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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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December 3, 2020

Academic Writing Tip: 8 Brainstorming Techniques

So, you’ve read and re-read the academic writing assignment that you received from your professor, and now you’re staring at a blank page.

Does your mind feel as blank as the page? Are you Frozen by fear? Rubbing your eyes with exhaustion?

Whether you’re writing an essay for a community college in Boston, Massachusetts or a university in New England, USA, you need to start somewhere. Brainstorming means you use your imagination and prior knowledge to collect thoughts. After gathering a great quantity of ideas, you select the highest quality ideas.

Filling that empty white document can feel like leaping into unknown icy water. Brainstorming is the way to warm up for a deep dive into the EAP topic.

Brainstorming begins with simple questions. What do you know about the topic? What do you want to learn about the topic?

As you brainstorm, you journey farther down the academic writing quest. How do you narrow down a topic into a thesis? How do you gather the examples and evidence necessary for an academic essay?

Here are EAP brainstorming strategies to jumpstart the engine of your creativity.

Brainstorming tip #1: Freewriting

Do you have no ideas? Or the opposite problem—too many ideas?

Freewriting means what it sounds like—you’re free to write whatever comes to mind. The point is not to make it perfect—not even necessarily to make it good—but just to put thoughts on paper—no rules, no revising. You can even write about how you don’t know what to write about.

The only limit you should set for yourself is that you write for a specific period of time—let’s say 30 minutes—or for a specific number of pages—let’s say 2 pages. Non-stop activity gets the juices flowing, and a concrete goal gives you satisfaction. Here’s an example of freewriting:

This essay is supposed to be about the Boston Tea Party but I don’t know anything about US history except that the American Revolution happened a long time ago (when???) somewhere in Massachusetts or maybe I’m wrong. I can’t think of anything else to say and now the clock says two minutes, I’ll keep babbling anyway. Boston, MA, politics, tea. My grandmother used to make tea when I stopped by after my English courses. But that’s not useful for this essay. Or maybe there’s a connection. Hmmm… I remember the professor talked about the taxes in the New English states (colonies?) and my grandmother used to complain about paying high taxes at the market and…

Freewriting stimulates your brain the same way physical exercise wakes up your mind.

Brainstorming tip #2: Making a Cube

Draw a cube in your notebook. Each of the six sides has a task:

Side 2: Compare the topic.

Side 3: Connect the topic.

Side 4: Classify the topic.

Side 5: Argue for or against the topic.

Side 6: Personalize the topic.

Instead of those 6 tasks, you could replace those verbs with other academic tasks: apply, analyze, question, connect, define, classify, associate, or explain cause and effect—whichever inspire ideas.

Imagine your topic is attending university in the U.S. Next to each point on the cube, you would write words and phrases inspired by the verb at hand:

Side 1: Describe: Exciting, difficult, expensive, growing opportunities, expensive, valuable.

Side 2: Compare: Different from my country. USA = more essay writing, dorms with roommates, critical thinking, fewer standardized exams and lectures, smaller classes.

Side 3: Connect: student visa policies, US immigration law, IELTS, TOEFL iBT, travel restrictions from covid-19, globalization means more English at work.

Side 4: Classify: community colleges (Holyoke, Greenfield), state universities (UMASS Boston), private ivy league (Harvard) graduate schools, MBA, BA, MFA programs.  

Side 5: Argue for : opens doors, better jobs, international workplace, investment in future, social networking, broadens horizons.

Side 6: Personalize: my cousin > engineering degree, MIT internship, campus resources help with culture shock (which worries me.) IELTS stresses me out!!!!  Way to avoid?

This brainy approach works if you like approaching topics from different angles.

Brainstorming tip #3: Clustering

When you cluster, you draw bubbles and connect words and concepts associated with the topic—anything that comes to mind.

This visual method works when you have a lot of random thoughts and you are trying to “see” connections.

Brainstorming tip #4: Bulleting

With this technique, you make bulleted lists with concepts, terms, and ideas. This can help you narrow down from the first list to a second list. The list on the left contains general bullet points, while the list on the right expands on a single bullet to delve deeper.

This method works great if you’re an orderly person who likes making lists.

Brainstorming tip #5: Venn Diagram

  The famous Venn diagram technique works well for brainstorming differences and similarities between two topics. You draw two intersecting circles and write the qualities they share in the middle where the circles intersect and the qualities that are unique in the left and right spaces. For example, let’s say you’re brainstorming differences and similarities between two cities in Massachusetts, Boston and Northampton.

This famous brainstorming method is used in the academic and business worlds because it so clearly shows differences and similarities.

To analyze relationships among three topics, you can make a Venn diagram with three circles. The 3-circle helps visualize and understand complex connections. You brainstorm three basic questions. Which qualities are unique to each? Which traits do any two topics have in common? Which similarities are shared by all three topics?

Brainstorming tip #6: Tree diagram

Imagine you’re brainstorming different types of schools in US higher education.

Tree diagrams are perfect for brainstorming classification essays. You could also draw tree diagrams to brainstorm effects, starting with a cause at the top and branching off into increasingly specific downstream effects. Pretty cool, huh?

Brainstorming tip #7: Journalist Dice

Dice aren’t just toys for games and gambling–they can be a tool for writing. Rolling journalist dice is a stimulating way to flesh out narrative essays. Each side of the die corresponds to one of the 6 question words. To make the game fun, roll a die, and write down one answer the question every time you roll. Roll at least a dozen times to write down a variety of details and ideas.

In addition to building a narrative essay, this brainstorming technique can help you develop a compelling story for your college application essay. For the tired and uninspired writer, the game element of rolling dice makes the writing process more engaging and enjoyable. 

Brainstorming tip #8: T diagram

This method works well if you like thinking in terms of opposites.  Can you say “On the one hand” and “On the other hand”? 

What’s next in the writing process?

After your fast and furious brainstorm, the next step is to create an outline. When you outline, you pick your best and brightest ideas. Then you begin organizing them into a coherent, linear argument. You select and sort supporting points, evidence, examples, and elaboration. To learn more about outlining, click here for the next article in our academic writing series. 

The best way to improve your writing is to join an academic or business English course. With guidance from an expert instructor and feedback from a community of peers, you can master the art of academic writing.

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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

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• 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

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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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College admissions

Course: college admissions   >   unit 4.

