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How to Brainstorm when Writing an Essay

Posted on May 9th, 2015 by Bryanna Davis

Learning to speak English as a second language is not

easy- especially when introduced to idioms like “who spilled the beans” or “she let the cat out of the
bag.” If you’re trying to write an essay and keep hearing that you need to first “brainstorm” this idiom
might be keeping you from putting paper to pen.

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)

 2nd body

 3rd body

 Conclusion

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!

5 Brainstorming Strategies for Writers

By Mark Nichol - 3 minute read

Brainstorming is useful whether you have too few ideas, or too many. It can help you whether you don’t
know how to organize your thoughts, or whether you don’t even have any thoughts. But before you
start, remember the first rule of brainstorming: Enumerate, don’t evaluate. Just get the ideas down, and
don’t judge them or organize them until the creative phase has wound down.

1. Cubing

In this strategy, a topic or idea is examined from six distinct viewpoints — hence the name. Describe the
topic (what is it?), compare it (what is it like or unlike?), associate it (what does it make you think of?),
analyze it (what constituent parts is it made of?), apply it (how can it be used?), and argue for and/or
against it (how can you support or oppose it?).

Cubing was developed as a critical-thinking exercise to help students express their thoughts in opinion
essays, but it can be adapted for general nonfiction writing, though it is of limited value for fiction.

A similar technique is to explore three perspectives: The first is to describe the topic and its features, its
constituent parts, and its challenges, and to compare and contrast it with other topics. The second is to
trace the history of the topic and the influences on it throughout that history, and the topic’s evolution.
The third is to map the topic to similar contemporary topics as well as to its influences, and to topics
that it influences.

2. Freewriting

Write. You don’t know what to write? Then write that. Just write.

Have a quantitative goal: 500 words, three pages, five minutes — it doesn’t matter. Just write.

Do not pause in order to spell correctly or write flawlessly, and don’t go back to rewrite. Turn off your
inner editor. Do not strive for coherence. Just write.

Consider closing your eyes while you’re writing or typing, or turn the computer monitor off. Just write.

3. Listing

If your intent is to write an essay or a review or profile, what do you want to communicate? If you wish
to craft a story, which ideas and elements do you wish to convey? Jot down a list of phrases or single
words you will return to later. For nonfiction, the list can consist of opinions, arguments, facts,
questions, or components, or any combination of the above. For fiction, list people, places, and things,
values and qualities, goals and obstacles.

Don’t outline at this point. Outlining stalls the creative act of brainstorming by requiring you to evaluate
and organize your thoughts. Remember, brainstorming should be an uninhibited activity.

4. Mapping

Mapping, also known as clustering and webbing, is a graphic form of listing that simply involves jotting
down ideas on a large writing surface and then making connections by associating similarly themed
ideas with color-coded circles or underlines of distinct patterns and then indicating other relationships
by linking with lines.

How you produce the map, exactly, is up to you, but as with any other brainstorming tool, wait until
you’ve (temporarily) run out of ideas before you begin making connections — but don’t hesitate to
continue recording new ideas as you marshal others.
5. Researching

You know the topic you want to write about, or the outline of a novel’s plot, but you don’t know how to
populate the piece with ideas? Go to the reference section of a library, or call up reference Web sites. As
you read about a current or past event, or a contemporary or historical issue, record the ideas in list or
map form. You might find the key point you’ve been looking for, or change the one you had in favor of
this new detail.

If you’re planning on writing a novel, learn more about the city or country in which it takes place (even if
it’s the one you live in). If it’s a historical novel, read about the social structure and cultural atmosphere
of the time and place, and take notes about how people dressed, talked, ate, worked, and engaged in
other quotidian activities.

The Next Step

If one of these strategies doesn’t work for you, try another until something clicks. Even if one does work,
try more than one.

Then, whichever technique(s) you’ve employed, review your result. Don’t feel that you’ve failed if your
work does not yield eloquence or epiphanies, but search for whatever may help you develop your
writing assignment or project.

If you feel that an outline is useful, make one after you complete the brainstorming activity. If you don’t,
launch into whatever part of the topic attracts your attention based on your brainstorming output. You
don’t have to start at the beginning, and you don’t have to complete one part of your assignment or
project before you move on to another one. Just build on your background work one piece at a time as it
develops.

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10 Writing Exercises to Tighten Your Writing

By Brittiany Cahoon - 3 minute read

Writing projects can be like children. You love them dearly, but sometimes they irritate you to the point
that you just need a break. Working on something fresh and new can invigorate your mind and give you
a new approach to your work. These exercises can work for any genre of writing, fiction and non-fiction
alike.

1. Free Association

This is probably the most popular writing exercise to get the juices flowing. Pull up a new Word
document, take a deep breath and just write whatever comes to mind. Dig as deep as you can into your
subconscious and don’t worry about what comes out. Sometimes there’s a mental blockage with
something that’s been bothering you, so it helps to write it down and get it out of your system.

