Tips for Writing Essays 2:Brainstorming

The tips for writing essays include brainstorming as well.

In many dictionaries, brainstorming is defined as a group creativity technique aimed at the generation of new ideas in large quantities that, hopefully, will lead to quality solutions to the problems being tackled during the activity. Although brainstorming is often a group activity, it can also be effectively performed on your own. Just remember that in most instances of brainstorming for an essay, however, two heads are indeed better than one.

Tips for Writing Essays 2:Set the Atmosphere

Brainstorming sessions can quickly turn into lively discussions and so, it is very important to assess the venue's appropriateness, determine the rules of the session and generally just set the atmosphere for the activity.

Set the date and time when all the participants can meet in a venue where everybody feels comfortable in but other people will not be bothered by your discussions. The four walls of the conference room are as suitable as the cottage on a beach depending on your personalities.

You can then set the rules, which are intended to lessen the inhibitions of the members, encourage idea generation and improve on the group's creative output. These rules can include focusing on quantity more than quality, withholding of judgment and criticism, welcoming of unusual ideas and improving on them mainly by combination. Of course, it is important to write down all the ideas from start to finish.

Tips for Writing Essays 2:Adopt the Techniques

To make the freewheeling brainstorming session more organized, there are effective techniques that can be adopted. You can choose one or combine the two techniques depending on what suits your approach to essay writing the best.

First, make the mind map, which is simply a graphic diagram proven effective in the generation, organization and visualization of the thoughts, ideas and tasks related to a central topic. If that seems complicated, think of a tree where the central idea is the trunk while the related thoughts and tasks are the branches.

Mind mapping is very effective because it combines the best of both worlds - that is, it has the visual attributes of the flow chart but with the organizational structure of the outline. In fact, you can refer to it during the outline sub-process.

Start by writing the main idea in the trunk of a tree and then make branches for the why, what, when, where and how of said idea. Of course, you can also use other sub-topics depending on the idea being brainstormed.

Second, adopt free writing. As the name implies, it means writing continuously for a specific period of time, usually 5-10 minutes per central topic, regardless of grammar and spelling errors as well as probably mistaken concepts. Just write with focus on the central idea without stopping, criticizing and editing until the timer goes off. Then compare notes with the others, also without judgment and criticism.

From these techniques of brainstorming, you will be able to narrow down your topics to the top three and then on to the top one. Of course, further evaluations are necessary since a stupid idea could indeed turn out to be just that - not applicable to the purposes of the essay.

When applied in the right way, brainstorming can produce creative ideas that will be used to form the central idea upon which the essay is anchored on. So, put your heads together and get to it.

Back to Tip 1: Choosing the Topic

Go to Tip 3: Doing Research

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