• Writing a strong college admissions essay
• Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

• How formal should the tone of your college essay be?
• Taking your college essay to the next level
• Sample essay 1 with admissions feedback
• Sample essay 2 with admissions feedback
• Student story: Admissions essay about a formative experience
• Student story: Admissions essay about personal identity
• Student story: Admissions essay about community impact
• Student story: Admissions essay about a past mistake
• Student story: Admissions essay about a meaningful poem
• Writing tips and techniques for your college essay

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Video transcript

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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How to Brainstorm and Write the First College Essay Draft

• April 5, 2023
• College Admission Guidance , Parents Must Read , Under Graduate

When it comes to application evaluation, colleges consider many criteria that include high school grades, extracurricular activities, and test scores. But in recent years, more colleges are becoming test-optional and/or test-blind . So, your college essay, traditionally a requirement of any college application, will be more important than ever. Many high schoolers struggle to get started. In this post, we will discuss how to brainstorm and get started with the first college essay draft.

Before we get started with the main agenda, let’s dig a little deeper into why college essays are so important and some of the basics.

College Essay Basics and FAQs

Why are essays so important in college admissions.

Essays give admissions officers a deeper insight into who you are as a person beyond your grades and test scores. They allow you to showcase your personality, interests, and unique perspectives in a way that cannot be captured by standardized measures.

College admissions officers use essays to evaluate a student’s writing skills, critical thinking abilities, and communication skills. Essays can also help admissions officers assess how well you would fit into the school’s community and culture.

Additionally, essays allow applicants to stand out from other applicants who may have similar academic records or extracurricular activities.

In summary, essays are important in college admissions because they provide a more holistic view of the applicant and their potential to thrive at the college.

College Essays: FAQs

How long should your essay be.

It depends. Your main Common App essay can be up to 650 words, while the essays for the University of California (UC) schools are around 350 words each, and your supplemental essays will vary.

How many essays do you need to write?

Around 15-20. You’ll most probably write one main personal statement for your Common App, perhaps some separate essays if you’re applying to public schools (the UCs require four, for example). Additionally, you’ll write supplemental essays for most selective schools, which number anywhere from 6-20, depending on the number of schools you apply to.

What are college admissions officers looking for in college essays?

They’re looking for the answers to these three questions:

• Who is this person?
• Will this person contribute something of value to our campus?
• Can this person write and communicate well?

How do college admissions officers evaluate your essays?

Each school has its own criteria and different readers will prefer different elements. Some admission officers will assess your writing ability, while others will be more interested in your story.

In short, both are important – a good story, well told. That should be your goal.

How much do essays matter in the evaluation process?

Typically, they carry a weightage of 25-30%. Essays tend to matter more for small schools, or schools that look at applications holistically.

Schools look at your GPA, course rigor, and test scores more than anything. When you’re being compared to other students with similar GPA/SAT scores, that’s when the essays can make or break your chances.

Please note that well-written essays can not make up for poor grades and/or lack of impactful extracurriculars. However, a bad essay will surely negatively impact your admission chances.

How to Get Started with Brainstorming for Creating the First Essay Draft?

Option-1: you can get started by asking the following questions yourself:.

• If you really knew me…
• Something you are grateful for…
• Something you celebrated wildly…

Option-2: You can ask a few questions about Essence Objects:

• What’s something you never leave home without?
• What’s a snack you crave?
• A food that reminds you of your family?
• A food that reminds you of home?
• A tradition that reminds you of home?
• What else reminds you of home?
• An object that represents your best friend?
• An object that represents your father? Your mother?
• Something you loved and lost?
• A toy you used to play with as a kid?
• Something that makes you laugh?
• A book you love? Best movie ever?
• Favorite guilty pleasure movie?
• An object that represents something abstract that you broke (a heart, a promise)?
• An object that represents regret?
• A favorite gift you received? A favorite gift you gave?
• An object that represents a secret?
• Something about you no one else knows
• Something that makes you feel safe?
• The worst thing that ever happened to you?

Option-3: Ask yourself what you value the most. Below are a few examples:

• Personal Development
• Helping Others
• Inspiration
• Second Chances
• Flexibility
• Adaptability

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Brainstorm College Essays

• Reflect on your experiences: Start by reflecting on your experiences and thinking about which ones have been the most meaningful or transformative for you. This could include personal challenges you have overcome, memorable moments, or experiences that have shaped your values and beliefs.
• Make a list of potential essay topics: Once you have reflected on your experiences, make a list of potential essay topics. Try to come up with at least five to ten topics that you could write about.
• Narrow down your list: Look at your list and identify the topics that you are most passionate about and that best showcase your unique qualities and perspectives. Cross out any topics that are too broad or cliché.
• Use prompts for inspiration: Many colleges provide essay prompts to help guide applicants. Use these prompts as a starting point for brainstorming and see if any of them spark ideas for potential topics.
• Consider your audience: Remember that your audience is the admissions committee, so think about what they are looking for in an applicant. What qualities and experiences are they likely to value?
• Collaborate with others: Consider sharing your ideas with friends, family members, or teachers to get their feedback and suggestions. They may be able to provide a fresh perspective or help you identify topics that you may not have considered.

Overall, the key to effective brainstorming for college essays is to be open-minded, reflective, and creative. Don’t be afraid to take risks and explore topics that are meaningful and unique to you. Remember that the goal of the essay is to showcase your personal qualities and experiences in a way that sets you apart from other applicants.

How to Approach Writing the First College Essay Draft?

Firstly, you should ask yourself:

• Have you faced significant challenges?
• Do you want to write about them?

If you answered yes to both, Narrative Structure may work well for you.

If no to either, Montage Structure could be a better approach. 

How to Follow a Narrative Structure while Writing the First College Essay Draft?

You can think of this approach to writing an essay as breaking down into three basic sections:

• Challenges + Effects
• What I Did About Them
• What I Learned

While those may be fairly clear just based on their names, here’s a brief breakdown, followed by a sample essay to illustrate:

• Challenges + Effects This part gets into specific detail regarding a specific challenge the student has faced, and the various effects of that challenge. Tough stuff you’ve been through. Big experiences. Their subsequent impacts. Various obstacles you’ve had to overcome.
• What I Did About Them Actions you took to overcome those challenges and their effects, often to meet specific needs. These actions help to illustrate your values and growth.
• What I Learned Lessons and insights you’ve gained through these experiences. Reflection on how your experiences have shaped you and why that matters.

How to Follow a Montage Structure while Writing the First College Essay Draft?

Montage is something you’ve likely all encountered before, but some may not be familiar with the word itself. It’s a technique that involves using separate elements (pictures, words, music, etc.) to create a new whole. In filmmaking, the montage effect is used to condense space and time so that information can be delivered in a more efficient way.

