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How to Brainstorm for an Essay

Once you get going on a paper, you can often get into a groove and churn out the bulk of it fairly quickly. But choosing or brainstorming a topic for a paper—especially one with an open-ended prompt—can often be a challenge.

You’ve probably been told to brainstorm ideas for papers since you were in elementary school. Even though you might feel like “brainstorming” is an ineffective method for actually figuring out what to write about, it really works. Everyone thinks through ideas differently, but here are some tips to help you brainstorm more effectively regardless of what learning style works best for you:

Tip #1: Set an end goal for yourself

Develop a goal for your brainstorm. Don’t worry—you can go into brainstorming without knowing exactly what you want to write about, but you should  have an idea of what you hope to gain from your brainstorming session. Do you want to develop a list of potential topics? Do you want to come up with ideas to support an argument? Have some idea about what you want to get out of brainstorming so that you can make more effective use of your time.

Tip #2: Write down all ideas

Sure, some of your ideas will be better than others, but you should write all of them down for you to look back on later. Starting with bad or infeasible ideas might seem counterintuitive, but one idea usually leads to another one. Make a list that includes all of your initial thoughts, and then you can go back through and pick out the best one later. Passing judgment on ideas in this first stage will just slow you down.

Tip #3: Think about what interests you most

Students usually write better essays when they’re exploring subjects that they have some personal interest in. If a professor gives you an open-ended prompt, take it as an opportunity to delve further into a topic you find more interesting. When trying to find a focus for your papers, think back on coursework that you found engaging or that raised further questions for you.

Tip #4: Consider what you want the reader to get from your paper

Do you want to write an engaging piece? A thought-provoking one? An informative one? Think about the end goal of your writing while you go through the initial brainstorming process. Although this might seem counterproductive, considering what you want readers to get out of your writing can help you come up with a focus that both satisfies your readers and satisfies you as a writer.

 Tip #5: Try freewriting

Write for five minutes on a topic of your choice that you think could  be worth pursuing—your idea doesn’t have to be fully fleshed out. This can help you figure out whether it’s worth putting more time into an idea or if it doesn’t really have any weight to it. If you find that you don’t have much to say about a particular topic, you can switch subjects halfway through writing, but this can be a good way to get your creative juices flowing.

Tip #6: Draw a map of your ideas

While some students might prefer the more traditional list methods, for more visual learners, sketching out a word map of ideas may be a useful method for brainstorming. Write the main idea in a circle in the center of your page. Then, write smaller, related ideas in bubbles further from the center of the page and connect them to your initial idea using lines. This is a good way to break down big ideas and to figure out whether they are worth writing about.

 Tip #7: Enlist the help of others

Sometimes it can be difficult coming up with paper topics on your own, and family and friends can prove to be valuable resources when developing ideas. Feel free to brainstorm with another person (or in a group). Many hands make light work—and some students work best when thinking through ideas out loud—so don’t be afraid to ask others for advice when trying to come up with a paper topic.

Tip #8: Find the perfect brainstorming spot

Believe it or not, location can make a BIG difference when you’re trying to come up with a paper topic. Working while watching TV is never a good idea, but you might want to listen to music while doing work, or you might prefer to sit in a quiet study location. Think about where you work best, and pick a spot where you feel that you can be productive.

Tip #9: Play word games to help generate ideas

Whether you hate playing word games or think they’re a ton of fun, you might want to try your hand at a quick round of Words With Friends or a game of Scrabble. These games can help get your brain working, and sometimes ideas can be triggered by words you see. Get a friend to play an old-fashioned board game with you, or try your hand at a mobile app if you’re in a time crunch.

Tip #10: Take a break to let ideas sink in

Brainstorming is a great way to get all of your initial thoughts out there, but sometimes you need a bit more time to process all of those ideas. Stand up and stretch—or even take a walk around the block—and then look back on your list of ideas to see if you have any new thoughts on them.

For many students, the most difficult process of paper writing is simply coming up with an idea about what to write on. Don’t be afraid to get all of your ideas out there through brainstorming, and remember that all ideas are valid. Take the time necessary to sort through all of your ideas, using whatever method works best for you, and then get to writing—but don’t be afraid to go back to the drawing board if a new inspiration strikes.

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Brainstorming

What this handout is about.

This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic’s potential.

Introduction

If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain’s energies into a “storm,” you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm.

Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn’t reached completion. Let’s take a look at each case:

When you’ve got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel “blank” about the topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again.

When you’ve got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that you can then arrange according to their logical relations.

Brainstorming techniques

What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm—ideas from professional writers, novice writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time brainstorming about…well, how to brainstorm.

Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others. If the technique you try first doesn’t seem to help you, move right along and try some others.

Freewriting

When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind. You don’t judge the quality of what you write and you don’t worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you can’t think of what to say, you write that down—really. The advantage of this technique is that you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were being too self-conscious.

When you freewrite you can set a time limit (“I’ll write for 15 minutes!”) and even use a kitchen timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit (“I’ll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no matter what tries to interrupt me!”) and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off, which encourages speed and freedom of thought.

The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this:

“This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all the lectures and read the book I can’t think of what to say and I’ve felt this way for four minutes now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I’ll keep thinking nothing during every minute but I’m not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don’t know what else to say about this topic and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather’s study and he smoked and he farmed and I wonder why he didn’t farm tobacco…”

When you’re done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste them into your draft or onto an “ideas” sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you don’t find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic.

Break down the topic into levels

Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm:

• the general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers”
• a specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• a single term or phrase that you sense you’re overusing in the paper. For example: If you see that you’ve written “increased the competition” about a dozen times in your “tropical fruits” paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of the main terms: “increased” and “competition.”

Listing/bulleting

In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. You can base your list on:

• the general topic
• one or more words from your particular thesis claim
• a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea.

For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time, and your specific thesis claims that “the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society,” you could brainstorm two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be easy to prove.

The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20th-century inventions as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be based on the opposite claim, and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with a decline in that society’s quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions and then compare the evidence from all four lists.

Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, …uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you’d better alter your claim to one you can prove.

3 perspectives

Looking at something from different perspectives helps you see it more completely—or at least in a completely different way, sort of like laying on the floor makes your desk look very different to you. To use this strategy, answer the questions for each of the three perspectives, then look for interesting relationships or mismatches you can explore:

• Describe it: Describe your subject in detail. What is your topic? What are its components? What are its interesting and distinguishing features? What are its puzzles? Distinguish your subject from those that are similar to it. How is your subject unlike others?
• Trace it: What is the history of your subject? How has it changed over time? Why? What are the significant events that have influenced your subject?
• Map it: What is your subject related to? What is it influenced by? How? What does it influence? How? Who has a stake in your topic? Why? What fields do you draw on for the study of your subject? Why? How has your subject been approached by others? How is their work related to yours?

Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six “sides” or approaches to the topic. Take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands:

• Describe it.
• Compare it.
• Associate it.
• Analyze it.
• Argue for and against it.

Look over what you’ve written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your topic? What interactions do you notice among the “sides”? That is, do you see patterns repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis? Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should, at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic’s complexities, if not a sharper focus on what you will do with it.

In this technique, complete the following sentence:

____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________.

In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with them.

After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come forward? What patterns or associations do you find?

Clustering/mapping/webbing:

The general idea:

This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together into a sort of “map” or “web” that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it.

To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This big vertical space allows all members room to “storm” at the same time, but you might have to copy down the results onto paper later. If you don’t have big paper at the moment, don’t worry. You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well. Watch our short videos on webbing , drawing relationships , and color coding for demonstrations.

How to do it:

• Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two or three.
• Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it, start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down, move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot down your grandpa’s name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don’t worry about the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas when the activity is over.
• Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these “loners” can also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this part, if you like. If that’s not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in order to see what goes with what.)
• There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will depend on your particular results. Let’s take an example or two in order to illustrate how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you’ve decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular “map” or “cluster set” or “web” that you produce depends on what you need. What does this map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going!

Relationship between the parts

In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet of paper:

Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or lack of patterns, that you see? For a related strategy, watch our short video on drawing relationships .

Journalistic questions

In this technique you would use the “big six” questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also record yourself or use speech-to-text if you’d rather talk out your ideas.

Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or, how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or further note-taking?

For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about “where” and “why” something happened than you know about “what” and “when,” how could you use this lack of balance to direct your research or to shape your paper? How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results?

Thinking outside the box

Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let’s say you are writing a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, “Hmmm, if I were writing about this very same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?”

For example, when discussing “culture” in your English, communications, or cultural studies course, you could incorporate the definition of “culture” that is frequently used in the biological sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those dishes are used to “culture” substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it help you write your paper if you thought of “culture” as a medium upon which certain things will grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether?

Using charts or shapes

If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put some ideas in parallel formation? In a line?

Consider purpose and audience

Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking act: purpose and audience.

What is your purpose?

What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you are writing this draft in this form. For more tips on figuring out the purpose of your assignment, see our handout on understanding assignments .

Who is your audience?

Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need. For more on audience, see our  handout on audience .

Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias

When all else fails…this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe. Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries, thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you’ll learn several things you did not know.

If you’re looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to appreciate the term’s breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow?

If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug “good” into a thesaurus search, you will be given 14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that “good” could be interpreted according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of “good.”

An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may be able to move forward with your ideas.

Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now?

Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you’ve been brainstorming about to complete your “almost ready” paper. If you’re a fan of outlining, prepare one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you’re not a fan, don’t make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there into larger sections of your paper. You don’t have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the introduction later.

We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as reorganizing drafts and argument .

Remember, once you’ve begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits you or the particular project you are working on.

How can technology help?

Need some help brainstorming? Different digital tools can help with a variety of brainstorming strategies:

Look for a text editor that has a focus mode or that is designed to promote free writing (for examples, check out FocusWriter, OmmWriter, WriteRoom, Writer the Internet Typewriter, or Cold Turkey). Eliminating visual distractions on your screen can help you free write for designated periods of time. By eliminating visual distractions on your screen, these tools help you focus on free writing for designated periods of time. If you use Microsoft Word, you might even try “Focus Mode” under the “View” tab.

