brainstorming in an essay

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

Home / Guides / Writing Guides / Writing Tips / How to Brainstorm for an Essay

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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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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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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Baruch College Writing Center

Brainstorming Strategies

This guide includes strategies for generating ideas at the start of the writing process. Read through the list, choose one or more you feel ready to try, and get started brainstorming.

To generate new ideas

To start drafting, to work through anxiety about an assignment, to start working with sources, to plan your approach.

• Visual aids
• Brainstorm in a new space. Try writing by hand, on your phone, on a large sheet of paper, in an email draft, or any space that feels new to you. Write down any ideas that come to mind about your assignment.
• Talk it out. Try recording your ideas about your essay on your phone (or another voice recorder). Later, you can go back, listen, and transcribe.
• Work with a partner. Ask your partner to take notes as you talk through your essay. Then, take notes as your partner describes their own ideas. Exchange notes.
• Reverse brainstorm. If your paper is meant to solve a problem or make a recommendation, reverse the problem. Ask yourself, “What would have the opposite effect? What wouldn’t help with this problem?” Write down everything that comes to mind. Then, reverse your notes to come up with a list of useful recommendations.
• Brainstorm in a language other than English. If you speak, read, or write more than one language, use all of your languages in the brainstorming process. You may think of some ideas in your native language and others in English—give yourself the freedom to get your ideas out in whatever language they come in. By the end, your paper will include a mix of words, phrases, drawings and/or questions in one or two languages. (You can do this work on a blank sheet of paper or using the Brainstorming Cluster .)
• Write the easiest part of your paper first instead of starting with the thesis, argument, or introduction. For example, you might begin by describing your evidence, writing about your object of analysis, or using a key term from your assignment or class discussions as a starting point. Pre-writing will help you develop your main ideas later.
• Set a timer and type (or write by hand) without stopping. Start small (five–ten minutes), and then try for a longer stretch. Resist the temptation to pause, and focus on keeping your hands moving. This might require following a tangent or skipping to a part of your argument that feels easier to write, even if it’s disconnected. The goal is to get your ideas freely flowing and to get rid of that stressful blank page.
• Write down what you’re worried about. Take out a new page or open up a new file, and write about any anxieties you have about this assignment: Is there a concept you’ve struggled with this semester? Critical feedback you’ve received in the past? A really busy week ahead? Try to produce one page of free writing. Nobody will read what you’ve written, and you can write in any language. The goal is simply to get these first thoughts or fears out of mind. When you reach a stopping point, start planning your work: switch to another brainstorming strategy, create a todo list, and/or identify who you might ask for help.
• Write a draft for yourself (rather than a draft in which you think about the reader or instructor). Write down any idea that comes to mind, in response to the assignment—you can be as messy, unstructured, or informal as you’d like. Later, you can focus one step of your revision on meeting your readers’ needs.
• Pull quotes, data, or arguments from your sources. Then, draft how you’ll frame each piece of evidence. Why is it important? How does it support or complicate your argument? Do you agree? What do you know about the author or context?
• Start by close-reading. If you’re working on a paper that requires close-reading, take out your text and select a short passage that interests you. Reread, underlining or circling any parts that seem important. Freewrite for ten minutes—write down any ideas that come to mind about what you have read. Answer the following questions to get started: Why do you think you chose this passage over others? What is significant about it? Do you notice any patterns or repetition? Any contradictions? How do you think others might interpret this passage? If you wanted to explore these ideas more, what other passages would you select?
• List the “action verbs”
• List the questions you know you’ll need to answer
• List points from your readings/notes that you know you’ll want to use
• Make a to-do list of all the actions you will need to perform to successfully complete this assignment
• A topic outline: list topics and sub-topics for short assignments that do not require an argument (memos, cover letters, response papers, etc.)
• A claim outline: list claims and sub-claims for an argumentative paper to check whether the logic of your argument makes sense
• A storyboard outline: when you have a lot of important points, but don’t yet have a clear idea of what order they work best in, write them out on note-cards and experiment with arranging them in different orders
• Write down one important word or phrase in the middle and circle it.
• How do the other items you need to include connect to this main idea? Would you use straight lines to connect these ideas? Overlapping circles? Draw your ideas in any form you’d like.
• After, consider what the relationship between your ideas might be. Take notes for possible transitions or missing links.
• Alternatively, try filling out the Brainstorming Cluster or Flow Chart .

Brainstorming Cluster

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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.

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4.2: Brainstorming & Prewriting

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• Sybil Priebe, Ronda Marman, & Dana Anderson
• North Dakota State College of Science via North Dakota University System

This chapter brought to you by Sybil Priebe and edited pieces of this Wikibook 54 .

Why Prewrite?

Prewriting for even 5 to 20 minutes can help you establish what you already know about a paper topic, as well as aid you in discovering where you would like to go with a paper (i.e. what you want to know). Doing so can often help prevent you from committing to superficial and/or mundane responses. Prewriting can help you find strong, thoughtful, and clear answers to questions posed by either the assignment or by your consideration of it. It can reveal to you those potential areas of personal interest within the writing task: in a manner of speaking, prewriting enables you to “discover” yourself within the context of your topic. It can also help you nail down responses – to move ideas from short-term memory into long-term or written memory – so that you can get to the work of writing rather than trying to remember what it is you want to say. That is, your thinking is often more clear and better focused when engaged in actual writing. As such, prewriting can act as a tool to ward off or break through what is commonly called “writer’s block.”

Prewriting Activities:

The following are techniques that can aid in the composition process, either in coming up with ideas or in working through various obstacles along the way.

Brainstorming:

Brainstorming is one of the most effective pre-writing techniques you can use. It’s virtually painless and can be pretty fun, if you let it! Brainstorming is easy because there are NO RULES. Let your mind wander and think about things that you would like to explore more. Try to create a mental web of things you can connect to one another. Let the lightning of ideas strike you as they may. If you’d like a bit more structure in your prewriting, try one of these methods:

Listing allows the writer to accomplish several important tasks:

• Finding a topic
• After narrowing down your topic, create a list with everything

EXAMPLE OF LISTING

The assignment is an essay about anything you want to learn more about; the topic I’m thinking of writing about is finding balance in college. 1.

• Balancing classes and work
• Studying better
• Distant friendships
• How do I find time to take care of myself?