2. Think Outside the Box

Think of something you’re passionate about, like a hobby or a love interest, and write everything you
know about it. Sometimes writing slumps happen and it helps to write about something you love. Even if
you just write a paragraph, it’s better to write something that’s not your current project. This will
rejuvenate you to re-start on your current project.

3. Sharpen the Saw

Something I love to do when I’m stuck is read another author’s work, especially an author who writes in
the same style or format as my current project. If you’re writing fantasy, read some Harry Potter or Lord
of the Rings. If you’re writing a biography, try taking a look at some biographies of your favorite actors
or writers. Escaping into someone else’s world for a bit can relax you enough to delve into your own
imaginary world again.

4. Use the Musical Muse

Writers feel their work, and when you can quite describe what you’re feeling on paper, it can be
frustrating. Get out your ipod or computer, put on your earphones and find some songs that appeal to
you and the scene or piece you’re working on. Grooveshark.com and Pandora.com are two websites
that offer free, instant music streaming to get those juices flowing.

5. Mad Libs

Choose one noun, adjective and verb. Make them as random as possible. Write a story using these
words in context. You can also do this exercise with a fellow writer and give each other your noun,
adjective and verb to see what you both come up with.

6. Eavesdropper

This is a wonderful exercise if you struggle to write natural dialogue between your characters. Sit in a
public place like a park or at your local college campus and listen to the things people say as they walk
by. Take copious notes and share them with other writers. This exercise is also great if you need a laugh.

7. Use Writing Prompts

A writing prompt is simply a topic around which you start jotting down ideas. The prompt could be a
single word, a short phrase, a complete paragraph or even a picture, with the idea being to give you
something to focus upon as you write. You can find examples and resources about on our Writing
Prompts 101 article.
8. Person, Place, Event

If you’re in the middle of coming up with some new ideas, this exercise can help. Get a piece of paper
and a pen and draw two lines down the middle to form three columns. In the first column, list every
type of person you can think of, such as the police, firemen, grandparents, your spouse, a princess or
whatever comes to mind. Next, think of a variety of places. It can range from the grocery store to
Ireland. In the last column, list a time period or famous historical event like the Battle of Gettysburg or
the year 1492. Combine a person, place and event and experiment with writing about that particular
situation. You can try as many as you like!

9. Research Rendezvous

Select a random topic, like the African Bush or squids and look it up on as many reference sites as you
can find. Dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, Wikipedia.org and about.com are some research sites you can
begin with. Learn as much as you can about this new topic. Keep a file for research notes.

10. A New Point of View

Pick a genre or point of view you have never tried before and write a short story with it. If you normally
use third-person point of view, switch to first-person. If you normally focus on non-fiction, branch out
and write some fiction. If you normally write sappy romances, give action/adventure a try. It’s scary to
leave your comfort zone, but you’d be surprised the kind of inspiration you get when you switch
perspective.

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10 Grammar Mistakes You Should Avoid

By Maeve Maddox - 5 minute read

If you want to write clear, correct English, you certainly need to pay attention to the grammar rules. To
help you with that, we collaborated with the folks from Grammarly and Write To Done to create a list
with 30 common grammar mistakes you should avoid. Enjoy!

Mistake 1: Using whom as a subject

INCORRECT: Fire personnel radioed deputies to stop the driver, whom, according to reports, appeared
to have been under the influence of intoxicants.
CORRECT : Fire personnel radioed deputies to stop the driver, who, according to reports, appeared to
have been under the influence of intoxicants.

In this sentence, the pronoun is the subject of the verb appeared and therefore requires the subject
form who. The object form of who is whom, which functions as the object of a verb or as the object of a
preposition:

That is the man whom I saw at the window. (object of the verb saw)

Did he say to whom he sent the letter? (object of the preposition to)

The misuse of whom as a subject frequently occurs when a phrase intervenes between the pronoun and
its subject. Be especially careful with such expressions as “according to so-and-so,” “in my opinion,”
“one suspects,” etc. Less frequently, but more embarrassingly, whom is sometimes substituted
for who when little or nothing stands between it and its verb, as in this sentence taken from a news
account: “An off-duty fireman whom lives in the area provided immediate assistance.”

Mistake 2: Unnecessary would in a wish about the past

INCORRECT: Ten Things I Wish I Would Have Known When I Was Twenty
CORRECT : Ten Things I Wish I Had Known When I Was Twenty

The opportunity for knowing the ten things existed in the past, but exists no longer. The tense required,
therefore, is the past perfect (had + past participle).

Mistake 3: Dangling modifier

INCORRECT: At the age of four, Sam’s family moved from Florida, Missouri, to Hannibal.
CORRECT : At the age of four, Sam moved with his family from Florida, Missouri, to Hannibal.

