Five Crucial Questions That Help You Improve The Development of Ideas

Whether you write essays or dissertations, the development of strong and relevant ideas is mandatory. That is how you show your thought processes and analysis of the concepts you are learning about. An essay without well-developed ideas sounds vague and isn’t worthy of good grades.

So what exactly do you do while developing an idea?

You support it, discuss the significance and show how the idea connects to the rest of the essay. Once you get these three elements together, writing an impressive essay with strong, well-developed paragraphs is as easy as a breeze.

So, let’s check out the five crucial questions you can ask yourself to develop strong ideas in your essay.

1. What is the purpose of my assignment?

The first step toward the development of ideas is to read the prompt carefully and understand the expectations and requirements. Chances are, your assignment is built around a primary question. In that case, structure your initial thoughts revolving around the possible answers to that question.

Ask yourself the following questions to understand the focus and purpose of your assignment question. This essay helps you develop ideas and respond to the prompt appropriately.

• When is the paper due?
• How long is the essay supposed to be?
• What am I expected to write about?
• Do I need to analyse, report or compare the topic with something else?
• Who is my audience? What does my audience know?
• What is the genre of the essay? What do essays in this genre look like?

Why use this technique?

It is an excellent starting point. You develop your ideas based on the expectations of your readers. It is important to understand the limitations and possibilities related to the assignment prompt before you let your ideas run free.

2. What do I know about my topic?

Reading is key to the proper development of ideas in assignments. Whether you need to develop ideas about an interview or a short story, it is crucial to read and analyze the text again. Take notes about all the interesting information that you find the second time you read the primary source.

Why use this technique?

• Research is an integral part of writing an assignment. But, that isn’t limited to reading sources only once. Instead, you need to read the sources twice or even thrice.
• Reading the text for the first time helps you gain a general overview. It lets you know about what and why it is happening. You understand what the argument is.
• However, when you re-read the text, you are most likely to pay attention to other significant details that you might have overlooked on the first try. It helps you see the broader significance of smaller elements.

This not only helps you develop strong ideas for the assignment but also strengthens your knowledge regarding the topic. Your understanding of the topic depends on each re-read.

3. How to follow my thought processes without any inhibition?

Freewriting is significant for developing a wide range of ideas for the assignment topic. All you have to do is write about your topic without stopping or thinking for a specific time period, such as ten or five minutes. Once you are done, you will have a continuous, forward-moving flow of text related to your topic. Identify the most significant ideas that you think would value to your essay and highlight them.

Writing about the topic without any inhibition will help you track down all your thoughts about your topic. It is okay if you repeat the same word or phrase since free writing is about writing down your thoughts without any restrictions.

Why is this technique useful?

You can open yourself up to the possibilities of your ideas while free writing. You are free to stumble upon interesting options since the process is completely unhindered. You can then refine the ideas while writing the essay.

In the case of an unfamiliar topic, you can start by writing down everything that you already know about it. Then list the questions you have about the same. Write in whichever way you can keep your thoughts flowing.

4. What are my thoughts about the specific topic?

Brainstorming is bringing your subconscious thoughts into consciousness. It involves the identification of as many ideas as possible related to the specific topic.

Let’s say your topic is Dogs. So, you brainstorm all the ideas related to this topic, such as:

• How do you take care of them?
• What is so special about them as compared to other dogs?
• Dog houses
• Why should dogs be a part of the family?
• Immunity boosters for dogs
• Types of dogs
• Aggressive dogs
• Intelligent dogs
• Different types of play for dogs
• Service dogs
• Hunting dogs

Brainstorming is interesting. You get to pour down all your thoughts onto the paper development. Check the list once you have brainstormed the topic. Are there aspects that you can club together? Which of the ideas catch your interest as a writer, researcher, and thinker? Pick the ideas from the brainstorming list accordingly.

5. How can I use journals for developing ideas?

Journaling acts wonders when it comes to developing your ideas for assignments. I am not talking about personal journals or online blogs. I am talking about reflecting and recording your thoughts, feelings, questions and observations regarding a certain topic.

How can journals help?

• Journals can help you develop relevant ideas for writing assignments.
• Go through the journal entries to find out the topic about which you have written the most. These are the topics about which you certainly have something to say. You can use these topics to develop ideas in your piece of writing.
• Write down the assignment prompt. Now use the journal to write about your development experiences, different reactions, and crucial problems related to that prompt.
• Try to understand the why and how of the situation through the journal entries.

Writing journals about the topic not only helps you develop ideas but also makes you more confident about writing. It broadens your perspective about the topics and gives you a direction for the collection of relevant material for the assignment.

Wrapping Up,

All these steps take time. So, if you have a time crunch, it is better to seek a paper checker lest you might be penalized for late submissions. You need a great deal of practice and hard work to develop the right ideas for essays. Relax your mind and focus on each above-mentioned question for the proper development of ideas.