabloonbibliotheek!

Elke succesvolle creatie begint met een geweldig idee, wat in veel gevallen zelfs het moeilijkste is.

Brainstormen is gewoon het vrij stromende proces van het bedenken van ideeën. In dit proces kom je op een heleboel ideeën zonder schuld of schaamte . Ideeën kunnen out-of-the-box zijn en niets wordt als te gek, te complex of onmogelijk beschouwd. Hoe creatiever en vrijer, hoe beter.

De voordelen van brainstormen kunnen u verrassen:

• Verhoogt je creativiteit : Brainstormen dwingt je geest tot onderzoek en het bedenken van mogelijkheden, zelfs ondenkbare. Zo opent het je geest voor nieuwe ideeën.
• Een waardevolle vaardigheid: Niet alleen op de middelbare school of universiteit, brainstormen is een levenslange vaardigheid in je werk en vrijwel alles dat een beetje nadenken vereist.
• Helpt organiseer je essay : Op elk punt in het essay kun je stoppen om over ideeën te brainstormen. Dit helpt je het essay te structureren, waardoor het coherent en logisch wordt.
• Het kan je kalmeren: Veel van de stress bij het schrijven komt van het hebben van niet genoeg ideeën of het niet hebben van een structuur. U kunt zich na het eerste onderzoek misschien overweldigd voelen door de schat aan informatie. Brainstormideeën kunnen u helpen uw gedachten te ordenen, wat een kalmerende activiteit is die u kan helpen stress te vermijden.

Essay-brainstormen in een academische setting werkt iets anders dan in een team. Jij bent de maar een brainstormen voor je essay, wat betekent dat je de ideeën zelf bedenkt en afsnijdt.

Leer te gebruiken ideeënbord naar effectief ideeën genereren met AhaSlides

Hier zijn vijf manieren om precies dat te doen ...

Brainstormen over essays - 5 ideeën

Idee #1 – schrijf ideeën onbewust.

Onder ' Blink: de kracht van denken zonder na te denken ”, wijst Malcolm Gladwell erop dat ons onbewuste vele malen effectiever is dan ons bewuste bij het nemen van beslissingen.

Tijdens brainstormen kan ons onbewuste onderscheid maken tussen relevante en irrelevante informatie in een fractie van een seconde. Onze intuïtie wordt onderschat. Het kan vaak betere oordelen opleveren dan een weloverwogen en doordachte analyse, omdat het alle irrelevante informatie doorsnijdt en zich alleen op de belangrijkste factoren concentreert. 

Zelfs als de ideeën die je bedenkt tijdens het brainstormen over essays onbeduidend lijken, kunnen ze je later naar iets groots leiden. Vertrouw op jezelf en zet alles wat je bedenkt op papier; als je je niet concentreert op zelfbewerking, kun je op ingenieuze ideeën komen.

Dat komt omdat vrij schrijven een writer's block kan opheffen en je onbewuste de vrije loop kan laten gaan!

Idee #2 – Teken een mindmap

Brains hou van visuele communicatie en mindmaps zijn precies dat.

Onze gedachten komen zelden binnen in licht verteerbare brokken; ze zijn meer een web van informatie en ideeën die zich op elk moment naar voren uitstrekken. Het is moeilijk om deze ideeën bij te houden, maar als u ze allemaal in een mindmap manifesteert, kunt u meer ideeën krijgen en ze beter begrijpen en behouden.

Om een ​​effectieve mindmap te maken, volgen hier enkele tips:

• Creëer een centraal idee : Teken in het midden van je paper een centraal onderwerp/idee dat het startpunt van je essay vertegenwoordigt en vertak je vervolgens naar verschillende argumenten. Dit centrale beeld zal fungeren als visuele stimulans om je hersenen te triggeren en je constant te herinneren aan het kernidee.
• Trefwoorden toevoegen : Wanneer u vertakkingen aan uw mindmap toevoegt, moet u een kernidee opnemen. Houd deze zinnen zo kort mogelijk om een ​​groter aantal associaties te genereren en houd ruimte voor meer gedetailleerde vertakkingen en gedachten.
• Markeer takken in verschillende kleuren : Gekleurde pen is je beste vriend. Pas verschillende kleuren toe op elke kernideetak hierboven. Op deze manier kun je argumenten onderscheiden.
• Gebruik visuele betekenaars : Aangezien beelden en kleuren de kern van een mindmap vormen, moet u ze zoveel mogelijk gebruiken. Het tekenen van kleine doodles werkt geweldig omdat het nabootst hoe onze geest onbewust tot ideeën komt. Als alternatief, als u een online brainstormtool , kunt u echte afbeeldingen en ze insluiten.

Idee #3 – Ga naar Pinterest

Geloof het of niet, Pinterest is eigenlijk een behoorlijk behoorlijke online brainstormtool. Je kunt het gebruiken om afbeeldingen en ideeën van andere mensen te verzamelen en ze allemaal samen te voegen om een ​​duidelijker beeld te krijgen van waar je essay over moet gaan.