Freewriting:

Similar to listing, only in this case you simply start writing in sentence form literally anything that comes to mind in context of thinking about your topic and/or assignment.

EXAMPLE OF FREEWRITING

I don't know what I want to learn. I really hate having to balance school and work right now. Hey, maybe that's something; I could research balance in people's lives and how they achieve it?

This form of prewriting is geared more toward organization. It groups your thoughts into a definite main point and the supporting details.

EXAMPLE OF OUTLINING

• Mental/Spiritual
• Stress and Illness
• Be Organized
• ii. Find Routines that work for you

STUDENT EXAMPLE OF OUTLINING

In our student sample 55 , the writer may start with the events of his freshman year, going all the way through to his senior year.

Paragraph 1 = Freshman:

I learned to manage my time with practice, schoolwork, and my social life.

I learned what it means to earn your status within a group atmosphere.

Paragraph 2 = Sophomore:

I learned to deal with adversity, as I was injured throughout most of the season.

I learned to ask for and rely on the help of others when I could not do things on my own.

Paragraph 3 = Junior:

I learned to truly work together to achieve team goals, as we had a very successful season.

I learned to present myself as a role model, as I gained some community notoriety.

Paragraph 4 = Senior:

I learned how to present myself as a true leader of a group, as I was elected team captain.

I learned to take pride in everything I do because it is the most rewarding.

EVENTS OF THE NARRATIVE

Paragraph 1:

My experience playing High School basketball taught me skills which will benefit me throughout the rest of my life. It all started during the fall of my freshman year at Otucan Bila National High School, when I quickly found out how important time management is. I had my schoolwork, which was fourteen credits including an extremely difficult Mathematics class. I had basketball, which included meetings and practice every day and running and lifting a couple times of week. I also had my social life, another important aspect, especially to a twelve-year-old.

Paragraph 2:

My sophomore year taught me how to deal with adversity. I broke my leg during the second game of the season against Team Angels, and I learned how something that seems devastating can be seen in a positive light. I learned that life will always have something unexpected in store but learning to deal with it makes us stronger people.

Paragraph 3:

My junior year taught me how to set goals and achieve them in a team atmosphere. Our team that year had a mission to make the playoffs, and we were not going to let anything get in our way. We really came together that year because we all had a common goal. I learned that a group can achieve wonderful things if all of the group members work together and believe in each other.

Paragraph 4:

My senior year in basketball taught me how to be a leader. I was elected team captain by my teammates, which showed me that my peers respected me and knew they could rely on me. Leadership does not come easily, however. I learned that leadership must not only be earned, but it also must be kept. I was always conscious of the way I acted and spoke, because I knew my teammates were looking to me for strength.

Conclusion:

Each year I played High School basketball taught me something not only about myself but also about the nature of the world and the people who inhabit the world. I learned how to balance my time, deal with adversity, the true meaning of teamwork, and how to be a respected leader. These skill-building activities will benefit me throughout the rest of my life.

Clustering:

Clustering is a primarily visual form of pre-writing. You start out with a central idea written in the middle of the page. You can then form main ideas which stem from the central idea. [Other forms of clustering might be called Bubble Diagrams or Venn Diagrams.]

EXAMPLE OF CLUSTERING

Assignments or Questions to Consider

(Insert ideas from students or teacher here.)

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College admissions

Course: college admissions   >   unit 4.

• 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
• Sample essay 1 with admissions feedback
• Sample essay 2 with admissions feedback
• Student story: Admissions essay about a formative experience
• Student story: Admissions essay about personal identity
• Student story: Admissions essay about community impact
• Student story: Admissions essay about a past mistake
• Student story: Admissions essay about a meaningful poem
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Video transcript

How to Brainstorming Essays with 100+ Ideas in 2024

Anh Vu • 03 Apr 2024 • 7 min read

We have all been there. Teachers assign us an essay due next week. We tremble. What should we write about? What problems to tackle? Would the essay be original enough? So, how do we brainstorming essays ?

It’s like you are venturing into an unexplored abyss. But fret not, because making a brainstorm for essay writing can actually help you plan, execute and nail that A+

Here’s how to brainstorm for essays …

Table of Contents

Engagement tips with ahaslides.

• What is brainstorming?
• Write ideas unconsciously
• Draw a mind map
• Get on Pinterest
• Try a Venn Diagram
• Use a T-Chart
• Online tools
• More AhaSlides Tools
• 14 brainstorming rules to Help You Craft Creative Ideas in 2024
• 10 brainstorm questions for School and Work in 2024

Easy Brainstorm Templates

Get free brainstorming templates today! Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

What is Brainstorming?

Every successful creation starts with a great idea, which is actually the hardest part in many cases.

Brainstorming is simply the free-flowing process of coming up with ideas. In this process, you come up with a whole bunch of ideas without guilt or shame . Ideas can be outside of the box and nothing is considered too silly, too complex, or impossible. The more creative and free-flowing, the better.

The benefits of brainstorming can surprise you:

• Increases your creativity : Brainstorming forces your mind to research and come up with possibilities, even unthinkable ones. Thus, it opens your mind to new ideas.
• A valuable skill: Not just in high school or college, brainstorming is a lifelong skill in your employment and pretty much anything that requires a bit of thought.
• Helps organise your essay : At any point in the essay you can stop to brainstorm ideas. This helps you structure the essay, making it coherent and logical.
• It can calm you: A lot of the stress in writing comes from not having enough ideas or not having a structure. You might feel overwhelmed by the hoards of information after the initial research. Brainstorming ideas can help organise your thoughts, which is a calming activity that can help you avoid stress.

Essay brainstorming in an academic setting works a bit differently than doing it in a team. You’ll be the only one doing the brainstorming for your essay, meaning that you’ll be coming up with and whittling down the ideas yourself.

Learn to use idea board to generate ideas effectively with AhaSlides

Here are five ways to do just that…

Brainstorming Essays – 5 Ideas

Idea #1 – write ideas unconsciously.

In “ Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking ,” Malcolm Gladwell points out how our unconscious is many times more effective than our conscious in decision-making.

In brainstorming, our unconscious can differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information in a split second. Our intuition is underrated. It can often produce better judgments than a deliberate and thoughtful analysis as it cuts through all the irrelevant information and focuses on just the key factors. 