If you’re going to build a montage, you need to find a way to make the different experiences you’ll use feel connected. Think of it this way: if you just had a paragraph on growing up in South East Asia, speaking of which religion, speaking of which literature is important to me, speaking of which… you’re going to feel understandably confused. So you need to have something that threads the pieces together.

Tips on Montage Structure

• Visual threads are easier to write. Storytelling is a visual medium. Use a lens that will help conjure images in the reader’s mind. I’ve had too many students try to write “soundtrack” or “mix-tape” essays in which their favorite songs provide the soundtrack for their lives. The problem with writing this type of essay, however, is that the reader can’t hear the music (and often doesn’t know or have the same emotional connection to the songs referenced). So you can use more abstract things (like Waves, or Home), but those will often take more time to write well.
• Write what you know. Know how to cook? Use food. Play chess? Use that! Use your Essence Objects list as a starting point for ideas. 
• Look for thematic threads that are “elastic”—that allow you to connect a bunch of sides of yourself. Use a metaphor, in other words, that will allow you to discuss several different aspects of who you are.

Monate Structure vs Narrative Structure

A montage essay (i.e., an essay NOT about challenges) is more likely to stand out if the topic or theme of the essay is:

X. Elastic (i.e., something you can connect to a variety of examples, moments, or values) Y. Uncommon (i.e., something other students probably aren’t writing about)

On the other hand, a narrative essay is more likely to stand out if it contains: 

X. Difficult or compelling challenges Y. Insight

These aren’t binary—rather, each exists on a spectrum.

“Elastic” will vary from person to person. I might be able to connect mountain climbing to family, history, literature, science, social justice, environmentalism, growth, and insight … and someone else might not connect it too much of anything. Maybe trees?

“Uncommon” —every year, thousands of students write about mission trips, sports, or music. It’s not that you can’t write about these things, but it’s a lot harder to stand out. 

“Difficult or compelling challenges” can be put on a spectrum, with things like getting a bad grade or not making a sports team on the weaker end, and things like escaping war or living homeless for three years on the stronger side. While you can possibly write a strong essay about a weaker challenge, it’s really hard to do so.

“Insight” is the answer to the question “So what?” A great insight is likely to surprise the reader a bit, while a so-so insight likely won’t. (Insight is something you’ll develop in an essay through the writing process, rather than something you’ll generally know ahead of time for a topic, but it’s useful to understand that some topics are probably easier to pull insights from than others.)

To clarify, you can still write a great montage with a very common topic, or a narrative that offers so-so insights. But the degree of difficulty goes up. Probably way up.

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• Knowledge Base
• Generate topic ideas for an essay or paper | Tips & techniques

Generate Topic Ideas For an Essay or Paper | Tips & Techniques

Published on November 17, 2014 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

If you haven’t been given a specific topic for your essay or paper , the first step is coming up with ideas and deciding what you want to write about. Generating ideas is the least methodical and most creative step in academic writing .

There are infinite ways to generate ideas, but no sure-fire way to come up with a good one. This article outlines some tips and techniques for choosing a topic – use the ones that work best for you.

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Table of contents

Understanding the assignment, techniques for generating topic ideas, tips for finding a good idea, other interesting articles.

First, you need to determine the scope of what you can write about. Make sure you understand the assignment you’ve been given, and make sure you know the answers to these questions:

• What is the required length of the paper (in words or pages)?
• What is the deadline?
• Should the paper relate to what you’ve studied in class?
• Do you have to do your own research and use sources that haven’t been taught in class?
• Are there any constraints on the subject matter or approach?

The length and deadline of the assignment determine how complex your topic can be. The prompt might tell you write a certain type of essay, or it might give you a broad subject area and hint at the kind of approach you should take.

This prompt gives us a very general subject. It doesn’t ask for a specific type of essay, but the word explain suggests that an expository essay is the most appropriate response.

This prompt takes a different approach to the same subject. It asks a question that requires you to take a strong position. This is an argumentative essay that requires you to use evidence from sources to support your argument.

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Getting started is often the hardest part. Try these 3 simple strategies to help get your mind moving.

Talk it out

Discussing ideas with a teacher, friend or fellow student often helps you find new avenues to approach the ideas you have and helps you uncover ideas you might not have considered.

Write down as many ideas as you can and make point form notes on them as you go. When you feel you’ve written down the obvious things that relate to an idea, move on to a new one, or explore a related idea in more depth.

You can also cluster related ideas together and draw connections between them on the page.

This strategy is similar to brainstorming, but it is faster and less reflective. Give yourself a broad topic to write about. Then, on a pad of paper or a word processor, write continuously for two or three minutes. Don’t stop, not even for a moment.

Write down anything that comes to mind, no matter how nonsensical it seems, as long as it somehow relates to the topic you began with. If you need to, time yourself to make sure you write for a few minutes straight.

When you’ve finished, read through what you’ve written and identify any useful ideas that have come out of the exercise.

Whichever strategy you use, you’ll probably come up with lots of ideas, but follow these tips to help you choose the best one.

Don’t feel you need to work logically

Good ideas often have strange origins. An apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head, and this gave us the idea of gravity. Mary Shelley had a dream, and this gave us her famous literary classic, Frankenstein .

It does not matter how you get your idea; what matters is that you find a good one.

Work from general to specific

Your first good idea won’t take the form of a fully-formed thesis statement . Find a topic before you find an argument.

You’ll need to think about your topic in broad, general terms before you can narrow it down and make it more precise.

Maintain momentum

Don’t be critical of your ideas at this stage – it can hinder your creativity. If you think too much about the flaws in your ideas, you will lose momentum.

Creative momentum is important: the first ten in a string of related ideas might be garbage, but the eleventh could be pure gold. You’ll never reach the eleventh if you shut down your thought process at the second.

Let ideas go

Don’t get too attached to the first appealing topic you think of. It might be a great idea, but it also might turn out to be a dud once you start researching and give it some critical thought .

Thinking about a new topic doesn’t mean abandoning an old one – you can easily come back to your original ideas later and decide which ones work best.

Choose a topic that interests you

A bored writer makes for boring writing. Try to find an idea that you’ll enjoy writing about, or a way to integrate your interests with your topic.

In the worst case scenario, pick the least boring topic of all of the boring topics you’re faced with.

Keep a notepad close

Good ideas will cross your mind when you least expect it. When they do, make sure that you can hold onto them.

Many people come up with their best ideas just before falling asleep; you might find it useful to keep a notepad by your bed.

Once you’ve settled on an idea, you’ll need to start working on your thesis statement and planning your paper’s structure.

