How Do I Brainstorm?

By Stuart Ackerman

Brainstorming is a prewriting strategy where you list everything about a topic before you write an essay or any other writing assignement.

In order to brainstorm effectively, you must follow these rules:

1. Write down ALL your ideas.
2. Don’t erase or second guess ANY idea.  Write down EVERYTHING.
3. Have a mind map design before you begin.

   When brainstorming, you shouldn’t think about any of your ideas.  This is a time to generate ideas by listing everything and anything that comes to your mind regardless of how ‘silly’ or ‘ridiculous’ they sound.

Where do I begin?

First, decide on a mind map format (the lesson here at Tutorgiant gives students several types of mind maps to choose from...it’s a matter of personal preference).  Second, choose your topic (e.g. sharks, renewable energy sources, Ancient Egypt) unless it has already been decided for you.  Next, decide on sub-topics that you can discuss (again, the lesson here at Tutorgiant has a list of questions to guide you through the mind mapping process).  Finally, you are ready to brainstorm.

     The concept behind brainstorming requires you haven’t done your research yet.  That is, you are supposed to brainstorm in order to get a ‘direction’ as to where to go with your writing. 

     I completely disagree.

     I believe that you should have a topic, do some casual reading on your topic, and then brainstorm.  Why?  Well, I believe that you should have ‘some’ knowledge on your topic because this will help you find a direction easier than if you just started listing ideas without any background knowledge.  Also, this will help guide you because you may find that a certain aspect of the topic interests you as well.  For example, let’s say you are writing a report on sharks.  We will assume that you know little about sharks.  So, you start to brainstorm on ideas.  You might list behaviors, types of sharks, habitats, etc… Now, let’s assume that you have done some reading.  Perhaps you have found something interesting on a specific shark, like the Whale Shark, or you have found out that there is tons of information on Great White Sharks.  The point here is that some background information will probably help you in the brainstorming process.     

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