Sprouting Ideas A Community Approach to Generating Details About Any Topic

When you know the topic… Get your details from your audience: when you can get input from those whom you think will want to read about your topic, you can get a better idea of what’s been said and what needs to said. You don’t always know what you want to say about it A community of writers (COW) can help you generate ideas and details.

Strategy: Growing a topic sprout into a tree 1.Write down your basic topic idea/prompt 2.Next, begin to answer the prompt by writing two to five sentences that express the kernel of your topic and what you know you want to do with it. It should look like you are beginning to write a piece of the paper itself.

Strategy: Growing a topic sprout into a tree 3.Next, pass this prompt and beginning sentences onto a member of your COW, asking him/her to pick up where you left off. Ask this member to add two to five sentences to your article in progress. 4.Continue growing the tree by passing the article on to all members, having each member pick up where the last member left off

Ideally detail comes from the targeted audience… If you are writing a quantum physics paper for quantum physicists, but your COW are not quantum physicists, then there is a limited amount of feedback your COW can give you. You may need to turn to your discourse community for feedback instead.

And the sprout becomes a tree Reading through what your discourse community or COW provides should help you to get ideas and help you understand what your audience knows and doesn’t know about the topic.

And the sprout becomes a tree Reading through what your discourse community or COW provides should help you to get ideas and help you understand what your audience knows and doesn’t know about the topic.