Even if the ideas you come up with in essay brainstorming seem insignificant, they might lead you to something great later. Trust yourself and put whatever you think of on paper; if you don’t focus on self-editing, you may come up with some ingenious ideas.

That’s because writing freely can actually negate writer’s block and help your unconscious run wild!

Idea #2 – Draw a Mind Map

Brains love visual communication and mind maps are exactly that.

Our thoughts rarely arrive in easily digestible chunks; they’re more like webs of information and ideas that extend forward at any given time. Keeping track of these ideas is tough, but manifesting them all in a mind map can help you get more ideas and both understand and retain them better.

To draw an effective mind map, here are some tips:

• Create a central idea : In the middle of your paper draw a central topic/idea which represents the starting point of your essay and then branch out to different arguments. This central visual will act as visual stimulus to trigger your brain and remind you constantly about the core idea.
• Add keywords : When you add branches to your mind map, you will need to include a key idea. Keep these phrases as brief as possible to generate a greater number of associations and keep space for more detailed branches and thoughts.
• Highlight branches in different colours : Coloured pen is your best friend. Apply different colours to each key idea branch above. This way, you can differentiate arguments.
• Use visual signifiers : Since visuals and colours are the core of a mind map, use them as much as you can. Drawing small doodles works great because it mimics how our mind unconsciously arrives at ideas. Alternatively, if you’re using an online brainstorming tool , you can real images and embed them in.

Idea #3 – Get on Pinterest

Believe it or not, Pinterest is actually a pretty decent online brainstorming tool. You can use it to collect images and ideas from other people and put them all together to get a clearer picture of what your essay should talk about.

For example, if you’re writing an essay on the importance of college, you could write something like Does college matter? in the search bar. You might just find a bunch of interesting infographics and perspectives that you never even considered before.

Save that to your own idea board and repeat the process a few more times. Before you know it, you’ll have a cluster of ideas that can really help you shape your essay!

Idea #4 – Try a Venn Diagram

Are you trying to find similarities between two topics? Then the famous Venn diagram technique could be the key, as it clearly visualises the characteristics of any concept and shows you which parts overlap.

Popularised by British Mathematician John Venn in the 1880s, the diagram traditionally illustrates simple set relationships in probability, logic, statistics, linguistics and computer science.

You start by drawing two (or more) intersecting circles and labelling each one with an idea you’re thinking of. Write the qualities of each idea in their own circles, and the ideas they share in the middle where the circles intersect.

For example, in the student debate topic Marijuana should be legal because alcohol is , you can have a circle listing the positives and negatives of marijuana, the other circle doing the same for alcohol, and the middle ground listing the effects they share between them.

Idea #5 – Use a T-Chart

This brainstorming technique works well to compare and contrast, thanks to the fact that it’s super simple.

All you have to do is write the title of the essay at the top of your paper then split the rest of it into two. On the left side, you’ll write about the argument for and on the right side, you’ll write about the argument against .

For example, in the topic Should plastic bags be banned? you can write the pros in the left column and the cons in the right. Similarly, if you’re writing about a character from fiction, you can use the left column for their positive traits and the right side for their negative traits. Simple as that.

💡 Need more? Check out our article on How to Brainstorm Ideas Properly !

Online Tools to Brainstorm for Essays

Thanks to technology, we no longer have to rely on just a piece of paper and a pen. There are a plethora of tools, paid and free, to make your virtual brainstorming session easier…

• Freemind is a free, downloadable software for mind mapping. You can brainstorm an essay using different colours to show which parts of the article you’re referring to. The color-coded features keep track of your essays as you write.
• MindGenius is another app where you can curate and customise your own mind map from an array of templates.
• AhaSlides is a free tool for brainstorming with others. If you’re working on a team essay, you can ask everyone to write down their ideas for the topic and then vote on whichever is their favourite.
• Miro is a wonderful tool for visualising pretty much anything with a lot of moving parts. It gives you an infinite board and every arrow shape under the sun to construct and align the parts of your essay.

More AhaSlides Tools to Make your Brainstorming Sessions Better!

• Use AhaSlides Live Word Cloud Generator to gather more ideas from your crowds and classrooms!
• Host Free Live Q&A to gain more insights from the crowd!
• Gamify engagement with a spin the wheel ! It’s a fun and interactive way to boost participation
• Instead of boring MCQ questions, learn how to use online quiz creator now!
• Random your team to gain more fun with AhaSlides random team generator !

Final Say on Brainstorming Essays

Honestly, the scariest moment of writing an essay is before you start but brainstorming for essays before can really make the process of writing an essay less scary. It’s a process that helps you burst through one of the toughest parts of essay and writing and gets your creative juices flowing for the content ahead.

💡 Besides brainstorming essays, are you still looking for brainstorming activities? Try some of these !

More from AhaSlides

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• Cause & effect
• Problem-solution
• Classification
• Essay structure
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Book review
• Research proposal
• Thesis/dissertation
• What is cohesion?
• Cohesion vs coherence
• Transition signals
• What are references?
• In-text citations
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• Reporting verbs
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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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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.

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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.

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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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Module 6: The Writing Process

Brainstorming and freewriting, learning objectives.

• Explain how brainstorming and freewriting can help you start writing

Chances are you have learned about brainstorming in your other English courses. If not, then maybe you make lists or charts to help you make a decision in your life. Perhaps you have worked a job where you had to solve a problem with your coworkers so you listed ideas that helped you get started. When you writing in college, it’s helpful to get some ideas down before you write. As you begin thinking about a topic, before you begin your official draft, you write down ideas and concepts associated with your assignment to develop your ideas. This is a critical step in helping to shape and organize your paper. Brainstorming and freewriting are two great ways to get started.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming allows you to quickly generate a large number of ideas. You can brainstorm with others or you can brainstorm by yourself, which sometimes turns into freewriting. To effectively brainstorm, write down whatever ideas come to mind. The key is to not place judgment on what you wrote. Don’t worry about whether it sounds smart or if it directly connects to your topic. To brainstorm, let your thoughts about a specific topic flow, and list those thoughts without stopping or judging if what you are writing about is any good.

Let’s take a look at an easy example. Say you are being asked to write an essay about squirrels, and you’re not particularly sure what you would like to write about since you’ve never thought too much about the squirrels in your yard. The goal is to get down as many thoughts as possible in order to answer a question.