Clustering/mapping. Websites and applications like Mindomo , TheBrain , and Miro allow you to create concept maps and graphic organizers. These applications often include the following features:

• Connect links, embed documents and media, and integrate notes in your concept maps
• Access your maps across devices
• Search across maps for keywords
• Convert maps into checklists and outlines
• Export maps to other file formats

Testimonials

Check out what other students and writers have tried!

Papers as Puzzles : A UNC student demonstrates a brainstorming strategy for getting started on a paper.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Allen, Roberta, and Marcia Mascolini. 1997. The Process of Writing: Composing Through Critical Thinking . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cameron, Julia. 2002. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity . New York: Putnam.

Goldberg, Natalie. 2005. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within , rev. ed. Boston: Shambhala.

Rosen, Leonard J. and Laurence Behrens. 2003. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook , 5th ed. New York: Longman.

University of Richmond. n.d. “Main Page.” Writer’s Web. Accessed June 14, 2019. http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Writing Process

Making expository writing less stressful, more efficient, and more enlightening, search form, you are here.

• Step 1: Generate Ideas

Brainstorming

"It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to always be right by having no ideas at all." —Edward de Bono

Most people have been taught how to brainstorm, but review these instructions to make sure you understand all aspects of it.

• Don't write in complete sentences, just words and phrases, and don't worry about grammar or even spelling;
• Again, do NOT judge or skip any idea, no matter how silly or crazy it may initially seem; you can decide later which ones are useful and which are not, but if you judge now, you may miss a great idea or connection;
• Do this for 15, 20, or (if you're on a roll) even 30 minutes--basically until you think you have enough material to start organizing or, if needed, doing research.

Below is a sample brainstorm for an argument/research paper on the need for a defense shield around the earth:

Photo: "Brainstorm" ©2007 Jonathan Aguila

Writing Studio

Invention (aka brainstorming), what is “invention”.

In an effort to make our handouts more accessible, we have begun converting our PDF handouts to web pages. Download this page as a PDF: Invention Return to Writing Studio Handouts

Invention (also referred to as brainstorming) is the stage of the writing process during which writers discover the ideas upon which their essays will focus. During this stage, writers tend to overcome some of the anxiety they might have about writing a paper, and in many cases, actually become excited about it. Although invention usually occurs at the beginning of the writing process, exercises aimed at facilitating invention can be helpful at many stages of writing. Some of the best writers return to this stage a number of times while composing drafts of their essays.

Recommended Invention Techniques

Freewriting.

Read through your assignment and choose a topic, theme, or question that comes to mind. Write for 10-15 minutes in response to this idea – do not lift your pen from the paper or your hands from the keyboard.

When you are finished, read through your draft and underline or circle ideas that might lead you to a thesis for your paper. Consider asking a classmate or friend to read what you’ve written and ask questions about your ideas and topics.

After freewriting, read through what you have written and underline a phrase or sentence that you think is particularly effective or that expresses your ideas most clearly. Write this at the top of a new sheet of paper and use it to guide a new freewrite.

Repeat this process several times. The more you write and select, the more you will be able to refine your ideas.

Talk to Yourself

Some people often find themselves saying, “I know what I want to say. It’s just that I can’t figure out how to put it in writing.” If this is the case for you, try dictating your thoughts on a digital recording device. After several minutes, listen to what you’ve recorded and write down ideas you want to incorporate into your paper.

If you don’t have a recording device, ask a friend to write down some of the main points you make as you talk about your ideas.

List all the ideas you can think of that are connected to the topic or the subject you want to explore. Consider any idea or observation as valid and worthy of listing (go for quantity at this point). List quickly and then set your list aside for a few minutes. Come back and read your list and then do the listing exercise again.

Using Charts or Shapes

Use phrases or words that are central to your topic and try to arrange them spatially in a graph, grid, table, or chart. How do the different spatial representations help you see the relationships among your ideas? If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put the words on a page and draw lines between or around them.

Break Down the Assignment

Sometimes prompts are so complicated that they can seem overwhelming. Students often ask: There’s so much to do, where should I start? Try to break the assignment down into its constituent parts:

• The general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers.”
• A specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition among colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• A single term or phrase that seems to repeat in the material you’ve read or the ideas you’ve been considering. For example, if have you seen the words “increased competition” several times in the class materials you’ve been reading about tropical fruit exports, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase within the context of those readings or focus on variations of each component of the phrase (i.e., “increased” and “competition”).

Once you have identified the major parts of the topic, try to figure out what you are being asked to think about in the assignment. What questions are you expected to answer? Are there related questions that need to be addressed in order to answer the primary questions? If so, what are they?

Defining Terms

In your own words, write definitions for key terms or concepts given in the assignment. Find other definitions of those terms in your course readings, the dictionary, or through conversations and then compare the definitions to your own. Keep these definitions in mind as you begin to write your essay.

Summarizing Positions

Summarize the positions of relevant authors from your course readings or research. Do you agree or disagree with their ideas, methods, or approaches? How do your interests overlap with the positions of the authors in question? Try to be brief in your descriptions. Write a paragraph or up to a page describing a reading or a position.

Get together with a group of classmates and have each person write down her or his tentative topic or thesis at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Pass the sheets around from left to right so that each person can write down a thoughtful question or suggest related ideas to think about.

Compare / Contrast Matrix

If your assignment asks you to compare or contrast two concepts, texts, subjects, etc., try to organize your thoughts in a compare/contrast matrix by focusing on the attributes you will consider in your draft. These attributes should establish the key points of comparison or contrast with which you will deal in your essay.

Last revised: 07/2008 | Adapted for web delivery: 05/2021

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6 Creative Ways to Brainstorm an Essay

The process of brainstorming destroys the barriers to creativity and allows us to generate ideas, find solutions quickly, and do our best work. Brainstorming helps you deal with much of the uncertainty and anxiety around essay writing.  The following list of brainstorming methods includes both individual and group approaches  that can be applied to choosing an essay pro mpt, developing an essay prompt, establishing a writing approach, and anything else your creative mind can conjure.

Individual Brainstorming Techniques

Brainstorming may give rise to images of groups shooting ideas back and forth. However, you don’t need anyone else to brainstorm with the following techniques. Note: these techniques are not limited to individuals; they will also work in groups.

The word storm technique is about creating groups of word clouds so you can visualize an idea or encourage the process of creative writing to begin. Feel free to use a whiteboard and a marker or a pen and paper. Start with a simple word in the middle of the sheet or board (usually, the one describing the topic of your essay best) and use association to come up with any other word related to it. Finally, group these together based on some connection between them.

Mind Mapping

Another way to use associations and organize ideas is by mind mapping. This works better than lists as it emphasizes the visual element, which is proven to help us remember better. Start with a single word/idea again and imagine that any other word you write connected to it is the branch of a tree. This is especially useful with complex essay topics, which you can break down into easy to follow steps.

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Group brainstorming techniques.

While all of the previous methods can work for either individual or group brainstorming, these next techniques work best with more than one person.

Brain Writing

Gather 2 or more people together and present to them the same problem (the topic of the essay). Each individual will write an idea on a piece of paper or index card. Then everyone passes the index card to their left or right.

After receiving another’s card, you add a comment or improvement to the idea directly below it. Continue this until everyone has commented on each card. After one or more sessions, collect all ideas and write them on a whiteboard. Let the discussion ensue.

Rapid Ideation

Rapid ideation is an intensive session of idea generation that can produce massive results. Experts in all fields have used it to think of big ideas in a short amount of time, and it might be what you’re looking for to proceed with writing your essay. There are many methods connected to this approach, such as SCAMPER (the technique that uses action verbs to help the idea generation process) and gamestorming (for those interested in gamification).

Figure Storming

Figure storming is an unusual technique that involves thinking of a person from history that all people in the group know and trying to figure out what that person would do to solve the problem you’re discussing. This method encourages individuals to explore outside perspectives in a new, fun way.

Brain Netting

Brain netting, a fancy name for online brainstorming, allows a group of people located in different parts of the world to collaborate (which brings extra opinions and resources to the table). The principles of any other brainstorming session are the same, except you are drawing from a larger and more diverse set of people. There are a wide variety of tools at your disposal such as Google Docs. Get connected and get creative.

Brainstorming is a crucial element in the process of writing a good essay. It is the foundation from which you construct your narrative. Use the above techniques to facilitate your creative process and distinguish yourself from the large pools of essays in your classroom or your admissions process. If you are still struggling with your essay, check out our deconstruction of the notorious Costco Essay that got one student into 5 Ivy League schools.

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How to Brainstorming Essays with 100+ Ideas in 2024

Anh Vu • 03 April, 2024 • 10 min read

We have all been there. Teachers assign us an essay due next week. We tremble. What should we write about? What problems to tackle? Would the essay be original enough? So, how do we brainstorming essays ?

It’s like you are venturing into an unexplored abyss. But fret not, because making a brainstorm for essay writing can actually help you plan, execute and nail that A+

Here’s how to brainstorm for essays …

Table of Contents

Engagement tips with ahaslides.

• What is brainstorming?
• Write ideas unconsciously
• Draw a mind map
• Get on Pinterest
• Try a Venn Diagram
• Use a T-Chart
• Online tools
• More AhaSlides Tools
• 14 brainstorming rules to Help You Craft Creative Ideas in 2024
• 10 brainstorm questions for School and Work in 2024

Easy Brainstorm Templates

Get free brainstorming templates today! Sign up for free and take what you want from the template library!

What is Brainstorming?

Every successful creation starts with a great idea, which is actually the hardest part in many cases.

Brainstorming is simply the free-flowing process of coming up with ideas. In this process, you come up with a whole bunch of ideas without guilt or shame . Ideas can be outside of the box and nothing is considered too silly, too complex, or impossible. The more creative and free-flowing, the better.

