Specific Brainstorming Activities

Specific Brainstorming Activities
When developing a piece of writing, hitting a writer's block is very common. Going through brainstorming activities will help the writer to come up with new ideas on what to write and how to go about writing whatever it may be. Not only doing one brainstorming activity but a combination of them is extremely effective. Some brainstorming activities include freewriting, listing, nut-shelling, 5 W’s and 1 H, and researching. There are many more brainstorming activities out there, but these five seem to be some of the most effective.

Freewriting
Freewriting is one type of brainstorming activity that seems to be very effective. When freewriting, you can either write or type your thoughts. Start by giving yourself a specific time frame, such as 10 or 15 minutes, or even a number of pages to reach as your goal. Write whatever comes to mind when thinking about your topic without stopping. As you are writing, don’t worry about grammar or proper structure and don’t stop until the time is up or your pages are filled. Read through what you have come up with and you will be surprised on how much good information you have to use.

Listing
Another useful way to brainstorm is by listing. When listing, all you have to do is write down words or phrases that relate to your topic. After that, you group the things that you have written together and write a sentence for each group. From there, just start to build off of those sentences. It doesn’t seem like much but it will definitely steer you into the right direction with some new ideas.

Nut-shelling
Nut-shelling can also be a great way to brainstorm ideas for writing. It is a very thought-based process. You think about a few sentences about your topic and generate your major and minor ideas from that. Relate them to one another. The different ideas will help with what you want to write about. In about 2 or so sentences, write down what you want to write about. Doing this helps you to come up with a topic statement for what you are thinking about writing.

5 W's and 1 H
A major way that people brainstorm is by using the 5 W’s and 1 H. This idea comes from journalists and how they ask Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? For you to brainstorm, do the same thing. It’ll give you different angles to take your topic and information that is important to include. Write the questions down on a piece of paper and leave space to add more information and build from it. This will pull your ideas together and show you what you need more or less of.

Research
Do your research. Start by going to the library or writing center. Use many different reference books such as dictionaries and thesauruses. Just doing this you will end up with a lot of background information, topic ideas, and random facts for your topic. Even use the online reference books to find plenty of different things pertaining to your topic. So much information will come from doing this.

Conclusion
Brainstorming is done in many different ways and many different settings. Whatever way that brainstorming helps you the most in becoming more of an effective writer is what you should stick with. It is an extremely effective way to get your information down that you want to include in your paragraphs, your thesis, and the way that you want to bring your piece of writing together. Using specific brainstorming activities will really begin to help shape you as a writer.