Now that you’ve analysed the implications, use this to empty your mind on the question. Most of us are all too eager to convince ourselves that we know nothing about a subject and, therefore, we have no choice but to skip this stage and go straight into the books. But no matter what the subject, I have never found a group of students, despite all their declarations of ignorance and all their howls of protest, who were not able to put together a useful structure of ideas that would help them to decide as they read what’s relevant to the essay and what’s not. Once we tap into our own knowledge and experience, we can all come up with ideas and a standard by which to judge the author’s point of view, which will liberate us from being poor helpless victims of what we read. We all have ideas and experience that allow us to negotiate with texts, evaluating the author’s opinions, while we select what we want to use and discard the rest. Throughout this stage, although you’re constantly checking your ideas for relevance, don’t worry if your mind flows to unexpected areas and topics as the ideas come tumbling out. The important point is to get the ideas onto the page and to let the mind’s natural creativity and self-organisation run its course, until you’ve emptied your mind. Later you can edit the ideas, discarding those that are not strictly relevant to the question.
One of the most effective methods for the brainstorming stage is the method known as ‘pattern notes’. Rather than starting at the top of the page and working down in a linear form in sentences or lists, you start from the centre with the title of the essay and branch out with your analysis of concepts or other ideas as they form in your mind.
The advantage of this method is that it allows you to be much more creative, because it leaves the mind as free as possible to analyse concepts, make connections and contrasts, and to pursue trains of thought. As you’re restricted to using just single words or simple phrases, you’re not trapped in the unnecessary task of constructing complete sentences. Most of us are familiar with the frustration of trying to catch the wealth of ideas the mind throws up, while at the same time struggling to write down the sentences they’re entangled in. As a result we see exciting ideas come and go without ever being able to record them quickly enough.
The point is that the mind can work so much faster than we can write, so we need a system that can catch all the ideas it can throw up, and give us the freedom to put them into whatever order or form appears to be right. The conventional linear strategy of taking notes restricts us in both of these ways. Not only does it tie us down to constructing complete sentences, or at least meaningful phrases, which means we lose the ideas as we struggle to find the words, but even more important, we’re forced to deal with the ideas in sequence, in one particular order, so that if any ideas come to us out of that sequence, we must discard them and hope we can pick them up later. Sadly, that hope is more often forlorn: when we try to recall the ideas, we just can’t.
The same is true when we take linear notes from the books we read. Most of us find that once we’ve taken the notes we’re trapped within the order in which the author has dealt with the ideas and we’ve noted them. It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult to escape from this. By contrast, pattern notes give us complete freedom over the final order of our ideas. It’s probably best explained by comparing it to the instructions you might get from somebody if you were to ask them the way to a particular road. They would give you a linear list of instructions (e.g. ‘First, go to the end of the road, then turn right. When you get to the traffic lights, etc.’). This forces you to follow identically the route they would take themselves. If you don’t, you’re lost. By contrast, pattern notes are like a copy of a map or the A to Z of a large city: you can see clearly the various routes you can take, so you can make your own choices.
So mapping is one of the affective ways to organize your ideas. To make a map use a whole sheet of paper, and write your topic in the middle, with a circle around it. Then put the next idea in a circle above or below your topic, and connect the circles with lines. The lines show that the two ideas are related.
4. Choose one topic from each of three groups. Brainstorm one of the topics (list as many ideas as you can in five minutes), make ‘pattern notes’ to the second topic (use any resources you can) and map the third topic. Share your notes with partners.
Pre-Writing: Using the Right Ability
So far we have seen how important it is to interpret the question carefully, because it tells us the structure our essay should adopt for us to deal relevantly with all the issues it raises. With this clear in our mind we can avoid taking masses of irrelevant notes, which are likely to find their way into our essays, making them irrelevant, shapeless and confusing.
There is one more important thing to take into account: the range of abilities we are expected to use. This is normally made clear through what is known as ‘instructional verbs’. Given below is a list of short definitions of those most frequently found in questions, which should help you avoid the common problems that arise when you overlook or misinterpret them.
Analyse – separate an argument, a theory, or a claim into its elements or component parts; to trace the causes of a particular event; to reveal the general principles underlying phenomena.
Compare – look for similarities and differences between two or more things, problems or arguments. Perhaps, although not always, reach a conclusion about which you think is preferable.
Contrast – set in opposition to each other two or more things, problems or arguments in order to identify clearly their differences and their individual characteristics.
Criticise – identify the weaknesses of certain theories, opinions or claims, and give your judgement about their merit. Support your judgements with a discussion of the evidence and the reasoning involved.
Define – outline the precise meaning of a word or phrase. In some cases it may be necessary or desirable to examine different possible, or often used, definitions.
Describe – give a detailed or graphic account, keeping to the facts or to the impressions that an event had upon you. In history this entails giving a narrative account of the events in the time sequence they occurred.
Discuss – investigate or examine by argument; sift through the arguments and the evidence used to support them, giving reasons for and against both sides; examine the implications. It means playing devil’s advocate by arguing not just for the side of the argument that you support, but for the side with which you may have little sympathy.
Evaluate – make an appraisal of the worth of something, an argument or a set of beliefs, in the light of their truth or usefulness. This does involve making your own value judgements, but not just naked opinion: they must be backed up by argument and justification.
Explain – make plain; interpret and account for the occurrence of a particular event by giving the causes. Unlike the verb ‘to describe’, this does not mean that it is sufficient to describe what happened by giving a narrative of the events. To explain an event is to give the reasons why it occurred, usually involving an analysis of the causes.
Illustrate – explain or clarify something by the use of diagrams, figures or concrete examples.
Interpret – reveal what you believe to be the meaning or significance of something; to make sense of something that might otherwise be unclear, or about which there may be more than one opinion. So usually this involves giving your own judgement.
Justify – show adequate grounds for a decision or a conclusion by supporting it with sufficient evidence and argument; answer the main objections that are likely to be made to it.
Outline – give the main features or the general principles