The benefits of brainstorming can surprise you:

• Increases your creativity : Brainstorming forces your mind to research and come up with possibilities, even unthinkable ones. Thus, it opens your mind to new ideas.
• A valuable skill: Not just in high school or college, brainstorming is a lifelong skill in your employment and pretty much anything that requires a bit of thought.
• Helps organise your essay : At any point in the essay you can stop to brainstorm ideas. This helps you structure the essay, making it coherent and logical.
• It can calm you: A lot of the stress in writing comes from not having enough ideas or not having a structure. You might feel overwhelmed by the hoards of information after the initial research. Brainstorming ideas can help organise your thoughts, which is a calming activity that can help you avoid stress.

Essay brainstorming in an academic setting works a bit differently than doing it in a team. You’ll be the only one doing the brainstorming for your essay, meaning that you’ll be coming up with and whittling down the ideas yourself.

Learn to use idea board to generate ideas effectively with AhaSlides

Here are five ways to do just that…

Brainstorming Essays – 5 Ideas

Idea #1 – write ideas unconsciously.

In “ Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking ,” Malcolm Gladwell points out how our unconscious is many times more effective than our conscious in decision-making.

In brainstorming, our unconscious can differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information in a split second. Our intuition is underrated. It can often produce better judgments than a deliberate and thoughtful analysis as it cuts through all the irrelevant information and focuses on just the key factors. 

Even if the ideas you come up with in essay brainstorming seem insignificant, they might lead you to something great later. Trust yourself and put whatever you think of on paper; if you don’t focus on self-editing, you may come up with some ingenious ideas.

That’s because writing freely can actually negate writer’s block and help your unconscious run wild!

Idea #2 – Draw a Mind Map

Brains love visual communication and mind maps are exactly that.

Our thoughts rarely arrive in easily digestible chunks; they’re more like webs of information and ideas that extend forward at any given time. Keeping track of these ideas is tough, but manifesting them all in a mind map can help you get more ideas and both understand and retain them better.

To draw an effective mind map, here are some tips:

• Create a central idea : In the middle of your paper draw a central topic/idea which represents the starting point of your essay and then branch out to different arguments. This central visual will act as visual stimulus to trigger your brain and remind you constantly about the core idea.
• Add keywords : When you add branches to your mind map, you will need to include a key idea. Keep these phrases as brief as possible to generate a greater number of associations and keep space for more detailed branches and thoughts.
• Highlight branches in different colours : Coloured pen is your best friend. Apply different colours to each key idea branch above. This way, you can differentiate arguments.
• Use visual signifiers : Since visuals and colours are the core of a mind map, use them as much as you can. Drawing small doodles works great because it mimics how our mind unconsciously arrives at ideas. Alternatively, if you’re using an online brainstorming tool , you can real images and embed them in.

Idea #3 – Get on Pinterest

Believe it or not, Pinterest is actually a pretty decent online brainstorming tool. You can use it to collect images and ideas from other people and put them all together to get a clearer picture of what your essay should talk about.

For example, if you’re writing an essay on the importance of college, you could write something like Does college matter? in the search bar. You might just find a bunch of interesting infographics and perspectives that you never even considered before.

Save that to your own idea board and repeat the process a few more times. Before you know it, you’ll have a cluster of ideas that can really help you shape your essay!

Idea #4 – Try a Venn Diagram

Are you trying to find similarities between two topics? Then the famous Venn diagram technique could be the key, as it clearly visualises the characteristics of any concept and shows you which parts overlap.

Popularised by British Mathematician John Venn in the 1880s, the diagram traditionally illustrates simple set relationships in probability, logic, statistics, linguistics and computer science.

You start by drawing two (or more) intersecting circles and labelling each one with an idea you’re thinking of. Write the qualities of each idea in their own circles, and the ideas they share in the middle where the circles intersect.

For example, in the student debate topic Marijuana should be legal because alcohol is , you can have a circle listing the positives and negatives of marijuana, the other circle doing the same for alcohol, and the middle ground listing the effects they share between them.

Idea #5 – Use a T-Chart

This brainstorming technique works well to compare and contrast, thanks to the fact that it’s super simple.

All you have to do is write the title of the essay at the top of your paper then split the rest of it into two. On the left side, you’ll write about the argument for and on the right side, you’ll write about the argument against .

For example, in the topic Should plastic bags be banned? you can write the pros in the left column and the cons in the right. Similarly, if you’re writing about a character from fiction, you can use the left column for their positive traits and the right side for their negative traits. Simple as that.

💡 Need more? Check out our article on How to Brainstorm Ideas Properly !

Online Tools to Brainstorm for Essays

Thanks to technology, we no longer have to rely on just a piece of paper and a pen. There are a plethora of tools, paid and free, to make your virtual brainstorming session easier…

• Freemind is a free, downloadable software for mind mapping. You can brainstorm an essay using different colours to show which parts of the article you’re referring to. The color-coded features keep track of your essays as you write.
• MindGenius is another app where you can curate and customise your own mind map from an array of templates.
• AhaSlides is a free tool for brainstorming with others. If you’re working on a team essay, you can ask everyone to write down their ideas for the topic and then vote on whichever is their favourite.
• Miro is a wonderful tool for visualising pretty much anything with a lot of moving parts. It gives you an infinite board and every arrow shape under the sun to construct and align the parts of your essay.

More AhaSlides Tools to Make your Brainstorming Sessions Better!

• Use AhaSlides Live Word Cloud Generator to gather more ideas from your crowds and classrooms!
• Host Free Live Q&A to gain more insights from the crowd!
• Gamify engagement with a spin the wheel ! It’s a fun and interactive way to boost participation
• Instead of boring MCQ questions, learn how to use online quiz creator now!
• Random your team to gain more fun with AhaSlides random team generator !

Final Say on Brainstorming Essays

Honestly, the scariest moment of writing an essay is before you start but brainstorming for essays before can really make the process of writing an essay less scary. It’s a process that helps you burst through one of the toughest parts of essay and writing and gets your creative juices flowing for the content ahead.

💡 Besides brainstorming essays, are you still looking for brainstorming activities? Try some of these !

Tips to Engage with Polls & Trivia

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Where to Begin? 6 Personal Essay Brainstorming Exercises

←8 Do’s and Don’ts for Crafting Your College Essay

Creating the First Draft of Your College Application Essay →

The Common App publishes a list of 7 prompts each year. They ultimately ask for similar types of responses, regardless of slight alterations year-to-year. The Common App prompts provide you with a forum to write about yourself, using whatever anecdote or vehicle you wish in order to communicate something profound and genuine about yourself to adcoms.

If this feat seems daunting or spellbindingly vague to you, you are not alone. For virtually every student applying to college, the moment when you sit down to draft your personal statement is likely the first—and may end up being the only—time in your life when you are pushed to describe your entire identity succinctly and eloquently. So, where to begin?

As with any writing assignment, the best way to approach the personal essay is to brainstorm what it is you want the entire essay to communicate about you to the adcom that will be considering you for admission. Read on for 4 surprising brainstorming exercises that will lead you to an effective personal statement strategy.

1. Consider the four core questions.

When writing your personal statement, there are four questions that your essay should answer:

• “Who am I?”
• “Why am I here?”
• “What is unique about me?”
• “What matters to me?”

These questions are important because they help bring awareness to the kind of person you are and touch on things such as your personality traits, your journey throughout high school, the interests and skills that make you unique, and what’s important to you. Colleges want to understand how you became who you are, and where you’re going (successful alumni reflect well on their school, after all!).

2. Try freeform writing.

To help answer these questions and start brainstorming, freeform writing is a good place to start. Begin by writing down 3-5 aspects of your personality or experiences and spend some time constructing narratives out of these different combinations.

This process of getting some ideas on paper and seeing how they can relate to each other can help you better identify a prompt that works for you. For example, you might note that you enjoy tutoring students in STEM, and are now working with a local school to create a Women in STEM initiative in your school district. You may also have tried previous initiatives that failed. These experiences could be constructed and applied to a number of Common App prompts. You could address a specific identity or interest you have associated with STEM, discuss what you learned from your failed initiatives, explore how you challenged the lack of women in STEM programs in your school district, envision solving for the lack of women involved in the science and mathematics fields, etc.

3. Make a list of opinions you firmly hold and explain them.

This exercise requires you to think about aspects of your identity that you have actively chosen. While exercise #4 asks you to consider what parts of your identity you have struggled to overcome, this exercise asks you to consider what aspects of your identity you are most proud of—those opinions that you hold because you chose to believe in something specific of your own accord.

This is an important brainstorming exercise because it should get you thinking about things you are passionate about. Ultimately, you will want to write your personal statement about something that defines you, gets you excited, and can exhibit your ability to think and speak for yourself. So now, before you start writing, make a list of the things that you care about most, and explain why you feel that way about them.

This list can include everything from your political affiliation to your stance on McDonald’s decision in the past year to serve breakfast for longer. The point of this exercise is that there is no right or wrong way of going about it, no topic that is more worthwhile than any other so long as you are passionate about it.

4. Make a list of your character flaws.

While the ultimate goal of the personal essay is to present yourself in as positive a light as possible to adcoms, the challenge is to do so in a way that is realistic and genuine. To do this, you’ll need to do some serious thinking about what types of character flaws accompany your best traits.

There are two main reasons why we suggest that students not shy away from talking about their own shortcomings as well as their achievements. The first reason is quite simple: a personal statement that paints a picture of its writer as perfect and without flaws will come across as dishonest and unrealistic. Obviously, you want to avoid this at all costs. Second, and even more important, if you are able to write a personal statement that acknowledges your flaws and recognizes that you are imperfect, it will reflect positively on you and vouch for your maturity.

