Generating or developing a topic

Part 1: Brainstorming Strategies

Different brainstorming methods work for different people. Here are some other methods that might help you get started on a paper:

1. Freewriting. If you don’t have a specific topic given to you, but you have to write an persuasive paper, just start writing everything that comes to mind as far as what subjects about which you’d like to persuade someone to one side or another. If you already have a topic like “local business” write everything you know about local businesses.

Choose an amount of time to write – five to 10 minutes is enough to get started.

The point of this is to not think about how you’re writing, but just to write out everything that comes to mind, and what else you think you would have to research. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar, you just want to let your thoughts flow and record them.

Don’t stop writing for the whole period of time.

2. Listing. Listing is similar to freewriting, but instead of writing a big paragraph write each idea on a separate line. It’s easier to keep track of different ideas with a list.

List ideas as they come to you. Don’t worry if they’re good or bad ideas, write them down anyway. What seems like a bad idea might end up developing into something better as you brainstorm.

3. Webbing. This has a lot of different names, but it’s basically a diagram of how ideas relate to each other and to the main topic.

This works best if you have a topic provided for you, but this could also be another way to organize your thoughts after you throw out the ideas you don’t want from other brainstorming methods.

When webbing you break the topic down into subcategories that relate to the topic. Start with the main topic word in the middle of your page. Draw lines coming off the main topic to subtopics. From there break each subcategory down into more subcategories.

This is also a good way to organize ideas into paragraphs because each subcategory cluster could work as a paragraph.

4. Talking with others. If you’re not much of a brainstormer, one thing that doesn’t require a lot of extra preliminary writing is to just talk it over with a friend.

Tell your friend you’re writing a paper about X/have to write a certain type of paper and what you know about that topic/ideas you have for that type of paper.

They’ll probably help contribute some ideas or just the act of getting your thoughts into words can help you collect and organize your thoughts about a particular writing assignment.

By talking with a friend you get another person’s insight, which might also help you think of arguments you might not have come up with on your own and possible rebuttals to your argument, or just things about a certain topic you might not have thought of.

Part 2: Learning Style Related to Brainstorming

The type of brainstorming you do might also depend on the type of learner you are. There are three types of learners: Visual, Kinesthetic and Auditory. Here are the three types and how the four brainstorming strategies fit with the type of learner you are:

Visual learners are usually good at learning from reading the textbook. Writing down your ideas so you can read them and underline or highlight the good ones will help visual learners. Freewriting, listing and webbing are probably the best for visual learners.

Kinesthetic learners learn best by doing. Drawing pictures, diagrams and the act of underlining, highlighting or circling help these learners remember information and learn concepts. Webbing is probably the best of these strategies for kinesthetic learners. Drawing out a diagram of your ideas will help you interact with and organize them and see how the ideas relate to each other.

Auditory learners learn by listening. They usually learn more from listening to the lecture of a class and less from the textbook. Talking with others might be auditory learners’ best strategy because they’ll hear your ideas and the other person’s ideas and be able to collect the information more easily.

Grammar Girl has some tips on where to find ideas and how to overcome writer’s block that I think are very helpful.