Example: What do I know about squirrels?

• How to get them out of the garden
• Squirrel traps
• Repellents for squirrels
• Types of squirrels
• How to get rid of them humanely (without killing)
• Brown vs. black vs. red squirrels
• Flying squirrels
• What they eat
• Different types of play
• Training squirrels
• Hunting squirrels
• Squirrels and cats
• Squirrels and dogs
• How they nest
• Build nests in the same place each year

So, what happens once you’ve brainstormed a topic? Look over the list. Are there items that group together? Are there items that catch your interest as a thinker, researcher, and writer—items you want to know more about? Are there items that seem unrelated or not useful? Use your list as a starting place; it creates ideas for you, as a writer, to work with in your paper. If you look closely at this list, do you see topics that could be grouped together?

Sometimes it works better to write down each idea on a separate piece of paper. Some people like to type their ideas. The most important part of this process is to be curious about your topic.

It also helps to ask yourself some brainstorming questions:

• What am I interested in? What do I care about?
• What do I know that I could teach others?
• What would I like to change about this issue?

In order to capture more of your thoughts, you may want to brainstorm a few times until you have enough ideas to start writing.

Brainstorming Assignment Example

Imagine you are in a class. Your instructor says you will have to write a paper on your favorite freetime activity , and that you must also persuade your reader to try it.

• ice skating
• writing poetry
• playing the piano
• swimming lessons

Let’s think of another example. How about the common situation in which the instructor wants you to write about “something you care about” or an “issue you have” ?

• An example of something small that’s irritating could be people you live with who leave trails of toothpaste by the sink and never clean up after themselves. A personal example can be useful as a bridge to a larger issue that will be your topic—in this case it could be community living and personal responsibility.
• In academic writing with a less personal slant, the source of irritation is often another writer/theorist with whom you disagree. Your “irritation” then would lead to an effective piece about why you have a better conception of what’s really going on.
• A less direct version of this would be a writer/theorist who makes some good points but lacks something in his/her argument that you can add to the “conversation.”

Maybe you already have a method that works for you and it looks nothing like this process. Do you answer the brainstorming questions with your process?

Freewriting

Freewriting is just what it says—writing freely, whatever comes into your mind, without caring about spelling, punctuation, etc. It’s a way to free up your thoughts, help you know where your interests lie, and get your fingers moving on the keyboard (and this physical act can be a way to get your thoughts flowing).

Try a series of timed freewritings. Set a timer for five minutes. The object is to keep your fingers moving constantly and write down whatever thoughts come into your head during that time. If you can’t think of anything to say on your topic, keep writing what comes to mind. Thinking about what you need at the grocery store? Write that down. Thinking about what you need to do for your math class? Write that down too. Stop when the timer rings. Shake out your hands, wait awhile, and then do more timed freewriting. After you have a set of five or so freewritings, review them to see if you’ve come back to certain topics, or whether you recorded some ideas that might be the basis for a piece of writing.

Freewriting Example

Here’s a sample freewrite that could yield a number of topics for writing:

I don’t think this is useful or helpful in any way. This is stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m looking out of my window and it’s the end of may and I can see that white cotton stuff flying around in the air, from the trees. One of my aunts was always allergic to that stuff when it started flying around in the spring. Don’t know offhand what type of tree that comes from. That aunt is now 94 years old and is in a nursing home for a while after she had a bad episode. She seems to have one now every spring. It’s like that old tree cotton triggers something in her body. Allergies. Spring. Trying to get the flowers to grow but one of the neighbors who is also in his 90s keeps feeding the squirrels and they come and dig up everyone’s flowerbed to store their peanuts. Plant the flowers and within thirty minutes there’s a peanut there. Wonder if anyone has grown peanut bushes yet?

Don’t know . . . know . . .I really need to buy pesto for tonight’s dinner.

Possible topics from this freewrite:

• Allergy causes
• Allergies on the rise in the U.S.
• Consequences of humanizing wild animals
• Squirrel behavior patterns and feeding habits
• Growing your own food

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• Brainstorming. Authored by : Marianne Botos, Lynn McClelland, Stephanie Polliard, Pamela Osback . Located at : https://pvccenglish.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/eng-101-inside-pages-proof2-no-pro.pdf . Project : Horse of a Different Color: English Composition and Rhetoric . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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What Is Brainstorming in Writing? [Explained For Writers & Authors]

Your initial idea is not always the one you end up writing about. In addition, you might have a vague idea of what you want to write, but nothing specific. This is where brainstorming comes in.

Brainstorming is a great way to explore ideas and uncover new ideas. It involves generating as many ideas as possible, without worrying about whether they are good or bad. This can lead to more creative thinking, which can be helpful in developing your argument or writing your book.

In this article, we’ll discuss what is brainstorming in writing, some brainstorming techniques, tips for successful brainstorming, and how to make the most of the writing process .

👉 New to brainstorming and prewriting? See our simple guide on Prewriting for other prewriting techniques!

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What Is Brainstorming In Writing?

Brainstorming is a part of prewriting where you come up with as many ideas as you can. It doesn’t matter if many of the ideas are unreasonable, difficult, or not 100% related to your topic. The main aim here is to generate as many ideas as possible. Relax and don’t worry about being accurate yet.

Brainstorming involves generating a lot of ideas in a short period of time. You can use it to come up with solutions to problems or new ways of thinking.

You can start your brainstorming session as a discussion or dialogue between you and someone else. You can do it in small groups or large ones. But you can also do it alone—just start by writing down any ideas that come to mind. Once you have some ideas, then it’s time to start exploring them further. Ask yourself questions about each of the ideas, such as: How does this idea relate to the topic? What advantages and disadvantages does this idea have?

Fiction authors might for instance brainstorm various endings for the same short story . Here are some guidelines you can follow when brainstorming:

• Be in an environment that is most conducive for work.
• Grab a paper and pen. Text editing software will also do.
• Set a timer.
• Write down anything that comes to mind.

Brainstorming is not compulsory. It might not be your cup of tea. That said, writers who don’t brainstorm are more likely to get stuck when their single idea doesn’t turn out to be as good as they thought it would be. In addition, some of the ideas you generate during this process can easily become subtopics and subheadings in your final piece.

