Brainstorming Techniques in Essay Writing

Essay writing can be a tricky section for many candidates solely due to the fact that students are not well adept in the craft of writing – especially one that involves structuring a logical flow of thoughts and ideas. Most students are dumbfounded when provided with a tough essay topic. In this article, we provide you techniques that will help you churn out ideas for essays during the GDPI stage of MBA colleges.
Technique-1: The SPHELTIR technique of brainstorming
This serves as an effective tool to control and brand the diversity of ideas which come to one's mind while brainstorming. This approach is a yardstick to evaluate the topic from multiple dimensions- Social, Political, Historical, Economic, Legal, Technological, International, and Religious. This method is more useful for brainstorming on factual topics.
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Let’s use this technique and analyze one topic. This will help you understand how to use this approach in order to generate content.
Sample Topic: Should there be reservations?
SOCIAL
  • Social inequalities in rural and urban India like untouchability
  • Reservations for socially and educationally backward classes (Art 15)
POLITICAL
  • Caste-based vote-bank politics
  • Women Reservation Bill
HISTORICAL
  • Genesis of Caste System in India
  • Was there any timeline set by constitution?
ECONOMIC
  • Creamy Layer
  • Reservations in jobs and educational institutes
LEGAL
  • Indian Constitution - Right to equality (Art 14)
  • However, 'positive discrimination' allowed (Art 15)

TECHNOLOGICAL
  • Reservations in private sector like IT/ITES
  • Is Reservation in IITs / IIMs killing merit
INTERNATIONAL
  • Is Reservation making India less competitive in world?
  • Similar policy of affirmative action in USA too.
RELIGIOUS
  • Reservations for Minorities?
  • Sachar Committee Report
Technique-2: The POPBEANS approach to brainstorming
This is also a useful tool to think about topics for both structure and diversity. The tool assesses the following aspects surrounding a given topic- People, Objects, Place, Behavior, Event, Action, Nature, and Society. This method is particularly useful for expanding abstract topics.
Let’s take up an example topic and see how we can use this technique.
Sample Topic: "Black"
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As you can see, this single-letter is extremely abstract in nature and requires you to think outside of the box. Using the POPBEANS approach, you can think of the following pointers for this topic:
  • People - Corrupt/ dishonest people
  • Objects - Black hole, manipulated balance sheet (commerce point)
  • Place - Historical monuments, graveyard, South or North pole
  • Behavior - Rude and aggressive behavior 
  • Event - 26/11, other tragic events 
  • Actions - Honor killing, female foeticide, negligent behaviour
  • Nature - Environmental degradation, catastrophic events, 
  • Society - Decline in values, morals 
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