Mastering English as a second language is quite a challenging task. International students face this challenge when come to study to a foreign English speaking country. Being good at English is a key to becoming a successful international student; this skill opens up almost any door against you and, with a certain perseverance, lets you through almost everywhere. In this article we are going to explore a topic of brainstorming when it comes to working on a good essay. Listen to these recommendations, don’t be afraid of this scary word and you will find your way to an academic success quicker than ever before. Brainstorming means that you try to thing outside the box, extend your imagination beyond the topic of your paper a try to think of whatever comes to your mind, writing it down to sort the information out later along the way. The thing is, when you work on expressing your thoughts on a sheet of paper, you have to be logical and consistent. That being said, you don’t want to start working even on the first draft of your paper before you undertake a good brainstorm and write down all ideas that came to your mind, preferably in a sorted manner. When preparing yourself for a good brainstorm, first of all you have to decide which approach of the two suits you best. Making a right choice here will allow you to be rather productive later on. So here we came to essential steps that lead to a fruitful brainstorm:
1. Fill the sheet of paper
Find few sheets of paper and a pen or a pencil and start writing down whatever comes to your mind. This might look as a nonsense first, but don’t be fooled here, among those incoherent words and sentences you will find truly valuable ideas and thoughts. Simply write down literally any words or phrases that might look interesting or somehow relevant to you or you just feel like writing a particular sentence down. The entire process of that may look ugly or messy at the first glance, but trust the experience of past generations – it works exceptionally well and allows you to gather your thoughts and ideas up without limiting your mind while thinking on the draft itself.
2. Stay consistent
In case your mind instantly go blank from even a slightest idea of processing your ideas and writing them down, don’t panic, this is a typical reaction of the unprepared mind. You can find many different ways that can help you to place your thoughts in order and make your brainstorm process much more effective, essentially turning your mind into a powerful generator of new spectacular thoughts and ideas for your essay. We have described two most widely used diagrams that students use when brainstorming for fresh thoughts and ideas, here they are:
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Venn Diagram: almost all students avoid using this diagram regularly, however it can be rather effective and helpful to direct the process of brainstorming into the right direction. Some of you might have never used this diagram for brainstorming purposes, so here is an easy example for you to catch up:
Assuming you have got an assignment which main idea is to compare the pluses and minuses of Styrofoam. Draw two separate circles and title them as “Pluses” and “Minuses”, what is left in the middle is going to be a somewhat neutral, neither especially positive nor strictly negative to Styrofoam. When the final diagram is labeled, you can very easily list the whole items that are located below in each and every one of two categories.
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Spider Diagram: The peculiarity of working according to this diagram consists of writing down three to five base topics that are going to become the essence of your essay. Transposing this to the example of essay about Stryofoam, you would most likely write something similar to: “Handy material”, “Non-biodegradable,” and “Affordable to manufacture”. The moment you acknowledge your major topics that you plan to cower, you open for yourself a possibility to develop those topics using additional ideas and probably even bound your key topics into one. In its finale, your topic must resemble a spider’s web.
3. Gathering ideas
Your essay should include the following parts:
After a thorough and fruitful brainstorm, the time has finally come for you to turn your gaze onto the essay itself. Come across all your previous thoughts and intriguing ideas to gather and use the most fundamental and interesting of them. Your final essay must consist of the following blocks:
- Introduction
- First body (firm support)
- Second body
- Third body
- Conclusion
A thorough brainstorming effort is going to enable you to write down an outline and insert every single precious thought into your essay. This is the final moment to take a closer look on to essay samples and start preparing your own essay.
