Unit 3 Planning to Write II: Idea Generation

Overview Having selected a topic and established your context for writing based on the guidelines in the

previous unit, you will now consider how to generate ideas for developing your essay. In this

unit, you will explore some techniques that you can use for gathering information for your essay.

These are brainstorming, clustering, free writing, pentading and researching. You will also learn

to identify and distinguish between phrases and clauses.

You need about 1 week to complete this unit.

Unit Objectives At the end of this unit, you should be able to

1. Identify strategies for generating ideas

2. Generate ideas for topics chosen

3. Identify phrases and (independent and subordinate) clauses

Readings Your readings for this unit are:

“Invention: Starting the Writing Process.” Purdue Online Writing Lab.

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/587/01/>

“Introduction to Prewriting (Invention). Purdue Online Writing Lab.

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/673/01/>

Taking Flight: Connecting Inner and Outer Realities during Invention by Susan E. Antlitz

<http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/antlitz--taking-flight.pdf>

“Invention.” College Writing.org

<http://collegewriting.org/index.php/strategies/invention>

“Using Source Materials: An Introduction.” Writer’s Web. University of Richmond.

<http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/source.html>

How to Structure your TOEFL Essay

<http://www.engvid.com/how-to-structure-your-toefl-essay/>

Morgan, P. (1998). Identifying phrases and clauses. In Language proficiency for tertiary level: A

self-instructional course for Caribbean students (pp. 91-98). St. Augustine, Trinidad:

UWI Distance Education Centre.

“Identifying Independent and Dependent Clauses.” Purdue Online Writing Lab

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/1/>

“Run-ons - Comma Splices - Fused Sentences.” Purdue Online Writing Lab

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/598/02/>

“Interactive Quizzes.” (Clauses and Phrases 59-66). Guide to Grammar and Writing. Capital

Community College.

<http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm>

Session 3.1 Generating Ideas

Learning Objectives At the end of this session, you should be able to:

1. Identify multiple strategies for finding points for your essay

2. Use specific strategies to generate information on topics chosen

Introduction After selecting your topic and analysing your writing situation, you can begin the process of

invention – of finding ideas to write about. You can use one strategy or a combination of

strategies to generate ideas for your chosen topic/question. Some of these strategies are

1) brainstorming/listing,

2) clustering/mapping/webbing,

3) free writing,

4) pentading/asking journalist’s questions (the five Ws and H) and

5) reading/researching.

Bear in mind that the process of generating ideas is different for every writer, and some topics

lend themselves more to some invention strategies than to others.

As you gain more experience as a writer, select the invention strategy (or strategies) that works

best for you and the topic with which you are working.

Strategies for generating ideas 1) Brainstorming or listing involves writing/jotting down in a short period of time as many ideas

as possible about a given topic that you know something about. You allow your thoughts to flow

freely without arranging or ordering the ideas or judging their worth. Some people write down

the ideas as a list; others write them around the topic all over the page. These ideas can be in the

form of words, phrases and even occasional sentences.

Activity 3.1 At the top of a clean sheet of paper, write “Modern Technology.” For the next two to five

minutes, write down as quickly as you can all the ideas that come to your mind about that topic.

Do not try to arrange your ideas or determine their value; let your thoughts flow freely and write

them wherever you wish on the page.

Here are some ideas that one student, Ruth, arrived at after five minutes of brainstorming:

cable television cell phones speed

telebanking credit cards ATM cards

distract children wrong models

internet point of sale robberies

technology related crimes convenience

fewer interpersonal relationships distance education

on-line registration impersonal loss of jobs

need for computer literacy production line

computer-directed aircrafts private phone conversations in public

disturbances ease reduce family time

computers calculators cheating on tests

easy contact ignore local news

entertainment variety temptation to spend

security cashless society bus passes

Note that some writers brainstorm ideas in a group setting before they begin to write down

anything. Conversations with another person or in a group can help you to deepen your ideas.

Nevertheless, because brainstorming is tied to personal feelings and experiences and randomly

noted ideas, you should proceed to finding ways to order the information generated to suit the

writing situation. You have to find ways to categorise the random ideas generated and perhaps do

further brainstorming or use another technique such as the journalist’s questions to generate

more needed ideas. You can use numbers or letters or other symbols to help to link related ideas.