If it feels counterintuitive or scary to dwell on anything other than successes, do not fret: that is the expected reaction to this advice. But if done correctly, acknowledging that you are not perfect can add genuineness to any personal essay. So, how to discuss character flaws? There are several ways to go about this.

One way is to discuss a character flaw that you have always struggled with and worked to improve upon throughout your life. In this scenario, discussing flaws can help introduce a discussion about growth or maturation and give your personal statement a nice narrative arc. Yet another way to discuss your character flaws is to acknowledge how certain struggles or personal shortcomings have shaped your identity, allowing you to go into more detail about the ways in which you were able to better yourself by identifying a flaw in yourself and being willing to fix it.

The thinking here is that students have no difficulty remembering all of the accomplishments, productive experiences, and glowing achievements that they want to include in their personal statements. After all, it is easy to write about these things. It is much harder to force yourself to think about aspects of your identity that rankle, and to think about how these things have shaped you.

5. Reflect on your choices and why you made them.

Another brainstorming exercise that can help you think of a topic is to reflect on what choices you’ve made and why. Once you come up with a list, it will be easier to see what you value and the direction in which you can take your essay.

Think about some of these questions to get the juices flowing:

• Why are they my best friend?
• Under what circumstances did we become friends?
• When did we last fight?
• If I had to spend 10 days doing the same exercise or physical activity, what would I choose? Why?
• Say I had to pick one food, and my three closest friends or family members could only eat that food for one week. What would that food be and why?
• Say I had to start a business selling something, and I would achieve the average level of success (financially, socially, etc) within that business, what would I choose to do?
• What movie would I want to take the place of a character in and which character would I want to play? Why?
• What class or teacher did I like most, and why? What class or teacher did I dislike most, and why?
• If I had to choose between singing, doing standup comedy, or dancing in front of 18,000 people, what would I choose? Why?

6. Make a list of anecdotes, childhood memories, or stories about yourself. Then choose one and make it your “vehicle.”

Finally, you should conclude your brainstorming session by searching for a vehicle: an anecdote that you can use to frame your personal statement.

You can use anecdotes in your personal statement in a number of ways. Some students choose to open with one, others close with one, and still others will use two or three anecdotes in order to add color and rhetorical flair to the points they are trying to make about themselves. The best types of anecdotes are the ones that tell the most about you or give insight into your character.

When we help students write their personal statements, we usually begin by brainstorming a few potential anecdotes to use in your essay. But if you are wondering what the point is of using an anecdote— Why use one at all when I could save words and just talk about myself ?—it’s useful to first understand why telling a story or two makes your personal statement stronger.

Ultimately, you will want your personal statement to communicate something about your character and personality that is unique and appealing to schools. When an adcom reads your personal statement, they are looking to hear about you in general, they are looking to learn something unique or special about you (so they can differentiate you from other applicants), and they are also looking for evidence that you would be a valuable addition to their community. But the fact of the matter is that these are fairly broad and vague directives to write about if you don’t have something specific to focus on.

This is where the anecdotes come in to save the day! They help instigate a conversation about yourself, your personality, your identity, and your character while also giving you something concrete to talk about. This is why we call it a “vehicle”—it can exist in its own right, but it carries with it important information about you as well.

Now that you know what the purpose of this vehicle is, it should be a little easier to brainstorm the anecdote(s) that you choose to frame your personal statement with. If you are not yet sure what to write about in your personal statement, you can start brainstorming anecdotes from your childhood, from favorite family stories to fond memories, from hilarious vacation mishaps to particularly tender moments. Do your parents have favorite stories to tell about you? Write those into your list as well.

Once you have a collection of stories to work with, you may begin to see certain patterns forming. Perhaps all of your favorite stories take place in the same setting—a vacation home that meant a lot to you or in the classroom of your favorite teacher. Maybe, you will realize that all of your fondest memories involve a certain activity or hobby of yours. Or, alternatively, you may notice that one story from your childhood mirrors or foreshadows a like, dislike, or accomplishment that would come to fruition later in your life.

If you already know what you want to say about yourself, you can come at the same exercise from another angle: try to think of several anecdotes that could be potential vehicles for the message about yourself that you want to transmit. If you want to illustrate that you love to learn, try to think pointedly about where that love comes from or what you have done that proves this. In this case, remember that any given anecdote can reveal more than one thing about you.

It is hard to imagine all of the possible personal statements that could come out of this brainstorming session, but it is almost certain that this exercise will help you come up with several concrete points to make about yourself and provide you with a tangible way to say those things.

Final Thoughts

If after doing these six brainstorming exercises, you still don’t feel ready to write your personal statement, fear not! Writing a personal essay is daunting and won’t be done in three steps, or even three days! 

For more guidance, check out these blog posts:

How to Write a Personal Statement That Wows Colleges

How to Come Up With an Idea for a Personal Statement

How to Write the Common App Essays

Mastering the Personal Statement

5 Tips for Editing Your College Essays

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

How should I start brainstorming topics for my college essay?

Most colleges provide open-ended prompts. Using the topic as inspiration, think about critical milestones or essential lessons you learned during your academic career. Tell stories about real-life experiences that have shaped the person you are. Write them down to brainstorm ideas. Choose stories that highlight your best traits.

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College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start

Bonus Material: College Essay Brainstorming Questions  

The college essay is an extremely important component of your college application. Yes, college admissions officers do care about standardized test scores, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation.

All of these application components can help officers assess a student’s academic and professional potential (and much more).

The college application essay, however, gives students a chance to share their unique voice with an admissions officer. It’s like a brief interview, where students can give officers a powerful glimpse of who they are outside of their application in roughly 650 words.

So what do you say in those 650 words? How do you pick the right essay topic?

It’s all about the brainstorming process. In general, the more time you can devote to gathering potential essay topics  before  you start writing, the better. Gathering this material can also be helpful for writing supplemental essays down the road.

In this post, we provide actionable tips for guiding your college essay brainstorming process. After reading this article, students will be well poised to gather topics and eventually select the “right” essay topic .

We also give students access to 30 free college essay brainstorming questions to get started. Grab these below.

Download College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Here’s what we cover:

The Importance of College Essay Brainstorming

• 8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips
• Bonus : 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

We define the college essay as a “demonstration of character, values, and/or voice.” It is an introspective, personal essay that (ideally) adds significant value to a student’s overall application.

Many students are not well-versed in writing this kind of essay. Indeed, most students are familiar with the concept of the academic essay, with its neat five paragraphs. Very few have had a lot of time in high school classrooms to write deeply reflective pieces, and concise ones at that. (Remember: you only have 650 words or fewer to craft your response!)

That’s why brainstorming is so essential  to the college essay writing process. It’s your key to pinpointing the right topic, which we define as one with the potential to generate an essay that aligns with these 7 winning qualities .

It can also be valuable for gathering potential topics for supplemental essay responses, which many competitive colleges require.

For these very reasons, we spend a significant amount of time brainstorming in our college essay mentoring programs and summer workshops. Students who are able to gather a lot of material in this time tend to have an easier job down the road choosing the right topic, creating an outline, and eventually writing that first draft.

What’s more, they might surprise themselves in what they are able to pull from their many life experiences! It’s not uncommon for an essay student to choose a certain topic they never would have considered prior to brainstorming.

The tips outlined in the next section reflect this great value of brainstorming, and are the same we offer our college essay students at the start of their process.

8 College Essay Brainstorming Tips

Don’t let that blank page intimidate you! Follow these tips to guide your brainstorming process and remember that this stage should and will take time.

1. Know the standards

Students should feel very comfortable with colleges’ general expectations for the essay  before  they start brainstorming. If you haven’t done so already, please check out the following PrepMaven posts:

• What is the College Essay?

7 Qualities of a Successful College Essay

• 11 College Essays That Worked
• What College Admissions Officers Look For

It can also be helpful to review the Common Application’s essay prompts . While students don’t necessarily have to respond to a  specific  prompt, these provide insight into the type of essay colleges are seeking.

2. No topic is “too small” (but some are “too big”)

Students only have 650 words (or fewer) to write their essays. That’s not a lot of space! For this reason, don’t shy away from seemingly “small” topics as you brainstorm.

One student who earned Ivy League acceptance, for example, wrote about her passion for hot sauce in her college essay!

On the same note, if you come up with “big” topics, such as cultural identity, a long-term extracurricular activity, or a religious belief, do your best to highlight specific components of these topics, or one representative experience. The best college essays don’t say everything there is to say about such large topics. Rather, they focus skillfully on one smaller component of a potentially bigger picture.

3. Write down all the details for every topic

When you land upon a topic, mine it for details. Write down everything you can think of about that experience, idea, or memory. Many of our students like to use bulleted lists in a Google Doc for doing this.

It’s important to squeeze out every possible detail so that you can fully assess a topic’s potential! In many cases, such details will become college essay topics themselves.

4. Work by category

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the possible topics out there–and don’t worry, this is common–gather ideas by category. Here are some sample category examples:

• Travel experiences
• Extracurricular activities
• Family life
• Culture and heritage
• Interests and hobbies
• Challenges (non-academic)

Categories can help you build a general portrait of who you are, at least to start. Once you have a few ideas per category, start diving deeper into those ideas and generating further details about each one.

5. Ask the right questions

It is often easier for students to generate a rich pool of potential topics by answering questions designed to encourage deep reflection and introspection. Of course, this begs the question: what should I be asking myself?

Take a look at these 30 questions  we ask our students in our college essay workshops and mentorship programs at the beginning of their process.

Once you’ve answered these questions fully and to the best of your ability, you’ll be poised for essay topic selection.

6. Keep it to yourself, mostly

Many college essay students risk writing about what their parents, friends, or teachers want them to write about. Others risk writing “what colleges want to hear.” Yet authenticity is one of the most important qualities of a successful college essay!

That’s why we encourage students to brainstorm independently. You are the only one in the world most familiar with your life experiences, after all! Consult family members, friends, or mentors only once you are further along in the essay writing process, or if you need clarification on the details of a specific experience. This will ensure you gather topics that are true to you first and foremost.