Als je bijvoorbeeld een essay schrijft over het belang van studeren, kun je zoiets schrijven als: Is de universiteit belangrijk? in de zoekbalk. Misschien vind je gewoon een heleboel interessante infographics en perspectieven die je nog nooit eerder hebt overwogen.

Bewaar dat op je eigen ideeënbord en herhaal het proces nog een paar keer. Voordat je het weet, heb je een verzameling ideeën die je echt kunnen helpen bij het vormgeven van je essay!

Idee #4 – Probeer een Venn-diagram

Probeer je overeenkomsten te vinden tussen twee onderwerpen? Dan kan de beroemde Venn-diagramtechniek de sleutel zijn, omdat deze de kenmerken van elk concept duidelijk visualiseert en laat zien welke delen elkaar overlappen.

Gepopulariseerd door de Britse wiskundige John Venn in de jaren 1880, illustreert het diagram traditioneel eenvoudige set-relaties in waarschijnlijkheid, logica, statistiek, taalkunde en informatica.

Je begint met het tekenen van twee (of meer) kruisende cirkels en labelt elke cirkel met een idee waar je aan denkt. Schrijf de kwaliteiten van elk idee in hun eigen cirkels, en de ideeën die ze delen in het midden waar de cirkels elkaar kruisen.

Bijvoorbeeld, in de student debat onderwerp Marihuana zou legaal moeten zijn omdat alcohol dat is , je kunt een cirkel hebben die de positieve en negatieve kanten van marihuana opsomt, de andere cirkel die hetzelfde doet voor alcohol, en de middenweg die de effecten vermeldt die ze onderling delen.

Idee #5 – Gebruik een T-kaart

Deze brainstormtechniek werkt goed om te vergelijken en te contrasteren, dankzij het feit dat het supereenvoudig is.

Het enige wat je hoeft te doen is de titel van het essay bovenaan je paper te schrijven en de rest in tweeën te splitsen. Aan de linkerkant schrijf je over het argument For en aan de rechterkant schrijf je over het argument tegen .

Bijvoorbeeld in het onderwerp Moeten plastic tassen worden verboden? je kunt de voordelen in de linkerkolom schrijven en de nadelen in de rechterkolom. Evenzo, als je over een personage uit fictie schrijft, kun je de linkerkolom gebruiken voor hun positieve eigenschappen en de rechterkant voor hun negatieve eigenschappen. Simpel als dat.

👏 Heb meer nodig? Bekijk ons ​​artikel over Ideeën goed brainstormen !

Online tools om te brainstormen voor essays

Dankzij technologie zijn we niet langer afhankelijk van voor slechts een stuk papier en een pen. Er is een overvloed aan tools, betaald en gratis, om uw virtuele brainstormsessie makkelijker…

• Vrije geest is gratis, downloadbare software voor mindmapping. Je kunt brainstormen over een essay met verschillende kleuren om te laten zien naar welke delen van het artikel je verwijst. De kleurgecodeerde functies houden uw essays bij terwijl u schrijft.
• mindgenius is een andere app waarmee je je eigen mindmap kunt samenstellen en aanpassen op basis van een reeks sjablonen.
• AhaDia's is een gratis tool om met anderen te brainstormen. Als je aan een teamessay werkt, kun je iedereen vragen hun ideeën voor het onderwerp op te schrijven en vervolgens te stemmen op wat hun favoriet is.
• Miro is een geweldig hulpmiddel voor het visualiseren van vrijwel alles met veel bewegende delen. Het geeft je een oneindig bord en elke pijlvorm onder de zon om de delen van je essay te construeren en uit te lijnen.

Meer AhaSlides-hulpmiddelen om uw brainstormsessies beter te maken!

• Te gebruiken AhaSlides Live Word Cloud-generator om meer ideeën te verzamelen uit uw menigten en klaslokalen!
• gastheer Gratis live vraag en antwoord om meer inzichten uit de menigte te krijgen!
• Gamify-betrokkenheid met een draai aan het wiel ! Het is een leuke en interactieve manier om de deelname te vergroten
• Leer in plaats van saaie MCQ-vragen hoe je de online quizmaker gebruikt nu!
• Willekeurig je team om meer plezier mee te hebben AhaSlides willekeurige teamgenerator !

Laatste woord over brainstormessays

Eerlijk gezegd, het engste moment van het schrijven van een essay is voordat je begint, maar brainstormen voor essays ervoor kan het proces van het schrijven van een essay echt minder eng maken. Het is een proces dat je helpt door een van de moeilijkste delen van essay en schrijven heen te breken en je creatieve sappen laat stromen voor de inhoud die voor je ligt.

💡 Ben je naast brainstorm-essays nog op zoek naar brainstorm-activiteiten? Probeer een aantal van deze !

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