If you find yourself struggling to come up with a good thesis on your topic, it might not be the right choice – you can always change your mind and go back to previous ideas.

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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

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25 College Essay Brainstorming Questions

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University Admissions

Key Takeaway

If you’re in the process of starting your college essay, you know how hard it is to come up with a good topic.

Should you go the lighthearted, humorous route? Or should you reveal something serious about yourself? Of all your experiences, how do you know the best one to write about? 

Worse, how do you know if your idea is cliche? Or, alternatively, what if you’ve tried too hard to be unique?

And with all the conflicting advice out there about what should and shouldn’t be in a college essay, the process gets even more confusing.

But there’s a foolproof method to cut through the noise and find a college essay topic that’s right for you.

It all starts with a brainstorming exercise.

Let’s get into it.

What is brainstorming?

Have you ever tried to turn nothing into something? It’s almost like writing defies the laws of physics. But that’s what you have to do when you come up with a topic.

Brainstorming helps you get there. It is a type of pre-writing process. We call it a “brainstorm” because it’s a way to corral the thought tornado that’s spinning out of control in your brain.

Like its counterpart “free writing,” brainstorming is a place for anything and everything. It’s a chance for you to do a brain dump and get your thoughts on to paper.

Brainstorming is the main way writers go from no ideas to lots of ideas in a short amount of time. It also saves you time and effort in the long run because it helps you weed out all the bad ideas before you waste your time trying to write an essay around them.

When you brainstorming, you’ve got two goals: 1) identify the thoughts that come to you, and 2) write them down. Some people do image-based mind maps, others create linear outlines, and others have their own individual processes altogether.

Today, your brainstorming process will consist of answering some pointed questions to get you thinking about the best college essay topics for you.

How do you brainstorm a college essay?

Brainstorming your college essay is an essential step because your essay topic determines how much an admissions officer is able to learn about you.

Picture yourself as an admissions officer. You’ve already read 25 applications today, and now you’re on your 26th. You flip to the essay, and you see immediately that it’s an essay about winning a soccer tournament. You’ve already read three essays about soccer tournaments today. Hopeful, you proceed through the essay. To your dismay, the essay’s message—that hard work and determination will get you far in life—is almost exactly the same as the previous three. The soccer essays start to blend together, and you can’t quite remember whose is whose.

That’s the problem with overused, cliche, and surface-level topics. They aren’t interesting or memorable. Because they remain on the surface of who you are, they don’t tell an admissions officer the information they need to know to admit you.

Instead, we believe that all college essays should revolve around one of your core strengths.

A core strength is an inherent and positive trait, talent, or characteristic that shapes how you live in the world.

Here are a few examples:

• Social intelligence
• Intellectual curiosity
• Passion for justice
• Positive outlook

Whether your strength is your wisdom, entrepreneurial spirit, compassion, or problem-solving skills, your college essay should reflect a strength that makes you you.

Because the purpose of a college essay is to help you get admitted to college. (If you need a refresher on the ins and outs of college essays, look to our How to Write a College Essay guide.) Writing an essay that speaks to your strengths gives admissions officers more reasons to admit you.

A strengths-based essay will help them get to know the real you, and they’ll be able to envision how your strengths will contribute to their college community. It’s all about crafting a cohesive application narrative .

So when it comes to brainstorming, you need to think of topic ideas that accomplish two tasks:

Showcase one (or two) of your core strengths.

Give admissions officers meaningful and vulnerable insight into who you are.

Much easier said than done, right? That’s where brainstorming comes in.

Brainstorming relieves the pressure of getting it right the first time. It helps you compile and sort through all your memories, experiences, strengths, and values until you find one that works.

Let’s talk about the college essay brainstorming exercise.

Brainstorming Exercise Breakdown

To help you brainstorm college essay topic ideas that are strengths-based and meaningful, we’ve put together a list of questions.

These questions come from some of the most common college essay topics. They aren’t essay prompts, and they’re not intended to be the question from which you write your final college essay.

Instead, they are leading questions that will get you thinking about what strengths you have and how they show up in your life. You’ll be able to use your answers as a starting point to find your topic and write your first draft.

Feel free to copy and paste these questions into a word processor and answer each of them in turn. Or answer only the ones that call to you the most. Write down as much or as little as you want for each, but try to focus on concrete experiences and genuine reflections.

We’ll go over a couple of examples, but let’s first look at the questions.

25 Brainstorming Questions

• What are your biggest strengths? Why?
• If you could only choose one topic to talk about for the rest of your life, what would it be?
• Have you traveled? If so, what did you do or learn?
• If you could choose any meal to represent you, what would it be and why?
• What is the most interesting part of your daily life?
• Describe a time when you felt inexperienced at something.
• Is there a question about the universe that keeps you up at night?
• Where do you feel most at home?
• What’s the most sensory experience you’ve ever had?
• Have you had a job? What was your most memorable experience? What did you learn?
• What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you?
• Write about a time when you felt out of place.
• Are there any social issues you’re passionate about? If so, what have you done to contribute to the cause?
• Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”
• Write about your most memorable classroom experience.
• Describe a time when you felt like you genuinely helped someone.
• What would your friends say is your greatest strength? What would your family say is your greatest strength?
• What role do you play when working in a group or team?
• What’s the most profound thing that’s happened to you?
• Are you a leader? If so, how, when, and in what parts of your life?
• What about yourself makes you proud?
• Explain the hardest problem you’ve ever solved.
• Picture yourself at 90 years old, nice and wrinkly. What would your 90-year-old self say about who you are today?
• What are three things you know to be true?
• What motivates you?

Is your brain storming yet?

To take your answers a step further, you can also ask yourself a bonus follow-up question. For each question you answer, consider this: How does what you’ve written here connect to one of your core strengths? Which core strength is it?

Brainstorm Example

Now on to the examples. Notice how each response has an associated core strength. The question responses are free-form. Not every idea they include will be usable, and grammar and organization don’t matter at all. Each response includes good sensory details and lots of ideas about what comes to mind for each question.

#14) Finish this sentence: “I feel most creative when I…”

Core strength: Creativity

I feel most creative when I play my cello. I love practicing and listening to my metronome and trying to figure out the difficult passages. It’s like a mixture of science and art. Playing in an orchestra really moves me because of the way the music comes alive and you can feel everyone’s art coming together to make new art. But my solo recitals are my favorite. I love being on stage in front of a crowd and getting to share my art with them, especially when I come up with a creative take on a classic piece. I used to hate recitals but ever since I changed my perspective from fear of failure to making art, I’ve learned to enjoy them more.

