Before You Write

Sitting down with a blank page when you have to write something can be daunting. When writing, knowing where to start is a big part of the battle. One of the simplest ways to write a good paper is to make sure your thoughts are organized. Here are two easy strategies that can help you get prepared to write a well-structured paper.

Fast write

Take a set amount of time, perhaps 3 minutes, and write as many ideas about the subject as possible. This helps you get out creative thoughts as they come, without worrying about if they make sense for your paper.

Clustering

Clustering is similar to Mind Mapping (see previous blog post). The difference is that you do it quickly and aren’t focused on the organization of it. Start with your main idea in the center, and create branches as your creative thoughts start to flow.

Making sense of it all

Don’t worry if your page starts to look confusing because the purpose of these strategies is to get all your thoughts to a place where you can see them. Once you have written down all your thoughts on a subject, you can start to group together thoughts by which ones are similar. This way you can create an organized structure which can be used for writing your paper.