Categories of Brainstorming In Writing

Before you start brainstorming, it can be helpful to identify which category your topic fits into. Brainstorming techniques are often categorized into three main groups: creative, analytical, and lateral thinking.

• Creative thinking involves using imagination to come up with new ideas or solutions. It’s a great technique for fiction authors who are stuck on how to create a unique story .
• Analytical thinking is the opposite of creative thinking. It involves using logic and facts to come up with answers. This type of thinking can be used to solve problems or develop arguments.
• Lateral thinking , also known as divergent thinking , involves taking existing ideas and altering them slightly. This can be useful for coming up with new solutions that might have been overlooked if you were to just start from scratch.

Brainstorming for individual vs Group

Brainstorming can be done both individually and in a group, but which is better? That depends on the situation.

Brainstorming with a group can be beneficial in terms of generating more and better ideas. However, individual brainstorming is also valuable. It’s important to try out both so that you can get the most out of your process.

As an individual writer or author, try to have a clear goal in mind when you brainstorm Ask yourself what kind of ideas you want to generate and why. It can also help to structure the session with a timer so that you stay focused. When brainstorming in a group, give everyone the chance to contribute and come up with ideas. Encourage people to explore different angles and offer input to the discussion.

What are the various brainstorming techniques In Writing?

When it comes to brainstorming, can be done either individually or as part of a group and there are many different techniques you can use. Here’s a look at some of the more popular ones:

• Rapid ideation
• Brainwriting
• Figure storming
• Ideafishing
• Mind-mapping
• Eidetic image method
• Brainstorming games
• Online brainstorming, aka brain netting
• Round-robin brainstorming
• Step-ladder technique
• Brainwalking.

These are just some of the techniques you can use for brainstorming. Experiment with different techniques until you find the one that gives the best results.

How to use brainstorming in the prewriting process

Before you start the prewriting process , it’s important to establish a timeline for yourself so that you don’t get too overwhelmed. First, think about the topic you want to write about. Then, take some time to brainstorm. After you’ve got a list of ideas, you can then narrow it down until you find the one that works best for your book or paper.

Once you have done this, it’s then time to start researching and gathering information. This is where the ideas that you came up with during your brainstorming session will be really useful. They can help guide your research process and make sure that it is relevant and in-depth.

Brainstorming Examples In Writing

Let’s look at an example of how we can brainstorm the topic “digital currencies”. Here are some random ideas associated with digital currencies:

• Internet money
• Online trading
• International trading
• Government control
• Crypto apps
• Exchange rate
• Blockchain technology
• Cryptocurrency wallets
• Fraud protection
• Security measures
• Smart contracts
• Decentralized currency

Now that we have a list of ideas related to digital currencies, it’s easier to draw connections between them and come up with a structure for our book.

For example, blockchain technology could be used to discuss the security and fraud protection of digital currencies. Exchange rate can be used to talk about international trading, while smart contracts could be used to discuss how they are used in online trading.

After we do this, we can then proceed to structure our work in terms of chapters and subtopics. For instance, we could start by discussing what digital currencies are and how they work, then move on to the different types of digital currencies available, followed by the risks associated with investing in digital currencies, and finally finish off by looking at the potential benefits of digital currencies.

So, you can see that by brainstorming the topic, we have come up with a rough structure for our work which will help us stay focused while writing. This saves us time and energy in the long run, as it is much easier to write when you already know the structure and flow of your argument.

Brainstorming Exercises In Writing

Now it’s your turn to try out a brainstorming exercise. Think of a topic or story that you are interested in and then write down as many ideas related to it as you can. Thereafter, take some time to look through the list and draw connections between them so that you can come up with a structure for your book.

Let’s see some exercises for our next brainstorming practice:

Set a timer for ten minutes. Brainstorm the following until each timer goes off:

• The national unemployment rate.
• Your country’s president.
• Disney World
• Your favorite film.
• Game of Thrones

Final Notes on Brainstorming In Prewriting

Brainstorming is an important part of the prewriting process and should not be overlooked. It helps generate a wealth of ideas which can then be used to create a structure for your book. Moreover, it saves time in the long run by providing you with a roadmap for your book. Experiment with different techniques until you find the one that yields the most results.

Chioma Ezeh is an author, digital marketer, business coach, and the founder of chiomaezeh.com, a blog that teaches how to build successful online businesses. Get in touch.

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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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How to brainstorm for an essay

Categories: Education , Reviews | by Jimmy Bell

Every successful creation starts with a great idea, which in many cases is the hardest part.

Brainstorming is simply the free process of coming up with ideas. In this process, you come up with a whole bunch of ideas without guilt or shame. Ideas can be out of the box, and nothing is considered too silly, too complicated, or impossible. The more creative and free the better.

The benefits of brainstorming may surprise you:

Table of Contents

• Increases your creativity: Brainstorming forces your mind to explore and come up with possibilities, even the unthinkable. Thus, it opens your mind to new ideas.
• A valuable skill: Not just in high school or college, brainstorming is a lifelong skill in your work and in almost anything that requires a bit of thought.
• Helps you organize your essay: At any point in the essay, you can stop to brainstorm ideas. This will help you structure your essay, making it coherent and logical.
• It can calm you down: Much of the stress of writing comes from a lack of ideas or structure. You may feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information after the initial research. Brainstorming ideas can help organize your thoughts, which is a calming activity that will help you avoid stress.
• Essay brainstorming works a little differently in an academic setting than it does in a team setting. You will be the only one brainstorming for your essay, which means that you will come up with and reduce ideas on your own.
• I know that sometimes you honestly can have no ideas about an essay in your head and in this case you can always get help from any essay assistant you choose, these professionals will help you to choose the topic and give you loads of ideas on the main part of the essay.

Here are five ways to do it…

5 brainstorming ideas

Idea #1. write ideas unconsciously.

In Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell points out that our unconscious mind is many times more effective than our conscious mind at making decisions.

During brainstorming, our unconscious mind can distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information. in a split second. Our intuition is underestimated. It can often make more accurate judgments than deliberate and thoughtful analysis because it cuts out all irrelevant information and focuses only on key factors.

Even if the ideas you come up with during a brainstorming session seem insignificant, they may lead you to something great later. Trust yourself to put everything you think on paper; if you don’t focus on self-editing, you may come up with brilliant ideas.