#8) Where do you feel most at home?

Core strength: Compassion

I feel most at home in my grandma’s kitchen. It always smells of freshly-baked bread, and everything has a slight but permanent dusting of flour. I feel at home there because that’s where I learned to do my favorite hobby: baking. My grandma taught me everything I know about how to bake. Nothing says “home” like a warm chocolate chip cookie with a little bit of sea salt. My grandma is my favorite person and she’s always inspired me. Now that she’s unable to bake for herself, I bake for her. Her kitchen is my office. I know every inch of the kitchen like the back of my hand. I’m learning new baking tricks on YouTube, and I tell her all about them when I visit after school. She’s taught and given me so much, so I just want to return the favor.

See how easy that was? They’re quick answers that are rich with description and ideas. When you write your own, it’ll be the kindling for your college essay.

When you’re ready, go through each question that calls to you and write down exactly what comes to mind. From there, you’ll have a list of topics to choose from.

Key Takeways

Now it’s your turn. Copy and paste the questions to get started. We use a similar brainstorming process with all the students we work with, and it’s a surefire way to find the right college essay topic for you. Once your brainstorm is done, check out the college essay writing guide or the Essay Academy to transform your brainstorm from a rough topic to a full-blown essay.

Liked that? Try this next.

The Incredible Power of a Cohesive College Application

How to Write a College Essay (Exercises + Examples)

12 Common App Essay Examples (Graded by Former Admissions Officers)

How to Write Supplemental Essays that Will Impress Admissions Officers

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Brainstorming: 10 Examples, Techniques, and Benefits

Brainstorming is the divergent thinking process of gathering a large number of ideas in a short amount of time, which you will parse and improve upon in future steps.

Commonly, it takes place on a piece of paper or large board where you can visually dump your ideas. However, it can also occur in your mind. It may also be either done individually or in groups (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018).

Definition of Brainstorming

The word brainstorming was first coined in the 1940s by advertising executive Alex F. Osbornn (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Osborn defined it as a way to generate a large number of ideas in a short amount of time without any criticism or judgement.

Importantly, brainstorming is about generating as many ideas as possible in order to help push through a plateau or brain block. Ideally, it will help bring out creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in order to generate fresh and innovative ideas (Litchfield, 2008).

One of the key benefits of brainstorming is that it allows an individual or group to think freely and suspend judgement of ideas.

This can lead to the creation and consideration of ideas that may not have been considered otherwise. Even a seemingly useless idea may lead to a fruitful breakthrough.

History of Brainstorming

While the act of brainstorming has likely been used for thousands of years, the term itself has its roots in the 1930s when Osborn, along with his colleagues at an advertising agency, began using group creativity sessions to generate ideas for their clients (Putman & Paulus, 2009).

With a new term coined, the concept became refined and made more explicit. Today, it has become a popular tool used in both organizations and people’s personal lives to generate new ideas and solve problems.

Popular ideas behind brainstorming have evolved over the years and brainstorming strategies have been adapted to suit different situations, industries, and needs (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

For example, it can be used for anything from coming up with vacation ideas with your family to coming up with new product lines for large multinational corporations.

Stages of Brainstorming

The brainstorming process typically involves three stages: preparation, ideation, and evaluation (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

• Preparation: The focus of the preparation stage should be on setting the rules, structure, and culture around the session. It may, for example, encourage team members to come to the team with sufficient background knowledge, and ensure all people in the group know the importance of creating a non-judgemental environment.
• Ideation: The ideation stage involves sharing ideas which will be added to the brainstorming notes, such as on a flipboard or shared screen during a group video call (Litchfield, 2008). This is where the actual idea generation takes place. Participants are encouraged to share their ideas knowing that there is ‘no silly idea’ at this point in time.
• Evaluation: With a wide range of ideas collected, the group needs to categorize, review, and select the most promising ideas. This may involve drawing connections between ideas, merging ideas together, and finding identifying problems with certain ideas. At this stage, it’s important to ensure the chosen ideas have alignment with the objective.

10 Examples of Brainstorming

Below are some possible situations in which brainstorming can be highly effective.

Example 1: Product Development

Brainstorming can be used to generate new product ideas or improve upon existing ones. For example, a team of designers, engineers, and marketers could brainstorm ideas for a new smartphone that incorporates cutting-edge technology and features. Importantly, the team should be composed of product market experts and, ideally, people with prior knowledge about issues with the current product iteration, consumer feedback, and gaps in the marketplace.

Example 2: Marketing Campaigns

Brainstorming is common in marketing and advertising, and in fact, the term was coined by a marketing professional.

Generally, this session would involve bringing together a team of creatives with good knowledge of the market as well as cutting-edge marketing techniques in order to come up with a campaign idea. For example, a team of marketers could brainstorm ideas for a new social media campaign that leverages the power of influencers to reach the audience.

Example 3: Brainstorming for a Novel

Brainstorming can be an excellent approach to improve writing techniques, especially when writing a novel.

In this situation, I would gather some fellow writers or personal tutors who have experience developing plots, characters and themes and go over the things that could work better in your novel.

By analyzing my plot structure and understanding my character’s traits based on their backstory, I could get valuable insight into how to make the story more engaging.

Example 4: Brainstorming for Business Strategic Plans

Brainstorming is an excellent way to devise strategic plans for higher-level business development.

It helps you visualize how your business may look like in the future while allowing feedback from team members involved in the development process to obtain insights from all departments.

A team of executives may get together around a single table with reports and data sheets explaining different growth areas of the company.

Example 5: Brainstorming New Classroom Ideas

Brainstorming is one of the best ways for teachers to develop new ideas for curriculum building and lesson planning.

Teachers should consider mingling with colleagues who have years teaching experience engaging students around different scenarios shaping them towards positive cognitive outcomes.

Example 6: Brainstorming Home Decor Projects

When renovating a home, brainstorming can help skyrocket creativity while considering factors like budget, style, and functionality.

Collaborating with an interior designer or friends who have taste in home decor and DIY projects can be useful in generating interesting ideas that match the requirements of the homeowner.

Example 7: Brainstorming for Event Planning

Brainstorming is an essential tool when it comes to event planning as it helps to identify key themes, vendors, catering, and decoration ideas.

The best part of brainstorming is involving event planners together with their clients in a room or a virtual hangout session to discuss their vision for the occasion and generate ideas in real-time.

Example 8: Brainstorming Personal Life Goals

Brainstorming can help you set achievable personal goals while shedding light on your desires.

At times like these having a life coach might come in handy who can incorporate exercises where you jot down all the things you desire either professionally or personally such as traveling to other countries or buying a new house.