7. Maintain orderly notes

Brainstorming can be messy. Establish a system early on for maintaining orderly notes! Some tools that can come in handy:

• Bulleted or numbered lists
• Index cards
• Color-coding (digital or manual)
• Google Docs

8. Consider takeaways for each topic

As you compile topics, save time and start thinking in terms of “takeaways” for each. This will allow you to assess a topic’s potential for demonstrating your character, values, and/or voice.

Ask yourself for each topic : What values does this showcase? What does this say about me specifically? What meaningful reflections does it invite? What aspect of my voice is apparent here?

Download 30 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

You can jumpstart your college essay brainstorming process right now by downloading our college essay brainstorming questions.

With this free download, you’ll get:

• 30 of the best brainstorming questions we ask our students
• Guidance for next steps

Kate is a graduate of Princeton University. Over the last decade, Kate has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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Extended Essay: Using Brainstorming and Mind Maps

• Extended Essay- The Basics
• Step 1. Choose a Subject
• Step 2. Educate yourself!
• Using Brainstorming and Mind Maps
• Identify Keywords
• Do Background Reading
• Define Your Topic
• Conduct Research in a Specific Discipline
• Step 5. Draft a Research Question
• Step 6. Create a Timeline
• Find Articles
• Find Primary Sources
• Get Help from Experts
• Search Engines, Repositories, & Directories
• Databases and Websites by Subject Area
• Create an Annotated Bibliography
• Advice (and Warnings) from the IB
• Chicago Citation Syle
• MLA Works Cited & In-Text Citations
• Step 9. Set Deadlines for Yourself
• Step 10. Plan a structure for your essay
• Evaluate & Select: the CRAAP Test
• Conducting Secondary Research
• Conducting Primary Research
• Formal vs. Informal Writing
• Presentation Requirements
• Evaluating Your Work

Brainstorming

Coggle.it is a free, easy-to-use web application for creating beautiful informative diagrams and mindmaps.

 For a tutorial video introduction, click the Coggle:  

Mind Map Inspiration

If you find it easier you can, of course, brainstorm and mind map on a big piece of paper with some colored pens or a big board with some post-it notes!

Choose whichever method works best for you.

At  Mind Map Inspiration  artist  Paul Foreman offers example Mind Maps ® for inspiration and motivation, plus mindmapping tips, drawing tips, techniques for enhancing your creativity, and improving idea generation.

See the process of mind mapping from start :

Mind Maps ® were invented by Tony Buzan

Mindmapping helps us progress from linear (one-dimensional) through lateral (two-dimensional) to radiant (multi-dimensional) thinking.

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• Next: Step 4. Choose a Topic >>
• Last Updated: May 8, 2024 3:48 PM
• URL: https://libguides.westsoundacademy.org/ee

Brainstorming Your Common App Essay - The Complete Guide

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The Common App essay is the single most important essay that you will write throughout your entire application process.

CollegeVine co-founder Vinay Bhaskara will provide an in-depth guide into brainstorming for your Common App essay, walking through multiple brainstorming techniques, topic selection, and much much more.

Attend this livestream and take your first step towards an awesome Common Application essay.

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Brainstorming Essay Topics for IELTS Writing Task 2

One of the most common mistakes students make when approaching their IELTS Task 2 Writing test is to just start writing. If you start to write before you think about what you are going to say, your essay may be incoherent and irrelevant—and your band score will suffer. The best way to fix this? Brainstorm IELTS Writing Task 2 topics before you write! In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can come up with essay topics for a variety of IELTS Task 2 Question Types to create the most coherent and relevant opinion essays possible.

Getting Started with IELTS Task 2 Essay Topics

Remember: on IELTS Academic Task 2 and the IELTS General Training Task 2, you’ll be writing a formal essay about an important issue facing the modern world or affective people’s lives. You won’t have outside resources with which to research the topic, so you’ll be relying on your own opinion. Because of this, factual accuracy is less important than the overall main ideas, cohesion, vocabulary (complexity, synonyms), and grammatical range (complex sentences) you show in your essay.

The biggest problem when students don’t brainstorm in IELTS essay writing is that it can make their essay choppy and off-topic. Together, coherence and relevance make up 50% of your score on the essay ! (Vocabulary/lexical resource and grammar are the other 50%.) Therefore, it is 100% essential that you spend 3 to 5 minutes planning your IELTS Task 2 writing —before you begin writing.

As the bulk of your points will be picked up in your two body paragraphs, I recommend that you start your essay by first brainstorming what ideas you will write about and what relevant examples you will include to back up your own knowledge. Let’s look at how to do this in IELTS writing Task 2 . First, here’s the overall process that you’ll use.

• Understand the type of question being asked.
• Brainstorm ideas.
• Choose an idea/ideas.
• Take short notes about your ideas.
• Start writing!

With that in mind, let’s look at each of these steps in greater detail.

Step-by-Step Guide to Brainstorming IELTS Writing Task 2

Step 1: understand the type of question being asked..

In another post, we examined the 5 main types of questions that you might see in the IELTS exam. Classifying IELTS questions into one of these categories according to common topics will help you make sure that you are answering the task response correctly. Look at the example Task 2 question below. How would you classify it?

Write at least 250 words.

This is a Problem + Solution question type, so keep that in mind as you start to brainstorm!

Step 2: Brainstorm ideas.

Let your mind wander for 30 to 60 seconds with all the possible ideas that instantly come to your mind. There is no need to make notes here, just mentally explore as many ideas as possible. These can be the negative effects or a negative impact of the problem, with a solution about how to avoid negative development of the situation—or they can be a positive suggestion, coming up with better ways to address the issue through a more positive development of the topic.

As you’ll see, these are the same types of ideas, just framed differently. The main point? Be sure you come up with examples in response to the direct questions the prompt is asking you.

Below, I have written out some of the thoughts and IELTS Writing Task 2 topics that initially came to my mind when I read the questions above.

Q2: Use unoccupied housing for other purposes; limit rent prices; government support for the poor; tax breaks for charging less rent; workers telecommute/live outside city

Step 3: Choose the idea.

Whilst brainstorming ideas, several ideas should come to your head. You need to choose one for each question you need to answer. However, before you decide to go with an idea, ask yourself these questions:

• Does my idea relate exactly to the question?
• Can I explain this idea with reasons and examples? (It is better to choose an idea that you can explain clearly over your best idea.)
• Is it a simple idea? (You have limited time and words to explain your idea. If the idea is too complex you will not be able to develop it fully and this will cost you points! A simple idea can still impress the examiner as long as you develop it well and provide relevant reasons and examples.)

Step 4: Write down short notes around your chosen ideas.

In the ‘Problem + Solution’ type question in IELTS Task 2 writing, there are usually two questions that need to be answered. You must first come up with an idea that answers the first question, and then provide an example that backs up that idea. Then you must come up with an idea for the second question and provide and example that backs up the second idea. Below are the ideas I went with and the examples I created on the above IELTS writing Task 2 question.

Q2: Limit rent prices, government support for poor Reason: Rent limits = more affordable hosing, support for poor = poor have more money for living/rent Example: Food subsidy = less money spent on food = more money for housing

Step 5: Start writing!

Now that you have the main ideas confirmed, your essay is practically written. The Q1 and Q2 notes can form two body paragraphs! And you can have a similar two body paragraph outline for other question types. For Advantage/disadvantage, for instance, you might have one body paragraph for advantages and one for disadvantages.

Just follow this simple formula for constructing your essay and you will complete Task 2 within 40 minutes. And to see how this formula worked for a full essay based on the outline above, check out a full sample response based on the question and notes above . I would also encourage you to look at similarly structured responses for common IELTS Writing Task 2 question types .

Again, brainstorming and prewriting a brief outline serve as the foundation for all of those model essays. Brainstorming may seem like a lot of work to start, but trust me, by brainstorming and planning your ideas first, you will save time and energy in the long run. By building this strong foundation, your essays will actually become easier to write, and you’ll be able to write them more quickly!

IELTS Essay Topics with Answers: Let’s Practice!

Practice makes perfect! Work with a variety of essay topics for IELTS to brainstorm the types of ideas that would best answer the questions. Here are just a few IELTS writing topics with answers (IELTS Academic) to get you started!

• Advantage/Disadvantage Essay
• Two-Part Question Essay
• Discussion Essay
• Agree/Disagree Essay
• You may wish to write your own response for each topic before you read the sample essay/model answers.

A Final Word on IELTS Task 2 Topics

The more you practice English writing topics for the IELTS, the easier it will be to brainstorm and find essay topics for IELTS! This will take a lot of the pressure and stress off of you as you focus on IELTS essay questions.

As you practice, keep in mind that you should stick to one idea and one example per paragraph! On the IELTS test, too many ideas and examples complicate your essay. By separating your IELTS Writing Task 2 topics into a clear, efficient organizational structure, you’ll show the IELTS examiners exactly how great your ideas actually are!

Eliot Friesen-Meyers is the Senior Curriculum Manager for Magoosh IELTS and TOEFL. He attended Goshen College (B.A.), New York University (M.A.), and Harvard University (M.T.S.), gaining experience and skills in curriculum development, ESOL instruction, online teaching and learning, and IELTS and TOEFL test prep education. Eliot’s teaching career started with Literacy Americorps in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later, taught ESL programs at Northeastern University, University of California-Irvine, and Harold Washington College. Eliot was also a speaker at the 2019 TESOL International Conference . With over 10 years of experience, he understands the challenges students face and loves helping them overcome those challenges. Come join Eliot on Youtube , Facebook , and Instagram . Recent blog posts Complete Guide to IELTS Writing Task 1 Complete Guide to IELTS Writing Task 2

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20 responses to “Brainstorming Essay Topics for IELTS Writing Task 2”

How get eassly 6 band in ielts .when you have only one month time only.

