Brainstorming

Have you ever sat in front of a blank computer screen after a class not knowing what to write? You have the guidelines your professor printed in front of you, but you still don’t know where to start.  

(^Do you find yourself in this cycle of writing?) 

Not to worry, there is good news!  

Your solution is to have a brainstorming session. 

Why do I need to Brainstorm? 

Brainstorming helps you dump all your ideas on paper and organize them to create a coherent argument. The purpose of brainstorming is to help you create a foundation that you can work on.

It’s a special step that allows you to move on with the writing, instead of writing without a guide. For example, let’s work with the scenario of trying to convince your parents to allow you to adopt a dog during your college years. They may oppose the idea since they want you to focus on your studies and believe that a dog would interfere with them, but you want to argue why adopting the dog could help you. 

So, you start by writing down all your reasons on a piece of paper.  

There is no right or wrong way of Brainstorming. 

Or rather…The only right way to Brainstorm is how YOU prefer to Brainstorm. 

The first step to Brainstorming is identifying what is your topic. In this example, our topic is adopting a dog. Now you find what your stance is regarding this topic, adopting a dog will allow me to do better in my school. Now that you have these 2, you must come up with ideas WHY you think this. 

Think of ideas 

• Create a list of them  
  • If you want to just get paper and pen, or a computer and write down ideas, that can help you create concrete ideas to help your argument. This is a step before free writing, where you just write down anything that comes to your mind.  

• Create a mind map 
  • Another thing you can do is create a mind map. This helps you see visually how ideas are connected and how to unite those ideas even further in your argument. Creating a visual could also help you create even more specific ideas within the main points you already have.   

• Sketch 
  • Another way in which you can get your ideas down on paper is through sketching. Having a creative outlet can help you create new ideas that can help you in your writing. 

Now that you have a basis… 

You can use all the work that you did and use it as a foundation to begin writing your paper, (or persuasive piece to adopt the dog of your dreams). Now you can begin on your first draft!  
HAPPY WRITING! 😊