See Also: A List of 151 Goals for Life

Example 9: Brainstorming UX Designs

In the development of digital products such as web applications or mobile apps brainstorming plays a key role.

Through group discussions between UX designers and developers they’ll emphasize ways of enhancing user experience by identifying areas where previous iterations had no success.

Example 10: Brainstorming Career Choices

Brainstorming can help young people finishing high school to create a roadmap towards the best career for them.

At this time of life, people usually don’t have a clear idea of the job they will do, but they may have a clear idea of what they are good at, what they enjoy doing, and the general direction they want to go (white collar, blue collar, etc.).

The process of deciding what to do may involve seeking out mentors or attending career fairs where people can offer guidance and support.

Techniques for Effective Brainstorming

There are several techniques that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of brainstorming sessions (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018). Generally, this involves putting in place clear group norms , including:

• Encouraging all participants to share their ideas
• Avoiding criticism and judgement
• Using visual aids to stimulate creativity
• Building on others’ ideas
• Combining ideas to create new solutions
• Setting a time limit to encourage rapid idea generation

Benefits of Brainstorming

The benefits of brainstorming are numerous. It can help people and organizations generate new ideas, solve complex problems, and make better decisions.

In the workplace, it can also improve team morale and strengthen team cohesion . By engaging individuals in idea generation, companies can create a culture of innovation and creativity.

1. Innovation

Firstly, brainstorming plays a significant role in boosting innovation (Litchfield, 2008).

When we sit together and come up with different creative ideas, we tend to approach situations with new perspectives that we often overlook alone. Sometimes our minds can only go so far when left to its devices!

The act of bouncing thoughts off one another elevates creativity tremendously. Brainstorming as a group often produces new solutions that wouldn’t have surfaced otherwise (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018).

2. Problem Solving

Secondly, brainstorming is incredibly beneficial for problem-solving .

While we all face challenges in life, brainstorming can act as a beneficial tool for addressing and overcoming those issues.

When faced with a problem, having multiple people collaborate during the decision-making process leads to better outcomes than relying solely on one person’s point of view (Litchfield, 2008).

In addition, when each member contributes equally unique views and suggestions about possible solutions without dismissing others’ input or ideas, new strategies can arise which become successful approaches (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

3. Team Morale and Cohesion

A side-effect of brainstorming as a group is that it can make a stronger group dynamic . Its key principles include inclusion, open-mindedness, and working together.

Coincidentally, this can also make work much more enjoyable!

Collaborating as a team creates cohesiveness within the company culture because all persons contribute towards achieving mutual goals rather than accomplishing solo achievements only related to their title or job description (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Support from team members through both triumphs and failures can increase mutual respect among colleagues for each other while creating social bonds.

4. Culture of Innovation

Lastly, creating a culture of innovation becomes achievable when utilizing brainstorming tasks regularly within the company environment.

Brainstorming can lead to creative solutions that would not be possible without the open-minded, free-flowing brainstorming process (Paulus & Kenworthy, 2019).

Challenges of Brainstorming

While brainstorming can be a highly effective tool for generating ideas and solutions, it is not without its challenges. Some common challenges include:

• Groupthink : where individuals conform to the group’s opinions and ideas (Putman & Paulus, 2009). This may happen if one dominant person leads the brainstorming session in a particular direction.
• Unequal Participation: some participants may dominate the discussion while others are minimally involved. Less experienced or peripheral members of the group may be pushed aside.
• Lack of Focus: a brainstorming session can become unfocused and start to lack direction. While creativity and open-mindedness is useful, the session may also drift away from its original goals and end up failing to be fit for purpose.
• Criticism and Judgement: depending on the group culture, ideas may be criticized or judged prematurely, which can undermine the purpose of brainstorming. This is where positive workplace culture is highly important (Litchfield, 2008).
• Not conducive to Convergent Thinking : brainstorming is a type of divergent thinking, where people try to come up with multiple solutions to one problem. This is only useful at certain times (Putman & Paulus, 2009). Often, we need to do the opposite: come up with one solution by bringing together multiple pre-determined answers.

Sometimes, it can be beneficial for individuals to brainstorm on their own before coming together to share their ideas as a group (in education, we call this the think-pair-share method).

Brainstorming is a powerful tool that can be used to generate new ideas, solve complex problems, and make better decisions. By understanding the process, techniques, and benefits of brainstorming, individuals and organizations can unlock their creative potential and drive innovation and growth. While it is not without its challenges, careful planning, facilitation, and participation can help avoid these pitfalls and lead to successful and productive brainstorming sessions.

Al-Samarraie, H., & Hurmuzan, S. (2018). A review of brainstorming techniques in higher education.  Thinking Skills and creativity ,  27 , 78-91.

Litchfield, R. C. (2008). Brainstorming reconsidered: A goal-based view.  Academy of Management Review ,  33 (3), 649-668.

Putman, V. L., & Paulus, P. B. (2009). Brainstorming, brainstorming rules and decision making.  The Journal of creative behavior ,  43 (1), 29-40.

Paulus, P. B., & Kenworthy, J. B. (2019). Effective brainstorming.  The Oxford handbook of group creativity and innovation , 287-386.

Paulus, P. B., Kohn, N. W., & Arditti, L. E. (2011). Effects of quantity and quality instructions on brainstorming.  The Journal of Creative Behavior ,  45 (1), 38-46.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons

2 thoughts on “Brainstorming: 10 Examples, Techniques, and Benefits”

Hi dear Thank you for your useful contents. How can I have PDF files of these Examples, Techniques, And Benefits or every thing about problem solving techniques and examples? my best regards Alireza Khorasani

Send me an email and I’ll get it sent out to you! Best, Chris.

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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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Tips on essay planning and writing

What is an essay, brainstorm your topic by creating a mind map, check you understand what your essay question is asking you, academic writing style, signposting, building an argument and summarising other people's ideas, what is paraphrasing, essay structure, useful links.

Traditional academic essays are pieces of writing which are designed to demonstrate the following points:

• that you understand a particular subject
• that you have undertaken some kind of research
• that you can produce a clear and coherent argument

This means that you have to combine important ideas, examples, and interpretations from other writers with your own. All of these have to be put together in a linear, written format (making one point, then moving on to the next), which persuades the reader that your line of argument is a convincing one.

Note : There may be variations in the approach you need to take depending on the discipline you are studying. Check with your tutor/department for discipline specific guidelines.