Here is Ruth’s attempt at linking some of her ideas:

1 cable television A cell phones **speed

**telebanking **credit cards **ATM cards

1 distract children 1 wrong models

internet **point of s ale robberies

technology related crimes **convenience

fewer interpersonal relationships distance education

on-line registration impersonal loss of jobs

need for computer literacy production line

computer-directed aircrafts A private phone conversation sin public

A disturbances ease 1 reduce family time

computers calculators cheating on tests

A easy contact 1 ignore local news

1 entertainment variety temptation to spend

**security **cashless society bus passes

Activity 3.2

Use your preferred symbols to show relationships among the ideas that you generated on

“Modern Technology.”

2) Related to brainstorming is clustering or mapping. Clustering (or mapping) involves

generating ideas that you have in memory and circling words/phrases to show the relationships

of the ideas. There is free association of ideas but a visual organisational pattern emerges very

early in the planning stage, and gives you a head start on organising ideas for an essay.

Here is the process:

a) Circle the key word or phrase in the centre of a page.

b) Draw a line from that centre circle to another idea related to the topic.

c) Circle that idea and radiate out from that circle other related ideas.

d) When you think you have exhausted ideas related to that subdivision, return to the centre

circle and repeat the process.

e) You can add ideas to previous clusters or branches at any time.

When Ruth used clustering to gather information on Modern Technology, she arrived at the

following pattern:

Activity 3.3 Cluster/map your ideas on ONE of the following:

a) drug abuse

b) cheating

c) violence

d) one of the topics from List 1 (Activity 2.1 ).

3) Free writing allows you to generate ideas about a topic by writing continuously for a short,

timed period. You note all thoughts about the topic without regard for order, grammar or

punctuation. It is then incumbent on you to read what you have written and to try to find patterns

or major ideas that can be used in your essay or that will help you to generate more useful ideas.

This technique is not recommended for a test situation. Some students receive low scores on tests

and examinations because what they submit is the first stage of a free writing exercise. This

means that they begin to write on a topic and do so without stopping for the duration of the test

or examination, without planning and without revising or editing.

Activity 3.4

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of free writing? Share your thoughts

with your peers and tutor. [Learning Journal]

4) You can use the standard journalist’s/reporter’s questions – What? Who? When? Where?

Why? and How? – to help you to approach a topic from different angles. Consider the simple

example that follows.

What is brainstorming? Who brainstorms? When do they do it?

Where is it done? Why is it done? How is it done?

With any one topic, you can ask a range of questions related to each W (and H); but you might

have to use other methods to help you to develop the ideas for your essay.

5) After you have used those strategies to help you to tap ideas that are in memory, you can build

on them by doing research. Research includes accessing information through experiments,

interviews, various collections and written materials. In the next unit, we will focus on

fundamental reading strategies.

Activity 3.5

Look back at the exercises on brainstorming and clustering. Could the journalist’s questions

stimulate more useful ideas for the topics you chose? Note any new ideas generated. [Learning

Journal]

SUMMARY Activity 3.6 a) Select three topics from List 1 (Activity 2.1). Use a different technique to generate ideas

about each.

b) Write your thoughts about which technique seemed most useful for each topic. Share your

work with your tutor. [Learning Journal]

Summary You have been introduced to several techniques that you can use to get ideas for writing on any

topic that you select. You can use one strategy and then increase the ideas you find for a topic by

using another strategy or other strategies.

Language Support III

Phrases and Clauses [Morgan, 91-98]

End of Unit Summary In this unit, we concentrated on techniques that you can use to get ideas for writing your essays.

The most common one is brainstorming or listing. Others are clustering (also called mapping or

webbing), free writing, asking the journalist’s questions and researching. You also learned how

to identify phrases, dependent clauses and independent clauses.

References CollegeWriting. Creative Commons

<http://collegewriting.org>

Guide to Grammar and Writing. Capital Community College.

<http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/>

Hacker, D. (2007). A writer’s reference (6th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Kirszner, L. G., & Mandell, S. R. (2002). Foundations first: Sentences and paragraphs, with

readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Milson-Whyte, V. (2003). English for tertiary level study. Mona, Kingston: Department of

Language, Linguistics and Philosophy.

Morgan, P. (1998). Language proficiency for tertiary level: A self-instructional course for

Caribbean students. St. Augustine, Trinidad: UWI Distance Education Centre.

Purdue Online Writing Lab.

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu>

Wilson, P, & Glazier, T. F. (2009). The least You should know about English: Writing skills (10th

ed.). Boston: Wadsworth.

Writer’s Web. University of Richmond.

<http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html>

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Creative Commons. 2010

<http://writingspaces.org>