Modifiers should be positioned as closely as possible to the element they modify. The modifying phrase
“At the age of four” modifies “Sam,” not “Sam’s family.”

Mistake 4: Subject-Verb disagreement with delayed subject

INCORRECT: There goes Sally and Greg on their way to the movies.
CORRECT : There go Sally and Greg on their way to the movies.

Subjects and verbs must agree in number. When a sentence begins with here or there, the true subject
of the sentence follows the verb. “Sally and Greg” is a plural subject, so the verb go must also be plural:
“Sally and Greg go.”

Mistake 5: Incorrect use of object pronouns

INCORRECT: Me and my brothers all have college degrees in business.

CORRECT : My brothers and I all have college degrees in business.
Several English pronouns retain different forms that indicate their function in a sentence. Me is an
object form. In the example, it is incorrectly used as the subject of the verb have. Other object forms
often used incorrectly are him, her, us, them, and whom.

Mistake 6: Incorrect use of subject pronouns

INCORRECT: The owner was most kind to my wife and I as we toured the grounds.
CORRECT : The owner was most kind to my wife and me as we toured the grounds.

I is a subject pronoun form. It is correctly used as the subject of a verb. Its object form is me, which is
used as the object of a verb or, as in this example, the object of a preposition (to). Not all English
pronouns retain an object form. The pronouns that do have subject and object forms
are he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them, and who/whom.

Mistake 7: Inappropriate use of reflexive pronoun forms

INCORRECT: Jack and myself built the company from scratch.

CORRECT : Jack and I built the company from scratch.

A pronoun that ends in -self or -selves is called a reflexive pronoun. This type of pronoun refers to a
noun or personal pronoun that occurs elsewhere in the sentence. For example, “He cut himself
shaving.” In this example, himself refers to the same person as the one meant by He. A typical error is to
use a reflexive pronoun in place of a personal pronoun:

INCORRECT: Thank you for everything you did for myself and my family.
CORRECT : Thank you for everything you did for me and my family.

Note: A more polite usage is to put me last in the phrase: Thank you for everything you did for my family
and me.

Mistake 8: Incorrect use of did instead of had in certain “if clauses”

One use of the conjunction if is to introduce a clause that states an action that would have changed an
outcome. For example, “If I hadn’t missed the train, I would be in London now.” A common error is to
use did instead of had, as in this headline:

INCORRECT: [Celebrity] thinks he would be dead now if he didn’t give up alcohol and drugs
CORRECT : [Celebrity] thinks he would be dead now if he hadn’t given up alcohol and drugs

The person mentioned in the headline actually said (correctly), “I honestly don’t think I’d be alive if I
hadn’t stopped drinking.” The tense required is the past perfect (had + past participle).

Mistake 9: Incorrect irregular verb forms

Most English verbs form the past and past participle by adding -ed to the base form. For example:
walk, walked, (has) walked
believe, believed, (has) believed
jump, jumped, (has) jumped

However, a few high-frequency verbs have irregular past forms, for example:
run, ran, (has) run
go, went, (has) gone
come, came, (has) come

Errors with irregular verb forms are becoming common in the media and in articles written by university
graduates. Such errors are perhaps evidence that elementary school teachers no longer drill their
students on the irregular verb forms. Here are typical errors:

INCORRECT: Mary loves to read, has ran for office and has an articulate way of telling it like it is.—
Biographical note, KZNU.
CORRECT : Mary loves to read, has run for office and has an articulate way of telling it like it is.

INCORRECT: Deluna-Martinez is alleged to have went into one student’s account and dropped that
student’s classes.—News item, KRCR
CORRECT : Deluna-Martinez is alleged to have gone into one student’s account and dropped that
student’s classes.

INCORRECT: Deep Impact could have just so happened to hit one of these cometesimals, while the gas
seen before impact might have came from a different region on the comet with different chemistry.—
Scientific article, NASA site.
CORRECT : Deep Impact could have just so happened to hit one of these cometesimals, while the gas
seen before impact might have come from a different region on the comet with different chemistry.

Note: A cometesimal is a “mini-comet.”

Mistake 10: Omitting that when it is needed after say

When there is no intervening conjunction, that may be omitted after the verb say:

The witness said she overheard the defendant threaten to burn the man’s house down.

However, if a conjunction such as after, although, because, before, in addition to, until,
or while intervenes between the verb say and its object, that is needed to avoid ambiguity:

INCORRECT: Santana said after he stopped recording, he watched for a few more minutes but never saw
anyone perform CPR.
CORRECT : Santana said that after he stopped recording, he watched for a few more minutes but never
saw anyone perform CPR.

Now visit Write To Done for 10 more grammar mistakes to avoid, and the Grammarly Blog for yet 10
more!

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tips and exercises via email every day.