When you choose, or are assigned, an essay question, you are asked to focus on something very specific. It's not just a case of writing down everything you know about the subject. An essay question instructs you to do something with the knowledge you have, and to put it into a certain context, which will allow you to demonstrate the range of your critical thinking.

Essay questions therefore have  instructional verbs  to determine what your approach should be. These are words such as: discuss, analyse, argue, compare, review, evaluate, examine, outline, illustrate .... These tell you how to answer the question and what your essay should do. It is important that you understand exactly what these words mean so that you don’t misinterpret a question.  

• For more examples check 'Terms that may be used in essays or examinations'

You will usually be expected to write using academic language and specialist vocabulary from your subject area. Academic writing normally contains these features:

• Formal writing in an impersonal or objective style and often takes the 'passive' voice.  Passive constructions can be used to avoid using 'I' in essays, e.g. 'It can be argued...'
• Vocabulary appropriate for particular academic contexts is used which may include technical and specialist words. 
• Contains references to other writers’ publications which are used to support the arguments in the text
• You may notice that cautious language is frequently used in reporting research and making claims.  'Cautious language' indicates reservations or tentativeness about the conclusions that may be drawn from the evidence presented. Useful phrases are:  'it may be concluded', and  'we can assume'. 

Major Signposting

Major signposting is used to signal the introduction of key sections or aspects of the work. These might include the aim, purpose, or structure.

In the introduction:

• This essay will…
• The aim of this essay is to…
• The major issue being discussed is…
• This essay will define and describe…
• This essay will critically examine…
• This essay will first define…then discuss…before making recommendations for…
• This essay is organised in the following way;

In the conclusion:

• To conclude,
• In conclusion,
• To summarise,
• It is evident that

Minor Signposting

Minor signposting are linking words and phrases that make connections for your reader and move them through the text.

• They may be as simple as: First, second, third, next, then, last, lastly, finally
• To offer a counterpoint: However, although, though, yet, alternatively, nevertheless
• To indicate an example: For example, notably, for instance, in this case

Linking words and phrases help give your writing more fluidity. Linking words and phrases will help the flow of your academic writing.

Linking words are particularly useful for use in comparing and contrasting ideas and to move from one idea to another.

Check these resources for examples of linking words and phrases:

• Examples of linking words and phrases (University of Reading via Future Learn)
• Transitional devices (Purdue University)
• Signposting (Queen's University Belfast)

Source: Academic Writing Skills by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0

Illustrations vector created by stories - www.freepik.com

Often the clearest way to combine different points of view and to show that you have understood those points of view is to summarise them. Each summary of a different viewpoint can include direct and indirect quotations of key points, plus your understanding of what they mean and a comment on the weaknesses and strengths of the idea or viewpoint. Having described, interpreted and analysed other people's ideas, you can then go on to describe your own point of view and explain why you have chosen it.

Writing which ignores any of the parts described above, can become unbalanced. For example, if there are none of your own ideas, the piece becomes a review of everyone else's work. In these circumstances you could be accused of being uncritical. If the writing does not refer to other people's ideas (directly or indirectly), there is a problem of being too personal and non-academic (this partly depends on your subject). Neither of these would be persuasive arguments.

Paraphrasing is expressing someone else’s writing in your own choice of words, while keeping the same essential meaning. As Pears and Shields (2019, p. 15) explain, it is ‘an alternative way of referring to an author’s ideas or arguments without using direct quotations from their text’.

Paraphrasing is generally more highly valued by academics than direct quoting because it allows you to demonstrate a greater understanding of your source and helps you to maintain your personal writing style and the smooth flow of your essay.

Don’t forget to include in-text citations (author and date) in the text of your assignment and full references at the end of your assignment every time you paraphrase someone else’s words or ideas.

• Paraphrasing - an overview A guide on paraphrasing, academic writing, citing and referencing
• Introduction
• The main body
• Bibliography

The introduction is the official start of the essay and it usually includes some or all of the following:

• a statement introducing the topic
• an explanation of why it is important
• a brief mention of work on the same topic written by other writers
• a gap or problem in previous related work which will be solved or answered in this essay
• an outline of the structure of the essay
• definitions of key terms
• an anecdote or vignette (short story) which highlights the main point of the essay

The body is the largest part of your writing and this is where you guide your reader through your main ideas and arguments. These ideas and arguments come from your brainstorming and research. It is therefore a mixture of other people’s ideas and your own. These points should be organised into a logical order which allows your reader to follow your train of thought. 

The balance of discussion between your own ideas and information and those from external sources is crucial to the development of your argument. Without this balance, the writing can become either a summary of other people's ideas and theories, or a description of your personal ideas and experiences with no evidence of research. Both of these would lack analysis, a core component of a good essay. It is therefore vitally important to ensure that a mixture of positions are presented.

Each main point will be described, supported and analysed using examples from your own experiences, and information and theories from external sources (books, journals, websites, lectures, etc.). The main points should be clearly organised by using paragraphs. 

In short pieces of writing (< 3,000 words), there will be groups of paragraphs which together form one part of your argument. Usually these sections in "short" essays do not have specific headings. However, they can be clearly identified by using linking phrases which show for example:

• how many elements the section consists of:

There are four main reasons why ...

• the connection of additional points:

Another important point to consider is ...  A further issue of importance is ...  Moving on the the issue of ...

• or the introduction of a contrasting point:

On the other hand, ...  In contrast to the above, ...  An alternative understanding of the issue is ...

Longer pieces of writing and dissertations

In long pieces of writing (> 3,000 words) it is sometimes useful to identify clear sections by using sub-headings. Each section (or chapter of a dissertation or thesis) with a sub-heading is like a short essay which could stand alone. The sub-headings may come from your brainstorm and/or your research. However, the best order for the sections in long essays may only become clear after you have started writing them. When the best order becomes clear, chapter introductions and conclusions can be written in each section.

A short chapter introduction should briefly outline the contents of each section and where possible, should also refer back to the sections before and explain how they are related. Similarly, each section needs a conclusion. This should summarise what has been written in this part and should again make connections to other sections. In particular, it should describe the relationship between this part and the next. These are crucial in order to tell the reader what each part is about and how it fits with the other sections. It is like tying knots between separate pieces of string in order to make a single, stronger cord: your argument. 

The conclusion is the closing part of the essay and, like the  i ntroduction, connects the body of the essay to the title. However, whereas the introduction often starts generally, becomes more focussed and often includes an outline of the main points; the conclusion attempts to summarise the main ideas and arguments, then leads to a final statement.

It should not include new ideas which have not been mentioned before, although you can join ideas you have mentioned in a new way. You may also want to restate questions which you could not answer in your essay, but which you think deserve further study. As the final part of the essay, the conclusion is the last thing which the reader sees. Therefore, it should tie together the different points you have made.

