 Welcome to Thinking About the Topic, Brainstorming. In this video, you'll explore and practice how to brainstorm a list of ideas related to a topic. In this video, you will learn how to brainstorm in order to find out how much you already know about a topic. At the end of this video, you will be asked to practice this technique. To brainstorm, you think about a topic and then write down as many ideas as you can about the topic. You write these ideas in a list of words or short phrases, no sentences. Whatever comes into your head while you're thinking about this topic should be written down. And be sure to write down everything that comes into your head. Don't edit, erase, or correct errors at this time. There's plenty of time to do that later. Let's look at an example. First, write the topic at the top of the page. Then, write down anything you know about this topic. Don't be concerned if you don't see a connection with your idea and the topic right away. For some reason, you were thinking of the idea at this time, so write it down. Writing can be challenging. So here's a few brainstorming notes to help you out. A wise saying is, it doesn't exist until it's written down. You can have lots of wonderful ideas, but until you commit those ideas to paper, they are just that, ideas. Get them on paper as soon as possible. Many novice writers are worried that once they put something on paper, it must be permanent. It can never change. But, the truth is you want to use paper to help you change and shape your ideas. OK, it's time to practice. Choose either the topic you're currently working on for your class, or the topic from this learning object, Winters in Wisconsin. Spend two minutes generating ideas through brainstorming. Remember to relax, take your time, and use your brainstorming notes. Ready to give it a try? Here's a timer to keep track of your two minutes. It's easy or difficult. If you were not able to come up with a lot of ideas in this time limit, you either were too worried about editing what you were writing, you do not know a lot about the topic, or this technique may not be effective for you. Keep in mind that you will more than likely be spending more than two minutes trying to generate ideas when you're not working on this exercise. Depending on the complexity of your writing project, you may spend minutes, hours, or days trying to come up with ideas. So what's next? You need to examine your list and see if there are enough ideas to work on for your writing project. If there are enough ideas, you can start to work with them to create a draft of your document. If you need more ideas, you may have to spend more time on this technique, try another technique, or do research to find out more about the topic. Congratulations! You've completed thinking about the topic brainstorming. If you want to see more videos like this, subscribe to our channel. We'll notify you when we have something new for you to learn.