The Process of Writing: Brainstorming Brainstorming is needed for all but the simplest writing tasks; even a grocery list calls for some brainstorming. So it's important to realize that having to "think through" a writing project at its beginning is normal; don't get impatient with yourself. You can't usually just sit down and expect finished, polished writing to flow from your fingertips. On the other hand, some students make the mistake of believing that they should be able to get the writing project completed in their minds, then put it down on paper, sort of like taking dictation from themselves. This is a naive view of the writing process which simply does not work well on anything more complex than a memo of perhaps one brief paragraph or so. It is important to understand that writing is more complex than that. You have to begin putting something down on paper (or on your keyboard) before you have everything straight in your mind, even though you know that you'll be changing it, maybe even drastically. This "something" is called brainstorming. Ways to Brainstorm There are various ways to brainstorm. The most obvious is to just sit there and mull your writing project over in your head. However, this is also probably the least effective, because you have no record of your thoughts. Better is to just get a piece of paper, or open a file on your computer desktop, and start making very loose notes of your thoughts, without worrying about complete sentences or such stuff. With a record of your thoughts, you have something to build on. A third way is what is sometimes called freewriting. Freewriting means that you do use complete sentences and paragraphs, but you make no attempt at organizing your thoughts. You just really do "take dictation" from yourself, writing down everything that comes to mind about your subject (your topic). This works even better if you are a good enough typist to do it on a keyboard instead of by hand, because that speeds things up. And an interesting twist on this--if you find yourself getting hung up checking each line for errors--is to do blind freewriting, where you just turn off your computer monitor. Just type. Then after, say, ten minutes or so, you stop, turn the monitor back on, and reread what you've written. Naturally, with either type of freewriting, you end up junking most of what you've done, but it can be a good way to actually think via writing, which helps you clarify your thoughts on a topic. Then you can move forward with more structured writing. A fourth type of brainstorming is not a private, individual process at all, but a social process, sometimes called the speak/write method. Students talk a common assignment over, then afterwards--or even as the conversation progresses--scribble their ideas down on paper. With computer conferencing, this method can be called e-speak/e-write, with the "e" referring to email. This is the type of brainstorming we'll do when we have a class conference using the Nicenet website. Brainstorm What? Okay, then: if you are going to use one of the above types of brainstorming, what sort of things do you shoot for in it? What are you trying to accomplish with it? The answer is, it depends on the sort of writing project you are involved in and on how far along with it you are. But most commonly, you will be brainstorming to think of a topic, to decide your opinion about a topic, or to think of reasons supporting your opinion. If you have been given an assignment that asks you to choose your own topic (what you will write about), then that's what you need to brainstorm first. A typical variation you will often see is that you may be given a very broad topic, like families or education or violence, and then you have to narrow it down to something you can thoroughly discuss in three to five pages. If, on the other hand, you are given a very specific topic, then you first need to discover what your opinion is on it. (Your opinion about a topic is called your thesis.) While you may already have opinions about some topics, you will be presented with some which you have simply never thought much about. For those, you have to "think through" the topic, meaning you need to consider what it means, how it might affect you, and so forth. Then you can form an opinion. Thinking through a topic in this way is another goal of brainstorming., and it is a good thing to do even if you already have an opinion, because many times our opinions aren't very well thought out. Yet another goal of brainstorming occurs after you have formed an opinion on a topic. Especially in persuasive writing, once you know your opinion (your thesis) about your topic, you need to come up with some reasons why someone else might ought to consider holding that same opinion. So brainstorming supporting reasons is important, too. This kind of brainstorming can be guided by pretending someone just heard your opinion and is asking, "Really? Why do you think that?"

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