That depends a lot on what your current IELTS performance is. Your exact one-month study plan should focus on your weaknesses while building on your strengths.

It definitely is possible to get a good score on the IELTS in a month though, and many students have gotten a 6 or higher with just one month of study. Here on the blog, we have a few posts about one month IELTS study plans. See Kuangyan’s weekly IELTS study template , and her general advice for one month of IELTS study .

Hi my IELTS score is L 5.5 R 3.5 W 5.5 S 5.5 overall 5.0 can I go for rechecking because I need 5 to get admission.

I’m afraid that we can’t provide any more advice than what we already wrote in this blog post. I recommend that you read it carefully and take a look at some of the earlier comments before you make any decisions 🙂

I got 5.5 score bt i wanna got each 6 score then how can i get 6each score plz tell me

There’s no simple answer to that question, Seerat. After all, the best way to improve depends on your own strengths and weaknesses in IELTS Writing Task 2. Fortunately, Magoosh now offers a complete guide to IELTS Writing Task 2 . That guide should have some tips that will work for you personally as you boost your IELTS score by a half-band. 🙂

Result of 23 Sept exam was L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-5.5 After EOR in speaking band score increased by 5.5 to 6.5

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Declared result of 23 Sept exam L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-5.5 After EOR L-6.5 R-6.5 W-6 S-6.5

I’m wondering, if “one idea and one example per paragraph” is enough, and you could lose points for that?

I often see in most blogs or essay examples, they suggest to provide a few ideas and examples per paragraph.

Also, could I generally stick to this template ( https://magoosh.com/ielts/the-best-ielts-task-2-writing-template/ ) EVERY TIME and for ALL type of task 2 questions for a 8+ score?

By the way, I enjoyed reading this blog, very nice work!

I generally do recommend sticking to one idea and one supporting detail per paragraph, because it keeps the essay simple. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the essay will have fewer ideas and details. It can simply mean that the essay has more paragraphs, since each paragraph can only have one idea and one detail.

If you want to write more complex paragraphs, that’s certainly alright… provided you can do a good job writing them. Use more complicate paragraphs carefully, as they are– of course– a bit more difficult to write.

Hi Gwendolyn, thank you for helping out all those who are aspiring to take IELTS exam. I would appreciate if you could please give feedback on below attempt for writing task 2. Thank you in advance 🙂

“Prevention is better than cure”. Researching and treating diseases is too costly so it would be better to invest in preventative measures. To what extent do you agree?

“It is better to be safe than sorry”, treatment of diseases is not affordable in today’s world, rather being precautious and opting for spending on measures to stay healthy is ideal option. In my opinion, it is important to maintain good health than spending on expensive treatments later on. Though, we cannot ignore the importance of science and research to cure deadly diseases. For instance, tuberculosis, heart attack, kidney transplant etcetera. People suffering from above mentioned diseases can only be saved by the access of medical science, surely the treatment is expensive, but when it comes to life, nothing is too pricey. However, cost involved in taking preventative measures is much cheaper than curing the disease. To illustrate, diseases like malaria, dengue, typhoid are very easy to catch, especially, in rainy season. Curing such diseases is not affordable, it is therefore, best to invest in precautionate devices such as mosquito killing machines, maintaining hygiene in and around house, wearing clothes to cover body areas that are prone to mosquito bites. Furthermore, the pain of treatment and the side effects of medications is far more adverse. For instance, treating an ankle that got fractured in the gym is more painful than wearing personal protective equipment during exercise, which could avoid such injuries, so it makes more sense to invest in ppe than to pay for treating injuries, which occur due to failure of taking prevention. To conclude, I agree that being cautious about our health and well-being is very important but the progress made by science and research in treating serious illness is invaluable too. People should enforce safety, to keep healthy, or else, they have no option but to go for dearer treatments which don’t come without side effects.

I enjoyed this article as it is very clear.

FYI i just wanted to point out a couple of typos in case you want to correct them:

with all the possible ideas that come to instantly come to your mind.(step 2)

your easy will relate to the task response(step 5)

Thanks again,

Thanks for your kind words on this article, Chris. And thanks for bringing these typos to my attention! I just fixed them. 🙂

mam my reading section is not improving please help me in that part how i can achieve good band score in reading

How you can improve in IELTS Reading depends a lot on your current Reading challenges. Fortunately, Magoosh has a Complete Guide to IELTS Reading that should help you with any challenge you’re facing. 🙂

Thanks for this helpful content. I have a question and I’ll appreciate if you can make it clear for me.

Can I explain more than one idea for each question? For example and for this sample question I have 2 ideas around the questions (lack of exercising and eating junk food).

Is it possible to explain both ideas for each question or I have to choose only one of these ideas?

You can certainly have more than one idea for the question. You can write 2 different body paragraphs explaining your examples. 🙂 Having more support for your viewpoint on the Task 2 essay can make your essay stronger. With that said, you should make sure that both of your ideas address the prompt and are very clear for the reader/grader to understand.

I secured S 7, L 6, W 6, R 5.5, I need 6 in Reading. Should I fill rechecking form ?

Hi Shefali,

There are usually no changes to the reading score even after a re-score. So, it’d probably be a better use of your time to retake the exam than request a re-score of the Reading section.

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Educators warn AI must be a teaching — not a cheating — aid

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming classrooms worldwide, as pupils adopt AI chatbots as a powerful research tool, and educators use the technology to deliver engaging lessons and cut their administrative workload. But, as generative AI makes it ever easier to create convincing prose based on simple prompts, experts warn that some students may use it as a shortcut for writing notes and essays — compromising their learning and creating a cheating epidemic.

A 2023 study by edtech company RM Technology has already found that two thirds (67 per cent) of secondary school students admit to using chatbots such as ChatGPT for writing essays or doing work for them. They also said they were using AI for solving numerical problems (42 per cent), drafting English essays (41 per cent), translating text into different languages (25 per cent), writing poems (24 per cent), completing physics work (20 per cent), brainstorming history essay topics (18 per cent), creating art (18 per cent), and taking science tests (18 per cent).

Two-thirds of respondents in the RM Technology study also said AI usage has improved their grades.

However, while this level of usage is making the likelihood of AI-plagiarised essays and assignments a growing concern for teachers, not every student is using the technology in these ways.

For example, 17-year-old student James, from Ottowa in Canada, uses ChatGPT to provide more context on different topics and find reading materials. This makes it easier for him to plan, structure and compose his essays. He does not rely on AI to write entire assignments without his input.

Similarly, in maths, James uses AI bots to help get himself started: “The newer models have better visual capabilities, so I’ll send screenshots of problems and ask how I would solve them step by step to check my own answers.”

Emily, a 16-year-old pupil at Eastbourne College in southern England, adopts much the same attitude to using AI for schoolwork. She says: “The main way I use ChatGPT is to either help with ideas for when I am planning an essay, or to reinforce understanding when revising.”

Others, though, are more cavalier in their approach to AI.

I still use AI because of its ease of use. All I really need is the grade for the class

Fiore, a 17-year-old student from Delaware in the US, has used ChatGPT to generate several entire essays when deadlines were nearing or if they required information that he did not have. He accepts that this is “cheating” and potentially making him “lazier”, but his teachers have not caught him yet.

“I use ChatGPT mostly on English assignments, especially large ones — I started doing this around last year,” he says. “I still use AI because of its ease of use. All I really need is the grade for the class, and that’s it.”

There may even be other benefits to letting AI take the strain: in a poll of 15,000 American high school students, conducted by AI-powered educational platform Brainly, 76 per cent said the tech could decrease exam-related stress, while 73 per cent said it could make them more confident in class.

But, with so many pupils using AI in different ways, Adam Speight — an acting assistant headteacher based in Wales and a writer at educational resources provider Access Education GCSEPod — says it is essential that teachers also educate themselves on appropriate uses of the technology.

“AI can speed up the research process for both learners and educators,” he suggests. “What is cheating is when a learner has used AI to do all their work for them.”

Speight says teachers should always “question the validity” of their students’ assignments. He adds that any concerns — and the consequences of cheating — should then be clearly communicated with the student.

Gray Mytton, assessment innovation manager at qualification awarding body NCFE, argues that the fair use of AI will vary by learning outcomes. “For example, if spelling and grammar is being assessed, then learners can’t demonstrate this independently if they are using AI to alter their spelling and grammar,” he explains.

“ On the other hand, if a learner is tasked with creating a marketing video, then using AI to create ideas to enhance video flow could be considered fair use, because the learner is applying these ideas to their video product — but not if the intended learning outcome is to understand different methods of improving flow in a video.”

Jane Basnett, director of digital learning at Downe House School in Berkshire, reckons the rise of AI has “exacerbated” the problem of plagiarism. “Students have always found ways to outwit the systems designed to ensure academic integrity, and the temptation to resort to AI to complete assignments is strong,” she says.

Despite these concerns, though, teachers can demonstrably benefit from employing AI.

Sharon Hague, managing director of school assessment and qualifications at academic publisher and awards body Pearson, says AI could help the teaching workforce free up “hundreds of thousands of hours per week” spent planning lessons and performing other administrative work by 2026. That would allow teachers to “work more directly with students”.

73% Proportion of American high school students saying AI could make them more confident in class

She warns, however, that they need to strike a balance between AI usage and manual work. “Teachers tell us that lesson planning and marking, for example, are often helpful processes . . . to go through themselves.”

When in the classroom, the technology then provides ways to increase the personalisation and creativity of lessons, reckons Jason Tomlinson, managing director of edtech firm RM Technology. He uses the example of an IT teacher explaining “complex concepts” as “digestible formats” that resonate with students, such as “in the tone of their favourite superhero”.

Rory Meredith, director of digital strategy and innovation at South Wales-based further education provider Coleg y Cymoedd, says teachers can then use the data provided by AI systems to track their students’ progress and, if needed, implement targeted interventions. He likens AI to a satnav for “monitoring and recording a learner’s learning journey from point A to B.”