That’s because free writing can actually derail the creative block and help your unconscious get out of control!

Idea #2 – Draw an intelligence map

Brains love visual communication and mind maps are just that. Our thoughts rarely come in easily digestible chunks; they are more like networks of information and ideas that stretch forward at any given time. Keeping track of these ideas is difficult, but mapping them all out can help you get more ideas, and better understand and remember them.

To make an effective mind map, here are some tips:

Create a central idea : in the middle of your document, draw a central theme/idea that represents the starting point of your essay, and then branch out into different arguments. This central image will act as a visual stimulus to activate your brain and constantly remind you of the main idea.

Add keywords: when you add ramifications to your mind map, you will need to include the key idea. Keep these phrases as short as possible to trigger more associations and leave room for more detailed branches and thoughts.

Highlight the branches in different colors: A colored pen is your best friend. Apply different colors to each branch of the key idea above. This way, you can distinguish between the arguments.

Use visuals: As visuals and colors are the basis of the mental map, use them as often as possible. Drawing little doodles works well because it mimics the way our mind unconsciously comes up with ideas. Alternatively, if you use an online brainstorming tool, you can real images and paste them in.

Idea #3 – Get on Pinterest

Believe it or not, Pinterest is actually a pretty decent online brainstorming tool. You can use it to collect images and ideas from other people and put them all together to get a clearer idea of what your essay should be about.

For example, if you’re writing an essay about the importance of college, you could write something like “Does college matter?” in the search box. You might just find a bunch of interesting infographics and viewpoints that you haven’t even considered before.

Save this to your idea board and repeat the process a few more times. Before you know it, you’ll have a set of ideas that can really help you shape your essay!

Idea #4 – Try a Venn diagram

Are you trying to find similarities between the two topics? Then the famous Venn diagram technique could be the key, as it clearly visualizes the characteristics of any concept and shows which parts overlap.

This diagram, popularized by British mathematician John Venn in the 1880s, traditionally illustrates simple set relationships in probability theory, logic, statistics, linguistics, and computer science. You begin by drawing two (or more) intersecting circles and mark each one with the idea you are thinking of. Write the qualities of each idea in their own circles and the ideas they share in the middle where the circles intersect.

For example, in a student debate topic Marijuana should be legalized because alcohol is, you could have a circle listing the positives and negatives of marijuana, another circle doing the same with alcohol, and a middle plan listing the effects they share.

Idea #5 – Use a T-diagram

This brainstorming method is good for comparing and contrasting due to the fact that it is very simple.

All you have to do is write the title of the essay at the top of the sheet and divide the rest into two parts. On the left-hand side, you will write about the argument for, and on the right-hand side, you will write the argument against.

For example, in the topic Should plastic bags be banned? you could write the pros in the left-hand column and the cons in the right-hand column. Similarly, if you are writing about a character from fiction, you can use the left column for his positive qualities and the right column for his negative qualities. Just like that.

Thanks to technology, we no longer need to rely on just a piece of paper and a pen. There are many free tools to make your virtual brainstorming easier…

• Freemind is a free downloadable mind mapping software. You can brainstorm essays using different colors to show which parts of the article you are referring to. Color-coded features track your essays as you write them.
• Mind Genius is another app where you can create and customize your own mind map from a variety of templates.
• AgaSlides is a free tool for brainstorming with others. If you’re working on a group essay, you can ask everyone to write down their ideas on the topic and then vote on what they like best.
• Miro is a great tool for visualizing anything with lots of moving parts. It gives you an endless whiteboard and every form of the arrow under the sun to build and align parts of your essay.

One last word on brainstorming for essays

Honestly, the scariest part of writing an essay is before you start, but brainstorming for an essay before you really makes the process of writing an essay less scary. It’s a process that will help you tackle one of the most difficult parts of writing essays and letters and direct your creative energies to further content.

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The International Student Blog

How to brainstorm when writing an essay.

Brainstorming is simply when you stop to think about the topic you will be writing about, then write down each idea or though that comes to mind. When writing your essay you must be deliberate with the way you roll out information. However, before you even begin that first draft, the time in which you’re gathering your thoughts, you should write or type as quickly as possible to jot down each thought that comes to mind.

To brainstorm when writing an essay there are two ways you can approach the brainstorming process depending on which you feel will be more beneficial for you.

1. Fill the Page Grab a pen and paper or your computer and start writing. Any key words or sentences that pop into your mind you should add to your paper. This process might get messy but it’s an effective way to quickly gather your thoughts without the pressure of creating an actual draft.

2. Stay Organized If the idea of throwing your thoughts onto paper makes you cringe or draw a blank mind- don’t worry. There are a few more “orderly” ways that you can brainstorm- using a diagram can help you quickly gather your thoughts but also keep them organized at the same time. Here are two diagrams commonly used when brainstorming:

Venn Diagram: Most students don’t use a Venn diagram on a daily basis but it can be helpful when brainstorming. If you’ve never used a Venn diagram for the purpose of brainstorming, here’s an example: Perhaps you have an essay in which you’re addressing the benefits vs. the harmful effects of Styrofoam. You could then title the left circle “benefits” and the right circle “harmful effects” the middle shape would then be able to include each item that is not specifically a positive or a negative to Styrofoam- each thought that falls somewhere in the middle. After your diagram is labeled you can then list items that below in each category.

Spider Diagram: When creating a spider diagram start by writing down 3-5 key topics that you want your essay to include. Once again using the Stryofoam essay example, perhaps you would write down “Non-biodegradable,” “Cheap to produce,” and “Useful material.” After you have your main topics that you wish to cover you can branch off of those topics with supporting ideals- and maybe even link your key topics together. In the end, it should resemble a spider web.

Collecting Ideas

After you have brainstormed it’s then time to turn your thoughts into your essay . Read through your thoughts and establish where each will fit within your essay. Your essay should include the following parts:

• Introduction
• 1st body (strongest support)

Your brainstorming session then allows you to create an outline using each thought you want to convey in your essay. You’re now ready to view essay samples and start writing!

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 9th, 2015 at 8:40 am and is filed under International Student , Study in the USA . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.