Conclusions often include the following elements:

• language 'markers' showing that this is the conclusion (e.g. to conclude, in summary, this essay has given an account of...)
• a summary of the ideas in the main body
• a comment about the limitations of the scope of the essay / study
• a glance to the future: a prediction, recommendations for action, suggestions for further research, implications for future policy

A bibliography (or reference list) comes after the conclusion (or appendices and final figures) and includes all the information about the sources you have mentioned in the essay. For more information on referencing please see the Write it Right guide.

• Academic Writing Basics (Author: Megan Robertson)
• Academic Writing Essays in English (© 2021 UEfAP)
• Academic Writing Handbook
• OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab
• The Writing Process by English Language Studies group at the MIT Understanding and using the information on this site should make writing not only less anxiety-provoking and more efficient and effective for you, but ultimately it should also help you feel more creative and more satisfied with the products of your writing efforts and learn more in your classes as well.
• Last Updated: Apr 11, 2024 10:13 AM
• URL: https://lit.libguides.com/tips-writing-essays

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Global Forest Loss Remains High, Despite Recent Progress

Wildfires and agricultural expansion offset big gains in protecting tropical forests last year.

By Manuela Andreoni

Despite major progress in protecting vast tracts of rainforest, the world failed again last year to significantly slow the pace of global forest destruction, according to a report issued on Thursday. Record wildfires in Canada and expanding agriculture elsewhere offset big gains in forest protection in Brazil and Colombia, the report found.

The annual survey by the World Resources Institute, a research organization, found that the world lost 9.1 million acres of primary tropical forest in 2023, equivalent to an area almost the size of Switzerland, about 9 percent less than the year before . But the improvement failed to put the world on course to halt all forest loss by 2030, a commitment made by 145 nations at global climate talks in Glasgow in 2021 and reaffirmed by all countries last year .

Stalled Progress

Gains in Brazil and Colombia were offset by rising deforestation in other areas.

6 million hectares

3.7 million

TROPICAL PRIMARY

FOREST LOSS

Source: World Resources Institute

Note: Tropical primary tree loss represents removal of mature forests.

Mira Rojanasakul/The New York Times

“Global leaders sent an undeniable message that forests are critical to meeting global climate goals,” said Rod Taylor, the global director for forests at the World Resources Institute. But, he added, “we are far off track and trending in the wrong direction.”

The immense wildfires in Canada last year destroyed such a huge tract of boreal forests, almost three times as much as in any other year, that they turned what would have been a 4 percent decrease in global forest loss into a 24 percent increase over the 2022 total.

The report focuses on the tropics because deforestation and fires there are mostly caused by human activity and can create longer-lasting consequences. The humid forests of tropical countries hold a quarter of all carbon stored on land and are home to a large share of animal and plant species, making their protection essential both to curb climate change and to avert biodiversity loss.

Researchers at the World Resources Institute, working in collaboration with the University of Maryland, documented tree loss across the world from deforestation, fires and other causes. Last year’s destruction resulted in 2.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions, which is roughly equivalent to half of what the burning of fossil fuels in the United States produces each year.

Still, last year’s results showed that progress is possible when forest protection becomes a priority for world leaders. A recent change in leadership in Brazil and Colombia, which together hold almost a third of the world’s tropical forests, produced a steep decrease in deforestation rates in the two countries .

Brazil lost 2.8 million acres of forest last year, 36 percent less than in 2022. Ahead of taking office in 2023, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said the country was “ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis.” Brazil, which is home to more than half of the Amazon rainforest, accounted for 30 percent of the tropical forest loss globally last year.

Colombia, where President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022 vowing to protect the rainforest, recorded an even steeper improvement, slashing deforestation rates by 49 percent. Both Brazil and Colombia increased funding for environmental protection, created new programs to develop sustainable economic alternatives for rainforest regions and made efforts to protect local communities who defend forests.

But there are concerns about how permanent those gains will be. In Indonesia, one of the countries that has made the most progress in fighting deforestation over the past decade, tree loss has started ticking up again in the last two years.

“Ephemeral victories or ephemeral progress in slowing deforestation may not be progress at all,” said Matthew Hansen, the co-director of a laboratory at the University of Maryland that investigates changes in land use around the world.

But even the gains that researchers documented last year were largely offset by the expansion of agribusiness into tropical ecosystems around the world. The World Resources Institute researchers linked rising deforestation in Bolivia and Laos to the expansion of farms with the goal of increasing exports.

Forest loss in the Congo River Basin, the second-largest tropical forest area in the world, remained persistent last year, as economic hardship continued to drive communities to convert trees into firewood and charcoal for cooking .

Last year, man-made climate change fueled the record-breaking wildfires in Canada and seemed to leave its fingerprints around the world.

The Growing Threat of Fire

Fires are an increasingly dominant driver of tree loss worldwide.

20 million hectares

FIRE-RELATED

Note: Total tree loss includes areas outside of primary forests.

In Bolivia, blazes are also growing larger and burning the same areas repeatedly. It’s too early to say whether they were fueled by climate change. But the phenomenon has raised questions about whether some heavily degraded areas of the Amazon are transforming into different ecosystems, which some researchers worry could lead to a gradual forest-wide collapse .

Still, there is a lot governments, companies and communities can do to combat forest loss, beyond curbing the carbon emissions that cause climate change, said Mr. Taylor, the World Resources Institute director. New regulations and subsidies for forest protection could help, he said.

Unfortunately, these initiatives aren’t happening globally at a significant scale, Mr. Taylor said, “and that’s why we still see deforestation rates persisting.”

Manuela Andreoni is a Times climate and environmental reporter and a writer for the Climate Forward newsletter. More about Manuela Andreoni

Learn More About Climate Change

Have questions about climate change? Our F.A.Q. will tackle your climate questions, big and small .

“Buying Time,” a new series from The New York Times, looks at the risky ways  humans are starting to manipulate nature  to fight climate change.

Big brands like Procter & Gamble and Nestlé say a new generation of recycling plants will help them meet environmental goals, but the technology is struggling to deliver .

The Italian energy giant Eni sees future profits from collecting carbon dioxide and pumping it  into natural gas fields that have been exhausted.

New satellite-based research reveals how land along the East Coast is slumping into the ocean, compounding the danger from global sea level rise . A major culprit: the overpumping of groundwater.

Did you know the ♻ symbol doesn’t mean something is actually recyclable ? Read on about how we got here, and what can be done.