And, when students reach point B, they will need to be able to demonstrate a range of AI skills as so many employers now expect school leavers to possess them. Chris Caren, chief executive of plagiarism detection software Turnitin, says companies are increasingly looking for people who can use AI to “help with writing” and “drive efficiency” in their day-to-day roles.

The risk, here, is that school leavers abuse the technology to inflate their grades on fake CVs and get chatbots to write unauthentic cover letters. Stephen Isherwood, joint CEO of the non-profit professional body Institute of Student Employers, points out that employers are “very aware” of this problem and, consequently, are implementing guidelines defining correct and incorrect AI usage.

Such abuses of AI will not help students in the long run, however. “When an employer meets a student in person, they may not demonstrate the kind of behaviours they expected from the application,” Isherwood points out. “Worst-case scenario is someone gets a job and then finds they can’t do it or it isn’t suited to them.”

John Morganelli Jr — director of college admissions at New York-based private tuition company Ivy Tutors — says some students will want to use AI in their applications so as not to be “at a disadvantage”. But he thinks employers will be wise to it.

“Over time, I believe that admissions officers and hiring managers may place greater emphasis on real-time assessments, such as interviews or video portfolios, to gauge a candidate’s true abilities,” he says. “This shift might lead to more innovative interview formats, where candidates face questions generated by AI without prior knowledge of the topics.”

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I quit my director job at Goldman Sachs to start my own company. There's always a cap if you're an employee.

• Hong Yea spent 10 years as a trader but always had dreams of starting his own business.
• Yea quit his director job at Goldman Sachs to start a crypto company, just as the industry tanked.
• He had doubts, alongside everyone else, but a Korean proverb spurred him to pursue his startup.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hong Yea, a 36-year-old CEO and cofounder of GRVT. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2018, after five years of working in security lending at Credit Suisse, I started pondering what I wanted to do with my life. I was 30, living in Hong Kong. Did I want to keep working as a trader or do something completely different?

Around that time, a Goldman Sachs recruiter in Hong Kong approached me to work for them. After an interview, they offered me a job. I wasn't convinced I wanted to stay in banking, so I declined.

I took a two-week trip to Canada to meet with a good friend who worked at Amazon. If I was going to leave trading and start something new, I needed to be convinced by an idea or industry I could immerse myself in.

After two weeks of brainstorming with my friend, I didn't love anything we came up with. Luckily, Goldman hadn't filled the role, so I started working for them in November 2018.

Working at Goldman Sachs would always be limiting

I liked working as a trader at Goldman, but it wasn't fulfilling. I had this passion to start a business I couldn't let go of.

I worked at Goldman from November 2018 to July 2022. During that time, I started several side projects, including a restaurant and a home import service. I slowly realized that working for Goldman or any company, the end goal is limited to possibly being a partner. There's a cap.

I was promoted to executive director in 2019. The next step at the firm was managing director, a role with significantly more responsibility and compensation. I knew I'd struggle to walk away from my team and the money.

If I wanted to build something of my own, I needed to leave before reaching that point.

The 3 essentials for leaving my job

By 2020, I was seriously considering leaving my job to start my own business. But before I went out alone, I needed my new venture to be positioned in a fast-growing industry, have a business idea I knew I could contribute to and excel at, and have good co-founders to help me run the business.

I started researching crypto and blockchain in 2021. I'd invested in crypto since 2018 but wasn't that into it. But in 2021, the market was booming. I looked at the technology more closely, and it seemed applicable to the financial systems I was familiar with.

I booked a ticket to a crypto conference in February 2022 in Barcelona to learn more. The conference convinced me this was the industry to be in. There were many "crypto natives" there, but I saw a lack of traditional finance expertise. It felt like was a big opportunity for me to get in early.

When I got home, I spoke with two friends, Matthew and Aaron. Matthew was a trustworthy friend with a strong blockchain background. He'd introduced Aron to me as the best engineer he knew. I suggested we look into the decentralized finance space and see what improvements we could make, and they were on board.

I had all three requirements I'd set out to leave Goldman.

We started a crypto company weeks before the crash

By April 2022, we all decided to quit our jobs and dive full time into creating GRVT (pronounced gravity).

Related stories

GRVT would be a self-custodial cryptocurrency exchange designed to give users complete control over their assets. Basically, it would be a system to create more secure crypto trading and protect investors from third parties defaulting on their payments.

I had enough savings to cover my rent and living expenses for a year and other non-cash assets that I could leverage if needed.

For me, it didn't matter how much I'd saved. The key was having a team and project I felt confident could raise sufficient funds. Now we had that. There was no turning back.

I was working from Singapore in early May 2022. I emailed my boss in Hong Kong to say I was resigning. When I followed up on the phone with him, he said he was coming to Singapore a week later and wanted to talk with me in person.

At the same time all this was happening, Luna Crypto, followed by the crypto market, crashed.

The crypto industry had been decimated, and I'd lost around two-thirds of my savings in cryptocurrency. I couldn't help questioning my decisions. It was a really fragile time in my life.

When I told my parents and friends I had resigned from Goldman to start a career in the cryptocurrency industry, they were concerned. Many people asked why I'd leave Goldman for crypto during a crash.

"It is the best time to build when things are crashing as long as you have the conviction that industry will grow because it's the time when the fewest others will be building," I said in response to their worried questioning.

A Korean proverb inspired me to stick to my guns

My boss flew into Singapore and met with me. "Are you sure you don't want to come back," he asked me, half serious, half joking.

But after talking to my fiancé, I decided to stick with my plan. She reminded me of a Korean proverb: "If you've drawn your sword, you need to slay something before you put it back." I'd been careful and made all the right assessments. Even if the markets were tanking, I was committed.

In the following months, we focused on building and getting investor funding. It was the worst time to raise because no one was looking to crypto. It was daunting, and stressful, and required a lot of self-convincing.

In October 2022, we pivoted away from lending toward building a safer hybrid trading platform: a crypto derivatives exchange. That's when we started receiving our first proper investments.

It felt like the industry was entering a no-return stage after FTX

When FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, it confirmed that we were building something the industry needed.

If you trust your funds to an exchange, they have full control over their management. GRVT solves that problem. User funds are never controlled by a third party. You always have control of the funds in your own wallet and trade through your own wallet.

After the FTX crash, there were moments when I thought the industry was entering a no-return stage because the sentiment was so negative.

The technology we believed in — blockchain and smart contract-based risk management — could be the answer to preventing future incidents like this. That conviction kept us going through the toughest times.

Since the FTX crash, things have gone up for us

We've raised about $9.3 million, which is pretty decent for seed rounds at the worst time. We're a team of 26 building what I think is the future of exchanges. We're looking to launch in the next two months. Over 2 million people are registered on our waiting list, and we have 500,000 followers on X .

Achieving these milestones step by step is exciting for myself and the team, even if we've built it through the worst times.

I wanted to dream up something big enough that when I fulfilled it, it felt so much better than working for a company. We weathered the storm, and it feels incredibly rewarding.

Watch: Microsoft CEO unravels ChatGPT, ethical AI, and going bust

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Reebok Isn’t a ‘Hobby’ for Shaquille O’Neal

After pushing to be in charge of the company’s return to basketball, the Hall of Famer understands the stakes. “If this doesn’t work, everyone’s leaving,” he said.

Shaquille O’Neal had a signature shoe from Reebok during his playing career and is now president of the company’s basketball division. Credit... Arturo Olmos for The New York Times

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By Scott Cacciola

• May 26, 2024

In mid-March, Reebok staged its annual brand summit for about 500 business partners at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter, an events space in Boston, where Todd Krinsky, the company’s chief executive, was harboring a secret.

Mr. Krinsky told his audience that Shaquille O’Neal, the new president of Reebok’s soon-to-be-resuscitated basketball division, had been hoping to attend. But in lieu of being there in person, Mr. O’Neal had sent along a prerecorded video message.

And there, on a big screen, appeared the unmistakable presence of Mr. O’Neal, all 7 feet 1 inch of him, as he lounged in bed at home in Atlanta. He said he felt awful about missing the event and offered his apologies.

But as soon as the video ended, Mr. O’Neal appeared in person — surprise! — strutting onto the stage. He greeted the crowd and soon joined Mr. Krinsky for a Q. and A. that the chief executive figured would be light and breezy. But Mr. O’Neal, as he often does, had other plans.

Mr. Krinsky had just gotten through asking his second question — a softball along the lines of which of Mr. O’Neal’s four N.B.A. championships was his favorite — when Mr. O’Neal made an impromptu speech that Mr. Krinsky recalled as part sermon, part pep talk.

“Listen, we’re getting back into basketball,” Mr. O’Neal said. “And I want everyone in here to understand there are no excuses. Everyone needs to be 100 percent in on this, because I’m 100 percent in on this.”

He then doubled down on his personal commitment: “I’m not doing this because this is a hobby. I’m doing this because we have a rightful place in basketball.”

To basketball fans around the world, Mr. O’Neal, 52, is impossible to miss. As a player, he was one of the most dominant big men in the game’s history, a 15-time N.B.A. All-Star who won championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. He entered the Hall of Fame in 2016.

But rather than take his millions in retirement and decamp to a tropical island, Mr. O’Neal has remained uniquely visible. When he isn’t co-hosting TNT’s “ Inside the N.B.A. ” or interviewing guests on his podcast , odds are decent that Mr. O’Neal is trying to sell you car insurance . Or Icy Hot . Or Papa John’s pizza . Or printer cartridges .

Now, the man with a gazillion jobs has one more — and it is personal, he said. In re-entering the hypercompetitive world of basketball sneakers, Reebok is looking to the future by banking on a larger-than-life figure from its past. Mr. O’Neal said he was aware of the stakes.

“If this doesn’t work, everyone’s leaving,” Mr. O’Neal said. “Everyone’s going to get gone, including me.”