Written by Bryanna Davis

Bryanna joined EIC in 2011 after returning to the United States from teaching English in China. Her interest in international education, sparked initially by her own study abroad experience in Wales, led her to the company. Bryanna is originally from Missouri and is a graduate from the University of Central Missouri.

Other posts by Bryanna Davis

15 Responses to “How to Brainstorm when Writing an Essay”

I like the “organized” approach. The idea of throwing different thoughts onto a paper also sounds reasonable, but for me this would make the whole process very slow. I usually start my work with thinking about a general idea – the basic thing which I am going to support or argue. Then I build all my smaller thoughts around this basic idea. It usually helps to speed up the writing process.

this really helped me a lot thank you

French teacher , it was so usefull

Great! Thank you for the comment!

Nicely done. Superb!

Thanks for reading!

This helped me sooo much, I have a very very hard time focusing, so my mom and teacher thought it would be better to get a fidget spinner or something like that, what do you expect im only a freshman who is 14 It’s very hard to focus in high school.

Glad you found it helpful! Thanks for the comment!

Glad to help!

Hello there, You’ve done an incredible job. I’ll certainly digg it and personally recommend to my friends. I am confident they will be benefited from this website.

Hi Marni! We’re so glad you enjoyed this blog post. For more helpful essay writing tips, you should check out our Essay Writing Center !

This post is very helpful.

Hi Francisca! We’re glad to see that you found this post helpful. For more tips and tricks, check out our Essay Writing Center .

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How to use Meta’s new AI chatbot that you can’t avoid

Facebook, instagram, messenger and whatsapp are all pushing a new ai chatbot.

With seemingly fewer friends posting to their main Facebook and Instagram feeds, Meta has introduced a new feature its users can talk to: an AI chatbot.

The feature, named Meta AI, is rolling out to the company’s main apps including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. It’s primarily a conversational chat window where you can ask questions and generate AI images, similar to other AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Co-Pilot and Google’s Gemini.

Despite over a year of artificial intelligence being everywhere, this could be many people’s first interaction with the technology. Meta has billions of users across its apps, and anyone who has managed to avoid the bots so far will find this one nearly impossible to escape.

Should you trust that AI?

Why is this ai chatbot here.

Facebook and Instagram users probably weren’t banging down Mark Zuckerberg’s door demanding an AI chatbot, so why is this feature suddenly everywhere? The technology is still new and its utility debatable. However, the major tech companies have decided that, like voice assistants and scrollable vertical videos before it, AI is the next big thing. Now they are competing to push out their versions. Facebook and Instagram used to rely on users’ friends, family and communities to keep their attention. Now, as these platforms are aging, the companies may hope a chatty bot can replace some of the human interaction.

How do I find it?

The chatbot is integrated in search and messaging features across Meta’s apps, and may appear in your feed under some posts as well. If you don’t see the AI features it yet, check back later. Its presence is marked with its logo: a thin ring that’s mostly blue and occasionally animated. The AI tool can also be accessed online on the stand-alone website meta.ai . It is not included in the company’s app for children, Messenger Kids.

On Facebook, tap the search icon on top and you’ll find that the usual search bar has been replaced with one that says, “Ask Meta AI anything.” As you start typing, it will auto-suggest searches. Anything with the blue circle next to it is going to bring up the AI chat window. You can also tap the messages icon and engage with Meta AI as if it’s another pal to talk to. If you see it under a post in your feed, it will suggest questions to ask related to the content you see.

In Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, you’ll also find Meta AI has taken over the search bars and appears as another chat. If your accounts are connected to each other, the Meta AI conversation should pick up where you left off, regardless of what app you’re in.

How do I turn it off?

There’s no way to get rid of Meta AI in search, confirmed Meta. In WhatsApp, there is an option to hide the new Meta AI button by going to Settings → Chats → Show Meta AI Button. However, it’s still in the search bar. Other apps have an option to mute its replies. I asked the AI chatbot how to turn it off and got multiple incorrect answers with instructions that did not work and for settings that don’t exist.

You can delete a chat with Meta AI to remove it from recent conversations in the same way you would any other chat. Swipe left on the chat and select Delete in Instagram, More → Delete on Facebook and Messenger, and More → Delete Chat on WhatsApp.

How do I get started?

Start typing full sentences or random words in any of the apps’ search bars or in the conversations with Meta AI. If this is your first time using an AI chatbot, you can begin by asking simple questions and even for a list of ways to use it.

I did the first things any normal person does when testing an AI tool. I asked it to be my pretend boyfriend, told it to generate images of ducks writing breakup letters and tried to push its boundaries. I discovered it avoids partaking in overtly sexual conversations or generating photos of the Pope (entirely unrelated questions). As with all artificial intelligence, there are creative ways to get around its filters.

Meta AI includes options for shortcuts. Type a forward slash and command, like /joke:, /imagine: or /story: and type your description after. However, these aren’t really necessary since you can make the same requests in a conversational way, such as “tell me a story about depressed hamster who ran for mayor.”

What should I use it for?

An AI chatbot is like having an enthusiastic but unreliable friend. You can ask it almost anything — but never assume it’s telling the truth. With that in mind, use Meta AI for fun and for noncritical tasks. Ask random questions like you would with Google, start conversations to feel less alone and use it to brainstorm.

Meta AI can also generate images, though in our tests they have the typical flaws associated with artificial intelligence. Most share the hyper-realistic lighting that AI images are known for, fumble details like fingers and eyes, and frequently give women exposed, ample cleavage.

There are plenty of other things you can try. Ask Meta AI to animate images, request a summary of the day’s news or ask it to take on the personality of a specific character when speaking to you. Because it’s integrated with Meta’s other products, you can use it to search things like “Reels of people learning to roller skate.”

To get the best results and avoid bland responses, ask follow-up questions and give as many details as possible. For a list of starter ideas, check out Tech Friend Shira Ovide’s recommendations of useful things to ask a chatbot .

What should I not use it for?

Don’t use AI as an authority for anything of consequence. For example, don’t rely on a chatbot for medical advice or as a source for school or work. Ethically, you shouldn’t use it to write papers for school, though Meta AI is happy to spit out wooden essays on demand.

Experts warn there is a danger of misinformation from tools like Meta’s chatbot. To steer clear, avoid using it as a go-to for anything sensitive or political. Turn to human sources instead like reporters, experts, even Wikipedia and Reddit, before artificial intelligence. For more advice on avoiding misinformation, check out our guide.

