Brainstorming

Mapping and Listing

Mapping is randomly writing down terms, phrases, or questions that spring to mind about a paper topic in any way on a piece of paper. What is written down doesn't have to be included in the body of the paper, nor does it have to be a life-changing philosophical everyonewilllove thought, it just has to be something that comes to mind while contemplating your topic. For example, in a paper about "law," you might put down anywhere on a piece of scratch paper an assortment of terms, perhaps first "lawyers," then "law school," then "the court system," then "jury," and so forth, gradually generating a map.

Law -------> law -------> the court system ------> jury ------> Lawyers

As words appear here and there on the page you may find yourself grouping certain ideas together, this is good. If you don't do it within ten minutes that's OK, just keep listing until you start seeing associations. Believe me you will. Drawing lines between different ideas and writing words that indicate how they are associated is a useful way of forming what will go together as you write your paper.

While listing records ideas in a vertical line, a map records them helter skelter on a page, thus leaving room for unforeseen associations. A list has the same purpose as mapping, one is no better than the other. What is desired is that you form ideas and start thinking about your paper: whichever works better for you is the one to use.

For further instruction on where to go from here go to section 2 or 3, or if neither of these brainstorming techniques work for you, read on for more.

Heuristics

A heuristic is a tool for systematically discovering information about a subject or a problem and asking fruitful questions about it. Three heuristics will be discussed: HDWDWW, trees, and matrices. They all have the same purpose as mapping and listing do--to develop ideas. Remember none of this is final. This is all preliminary.

HDWDWW is an acronym that stands for "How does Who do What and Why?" Using this will help you focus on several important things: the agent, action, manner in which the agent does it, and the agent's purpose. For example, if you wanted to generate information about snowshoes, this is how it would work: How do they work? How are they manufactured? Out of what materials? Who manufactures them? Who buys them? Who sells them? Who uses them? Why are they used? Further questions could be asked like When? For whom? And to whom? You could also use the journalist acronym: WWWWWH (Who, what, when, where, why, and how).

You can write down the answers to these questions in any way that is most beneficial to you, but making a chart to simplify a complicated topic may be useful when using this acronym. For example, if we were assigned to write an essay about how various interest groups view the issue of electric cars replacing gasoline run vehicles, this is how a chart might look:

Who	Does What	Why
Environmentalists	Wants to keep research and production going	Prevents air pollution
Consumers	Wants to keep research and production going	Prevents air pollution Simplicity of charging car battery instead of gas costs
Manufactures	Against research funding and increased production costs	Don't want to lose jobs Business might go under

Although the above chart does not appear to make use of all the questions in HDWDWW, it does. It lists the various interest groups (who), each of the interest groups views (how, does what), and the supporting material as to why they have these views (why).

This, of course, is the product of some thought. Tables at first will not be as cohesive as this, and all charts will vary to some extent. But because this heuristic is so systematic, it allows you to sort out complicated issues like the one above. It helps to alleviate that overwhelming Iwon'teverbeabletofigurethisout feeling.

Diagram Trees

Diagrams are another way to generate ideas. For example, if the subject of a paper calls for a description of beauty, the following diagram could be formulated:

Beauty ---- Physical ---- Dynamic Eyes
|               \		
|             In Shape
|
Internal ---- Nature ---- Caring ---- Honesty
                \		
              Scenery

Although this is not nearly complete, it is a start. Just start stringing ideas together like above where there are three types of beauty identified and some examples of each. At this stage of writing you should simply be looking for ideas. Also, a diagram will not be of any specific form, and not all of the information will be used.

Matrices

This is a good method for a comparison essay, although it can be used for others. For example, say you are asked to compare/contrast Elvis and Michael Jackson, a matrix might look like this:

Interest Points:
	Michael Jackson	Elvis Presley
# of Albums	13	12
Family Life	poor	poor
Media Image	bad	good