Reebok was largely known for fitness sneakers and apparel until 1989, when it moved into basketball with the launch of the Reebok Pump, a sneaker with an inflation device that gave the foot a snug fit. Pumps were bold, innovative, incredibly heavy, almost prohibitively expensive — and a hit.

“No one at Reebok needed to be tasked with convincing pro players to wear Pumps,” Russ Bengtson wrote in his book, “ A History of Basketball in Fifteen Sneakers .” In fact, after Dee Brown wore Pumps while winning the N.B.A.’s slam dunk contest in 1991, Michael Jordan, a star synonymous with Nike, confronted Mr. Brown, telling him that he had kicked off “a shoe war,” according to Mr. Bengtson.

Sure enough, in 1992, Reebok was hoping to cement its new position in the marketplace by signing the biggest star coming out of college basketball that year: Shaquille O’Neal, who had spent three seasons demolishing defenders as a rim-shaking, shot-swatting star at Louisiana State.

When Mr. O’Neal met with Reebok executives, he told them that he wanted his own sneakers with the “Dunkman” logo, which was a silhouette of himself hanging from the hoop, legs akimbo, after a ferocious slam. He also wanted to be involved in the production of his own TV commercials.

“I won’t say I was messing around,” Mr. O’Neal said on a video call, “but I was just trying to see how far I could go. And with every demand that I wanted, they said, ‘Yes.’ It was a beautiful thing.”

Mr. O’Neal was sold. He still had another meeting scheduled with Nike, and while he was no longer interested, he went to it “out of respect,” he said. He showed up in a Reebok jacket.

“They were kind of upset about that,” he said. “I took all the Nike product for my family.”

Reebok celebrated its new endorsement deal with Mr. O’Neal on the grounds of its Boston campus. A huge tent was erected, and Reebok employees wore T-shirts that said “Love Shaq.” Mr. Krinsky, who was 22 at the time and working in a company warehouse, was not on the invite list. But he was determined to sneak inside, he said, and even managed to approach Mr. O’Neal.

“Hey, man, someday we’re going to work together,” Mr. Krinsky recalled telling him.

“All right, dude,” Mr. O’Neal told him.

Reebok’s N.B.A. roster later expanded to include several other stars, peaking with Allen Iverson, who signed a $50 million endorsement deal after the Philadelphia 76ers made him the league’s top overall draft pick in 1996.

The result was Reebok having a “really vibrant basketball business” in the 1990s and 2000s, Mr. Krinsky said, with a 14 percent market share. But after acquiring Reebok in 2005 , Adidas de-emphasized Reebok’s commitment to basketball. “Adidas really mismanaged the brand,” said Matt Powell, a footwear industry analyst and senior adviser with BCE Consulting.

Mr. Krinsky, a Reebok lifer who graduated from the warehouse to the mailroom to various management positions, recalled that period as “a really difficult time for a lot of us.”

As Reebok’s business continued to founder under Adidas, Mr. O’Neal kept in touch with Mr. Krinsky, who recalled the general gist of Mr. O’Neal’s text messages: “Is Adidas selling yet?”

In 2015, Mr. O’Neal became a strategic partner with Authentic Brands Group, a brand management and licensing company, providing him with an opportunity to push Jamie Salter, Authentic Brands’ chief executive, to buy Reebok. “He was always harassing Jamie,” Mr. Krinsky said.

It worked. Authentic Brands acquired Reebok in 2021 for about $2.5 billion. And while the core of Reebok’s business has remained in its Classics collection , which is driven by its archive, and also in training shoes and apparel, the company wants to expand into sports. Basketball is at the heart of that mission in large part because of the game’s global growth, said Nick Woodhouse, the president of Authentic Brands.

“The resounding feedback from our international partners is: ‘Hey, we’re all in on basketball, and we can’t wait until you have players in the N.B.A.,’” Mr. Woodhouse said.

When Reebok formally decided to return to basketball, Mr. Krinsky phoned Mr. O’Neal so that they could brainstorm. He also wanted to gauge Mr. O’Neal’s desired level of involvement. Mr. Krinsky thought it was a productive conversation. And then Mr. O’Neal called him back.

“I want to be president,” Mr. O’Neal told him.

“Of what?” Mr. Krinsky asked.

As he digested Mr. O’Neal’s pitch — essentially: Put me in charge of basketball — Mr. Krinsky became a fan of the idea, he said. He knew that Mr. O’Neal would throw himself into the role.

“This is not some P.R. move,” said Mr. Krinsky, who made that point more than once in a recent interview. “He is really committed to this.”

Mr. Iverson, who has retained his cachet in the basketball world well into his retirement, soon came aboard as vice president. “He can help me get to the smaller people,” Mr. O’Neal said. “If I’m a guard and I get a call from Shaq? Meh. But if I get a call from A.I., that’s a different story.”

Drew Haines, the merchandising director for sneakers at the online reseller StockX , cited Mr. Iverson’s cultural influence on basketball, fashion and footwear as an asset for Reebok.

“I don’t see any reason they couldn’t have a really nice resurgence,” Mr. Haines said.

Now, Mr. O’Neal said, the goal is to replicate the sort of excitement that accompanied the release of his sneaker over 30 years ago. Well, not now, exactly. But soon. Or at least soon-ish: Reebok plans to launch its new basketball line early next year.

“You can’t just show up on 30 acres and build a mansion,” Mr. O’Neal said. “It takes time.”

The Big Delegator

Mr. O’Neal prides himself on not being a micromanager.

“My favorite word is ‘delegation,’” said Mr. O’Neal, who has weekly Zoom calls with his staff. (His display name, in case anyone needed reminding, is Reebok prez.)

Mr. O’Neal prefers to keep the big picture in mind, and he doesn’t exactly lack confidence. He rattled through an abridged list of his applicable skills: that he knows what looks good, that he knows what people like, that he can relate to retailers, that he is terrific in meetings with young players and their parents — a necessity now that high school and college athletes can be paid for the use of their “name, image and likeness,” commonly known as N.I.L. deals.

Mr. O’Neal also knows that Reebok needs to come out with a product that “makes noise,” though he acknowledged that the footwear landscape had evolved. During his playing days, sneaker companies marketed their products by signing popular players. But this is the influencer age.

“Now,” Mr. O’Neal said, “it’s bloggers, emcees, athletes, designers.”

At the N.B.A.’s All-Star weekend in February, as Mr. O’Neal and Mr. Iverson made the rounds wearing Reebok varsity jackets that were personalized with their respective titles, Reebok released an N.B.A.-themed collaboration with Victor Solomon , the Los Angeles artist. (The jackets were Mr. O’Neal’s idea.)

Star players, though, are still an invaluable piece of the puzzle, and Reebok made an immediate, and somewhat surprising, first splash back in October by partnering with Angel Reese , one of the most popular young players in the women’s game. A former all-American at L.S.U., Ms. Reese recently joined the Chicago Sky of the W.N.B.A. as a first-round draft pick.

Mr. O’Neal first met Ms. Reese when he accompanied his daughter Me’Arah , a top high school prospect, on a recruiting trip to his alma mater. Though Ms. O’Neal later committed to the University of Florida, her father became something of a mentor to Ms. Reese.

“She’s like a daughter to me,” Mr. O’Neal said. “She’s fearless. She’s herself.”

Reebok, at Mr. O’Neal’s behest, signed Ms. Reese to an N.I.L. deal in October, making her the first player, man or woman, to be sponsored by the company in the Shaq era.

“No one was expecting a college player, and no one was expecting a woman,” Ms. Reese said in an email, adding, “The world’s overwhelmingly positive reaction to it meant so much to me.”

Mr. Krinsky described Ms. Reese as a “provocative” presence who fits with the company’s ethos of being disruptive. He cited Reebok’s 2001 collaboration with the rapper Jadakiss, who filmed a commercial to promote the release of Mr. Iverson’s signature sneaker, the Answer V. The commercial was perfectly timed as the N.B.A. was leaning into its connection with hip-hop and Black culture, a shift led by players like Mr. Iverson.

“They understand my values,” Ms. Reese said, “and being a girlie girl, changing the stereotype that women can be cute and girlie off the court , and also be a baller on the court.”

With the Sky, Ms. Reese has worn a special colorway (pink and white) of the Reebok Solution Low, a retro model from Mr. Iverson’s sneaker line.

Several players, including Ms. Reese, are testing prototypes of Reebok’s new sneakers. The process started nearly a year ago, Mr. Krinsky said, as Reebok brought in designers from other areas of the company who have a passion for basketball. Among them: Jide Osifeso , who helps Mr. O’Neal oversee the basketball division.

“Performance stuff is really competitive right now,” Nick Engvall, a footwear industry consultant, said. “They would have a really challenging time without spending a lot of money because there are so many brands that are doing incredible things at the $100 to $120 price point right now.”

Mr. Krinsky declined to provide financial figures. “I can tell you that we are pitching and competing to sign some of the best players in the world,” he said.

For his part, Mr. O’Neal said he was embracing the challenge. “Nike has a lot of players,” he said. “Adidas has some OK players, but no one I’m worried about, trust me.”

Consider it his version of boardroom trash talk against a worthy adversary: Adidas already has one of the brightest young stars in the N.B.A., Anthony Edwards of the Minnesota Timberwolves, locked in with a signature sneaker and is making its own inroads on the surge of popularity in the women’s game by naming Candace Parker, the recently retired W.N.B.A. superstar, as its president of women’s basketball .

And while Mr. O’Neal was cagey about his own team’s plans — “I don’t want to give up my secrets,” he said, as if he were guarding his playbook from opponents — he did offer morsels. He wants a high-performance product with “a lot of style and innovation.” He wants “funky, fresh designs.” And, of course, he wants to succeed.

“It’s personal,” Mr. Krinsky said, “because his name is on the line now.”

Callie Holtermann contributed reporting.

Scott Cacciola writes features and profiles of people in the worlds of sports and entertainment for the Styles section of The Times. More about Scott Cacciola

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