How is it different from other AI bots?

For the basics, Meta AI appears to spit out the same generic answers as its competitors. I asked five different chatbots about the best taqueria in San Francisco, a vegetarian meal plan, if God exists and how to know if a polycule is right for you. For the most part, they all gave incredibly similar, mundane but neutral answers with the exception of Microsoft’s Co-pilot, which does not enjoy shenanigans.

Is it keeping my information?

Use the same precautions typing questions and thoughts into an AI chatbot as you would a Google search. Meta does save the conversations but to protect privacy, the data is anonymized, meaning it’s not connected to your name or identity. While this is standard for technology companies, experts say it’s possible to re-identify people using additional data points. If you want to delete a chat, you can use the shortcut “/reset-ai” and Meta claims it will remove the conversation from its servers.

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Voices Below Sopranos

Judy Bowers makes her New York Times debut.

By Sam Corbin

Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky Clues

TUESDAY PUZZLE — It’s been over 75 years since the first New York Times Crossword , and language has significantly evolved. And yet there has been little change in much of the field’s crosswordese — i.e. vowel-heavy words that frequently appear in crosswords, but hardly ever apply in everyday speech.

We are still just as likely as ever, for example, to encounter H.G. Wells’s “Eloi,” from a novel he wrote in 1895. And though the era of the Oldsmobile has ended, puzzles have yet to stop featuring its final model, the “Alero.” I occasionally explain such terms in Tricky Clues, especially if I’ve just learned them, but improving one’s solving skills is largely a matter of learning these well-worn words by rote.

That’s why I have to hand it to Judy Bowers, the constructor of today’s crossword. In this, her New York Times debut, she has managed to do something remarkable with a different constraint — without sacrificing flashes of relevance.

Today’s Theme

Read carefully, because the revealer at 54-Down describes just about every part of the crossword in its hint to unlocking today’s theme. We have to identify the “Number of letters in every word of the answers to the starred clues.” Simply put, we’re looking for a number — and since “Plethora” (57A) solves to a fairly straightforward SLEW, we can assume via crossings that it’s the number TWO.

Maybe the above number was all you needed for your “aha!” moment. But if you’re like me, you needed more information. And while “Follow our lead!” (32A) is a straightforward DO AS WE DO, other expressions in the theme aren’t so common and may require more crossings to solve: 37-Across, for example, solves to HI MA, I’M UP (its clue being “Morning, mother!”).

Regardless, two phrases are all it takes to make sense of our revealer. Now we can see that both 32- and 37-Across are strictly made up of TWO-letter words, and it’s game on. The question “Can this be a gift from all of us?” is OK IF WE GO IN ON IT? Asking “Well, do I decide or not?” (23A) solves to SO IS IT UP TO ME? And here’s my personal favorite: “Yuck! I’ve dated him before. Swipe left!” becomes OH NO, EW, HE IS MY EX.

Tricky Clues

14A. In question-marked clues, it’s often helpful to look at the constructor’s choice of punctuation: “Standing at 6-5, say?” uses a hyphen instead of an apostrophe, not to refer to someone’s height, but to being UP ONE on a scoreboard.

43A. The figurative sense of “Fleeces,” which is CONS, emerged soon after the literal one. In the early 16th century, it meant to strip a sheep of its fleece; the verb’s figurative sense — to strip a person of his or her money — appeared a few decades later .

55A. The first entry for a “$5 bill, slangily” is mostly intuitive, since it uses the name of the president who appears on the bill. This one is harder: FIN comes from 1920s slang and is related to “finif ,” the Yiddish word for the number five .

8D. “Beginning to form?” sounds like an adjective — nascent, for example — but the question mark tells us not to be so hasty. Here, “beginning” means “prefix,” and the answer is UNI.

10D. One who “Announces the big reveal in a magic act” SAYS PRESTO. Equally worthy of oohs and aahs is the fact that this entry is a Times Crossword debut.

42D. It’s been nearly a decade since Times solvers last encountered this word for “rebel”: UPRISE. One usually sees it in its noun form, as in an uprising.

48D. The “modern portmanteau” this clue refers to was new to me, but it has been around for years . A screenAGER blends screen and teenager to refer to tech-savvy younger generations (sometimes pejoratively).

Constructor Notes

This theme came to me while considering that The New York Times basically excludes two-letter words as single entries (as do almost all other puzzles), and that using those “banned” individual words in a string of words might make for some interesting phrases. I started by finding a list of legal two-letter words in Scrabble — there are 107 of them — and then throwing out the abbreviations and obscurities. This left me with a set of 35-40 words to work with. After some brainstorming with my husband/mentor, Larry Lichens, I came up with a set of theme answers to use in my initial submission. Tracy Bennett, who was my editor, helped me to arrive at a final set of answers and to polish-up the grid and fill, to get the puzzle to what you see in print. Thanks much to everyone.

Join Our Other Game Discussions

Want to be part of the conversation about New York Times Games, or maybe get some help with a particularly thorny puzzle? Here are the:

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Improve Your Crossword Solving

Work your way through our guide, “ How to Solve the New York Times Crossword .” It contains an explanation of most of the types of clues you will see in the puzzles and a practice Mini at the end of each section.

Want to Submit Crosswords to The New York Times?

The New York Times Crossword has an open submission system, and you can submit your puzzles online . For tips on how to get started, read our series “ How to Make a Crossword Puzzle .”

OK, do it: Subscribers can take a peek at the answer key .

Trying to get back to the main Gameplay page? You can find it here .

Sam Corbin writes about language, wordplay and the daily crossword for The Times. More about Sam Corbin

It’s Game Time!

Take your puzzling skills in new directions..

WordleBot , our daily Wordle companion that tells you how skillful or lucky you are, is getting an upgrade. Here’s what to know .

The editor of Connections , our new game about finding common threads between words, talks about how she makes this daily puzzle feel fun .

We asked some of the best Sudoku  solvers in the world for their tips and tricks. Try them to  tackle even the most challenging puzzles.

Read today’s Wordle Review , and get insights on the game from our columnists.

We asked Times readers how they play Spelling Bee. The hive mind weighed in with their favorite tips and tricks .

Ready to play? Try Wordle , Spelling Bee  or The Crossword .