Invention Techniques

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Invention Techniques
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Invention or Prewriting

• There are many strategies for coming up with
  ideas and developing essays.
• You should
• try the suggested techniques
• develop your own strategies and find what works
  for you
• recognize the process may be a little different
  for each paper.

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Invention Techniques

• Brainstorming alone or in groups
• Freewriting writing without stopping
• Reading and discussing sharing ideas
• Clustering developing related ideas
• Questioning asking and answering questions
• Outlining making a formal list of topics and
  subtopics
• Starting with Contexts and Rhetorical Situation
  Aristotles Topoi, playing a role, writing for
  work, etc.
• Using Tagmemics employing a formal linguistic
  tool

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Freewriting

• Freewriting--designed to free up your thinking
  so you can generate ideas first without
  self-editing.
• Write without stopping. Start with a topic or
  just write about anything that comes to mind.
• Dont worry about grammar, spelling, etc.
• Keep writing for ten minutes or more.
• Find an interesting idea or sentence in your text
  and circle it.
• Write that on the top of a new page and start
  another freewriting (looping).

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Tagmemics

• Three ways of looking at a topic
• As a PARTICLE (the thing itself)
• As a WAVE (changes over in time)
• As part of a FIELD (in context, in relationship
  to other things)

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TagmemicsParticle

• Static View
• Describe the topic (person, place, or thing) in
  detail, with all its parts.
• Consider its structure and uses.
• Consider how you think and feel about it now.

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TagmemicsWave

• Dynamic--Changes over time.
• Consider your topic in the past.
• Consider its future.
• Consider your changing perspective, your view in
  the past.
• Consider your possible view in the future.

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TagmemicsField

• Contexts and Relationships
• Compare and contrast Think of your topic in
  relationship to others like and unlike it.
• Classify it.
• Find an analogy or metaphor for it.

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Asking Questions

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

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Rhetorical Situation

• Play a Role
• Solve a problem
• Define your purpose
• Analyze your topic
• Analyze your audience

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Finding a Focus

• Answer a specific question to form a thesis.
• For example, why do young people join gangs?
• Your thesis will be an answer to that question
  Young people join gangs because.
• Nutshelling state your thesis in one sentence.
  What are you trying to do or prove?