Developing Ideas for Writing a Paragraph Pre-writing Before you begin to write, you need to think of ideas to write about. Sometimes it is difficult to think of things to write about. There are four common ways to help you think of new ideas: Brainstorming Clustering Making Lists Asking Yourself Questions Before you begin: This course is the fifth in a series on e-mail management and storage in Outlook. The online training courses “Manage your mailbox II: Understand your choices for storing,” “Manage your mailbox III: Move or copy messages to Personal Folders,” and “Manage your mailbox IV: Archive old messages” provide a foundation on these topics. Notes to trainer: For detailed help in customizing this template, see the very last slide. Also, look for additional lesson text in the notes pane of some slides. Adobe Flash animations: This template contains Flash animations. These will play in versions of Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® back to PowerPoint 2000. However: If you want to save this template in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, save it in the earlier PowerPoint file format: PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation (*.ppt) or PowerPoint 97-2003 Template (*.pot) (you’ll see the file types in the Save As dialog box, next to Save as type). Warning: If you save it in a PowerPoint 2007 file format, such as PowerPoint Presentation (*.pptx) or PowerPoint Template (*.potx), the animations won’t be retained in the saved file. Also: Because this presentation contains Flash animations, saving the template may cause a warning message to appear regarding personal information. Unless you add information to the properties of the Flash file itself, this warning does not apply to this presentation. Click OK in the message.

Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages Brainstorming is a way to think of new ideas. Brainstorming means you write every idea that is in your head (your brain). When you brainstorm, you write all your ideas and all the words you can think of about a topic. Do not say "This idea is a bad idea." When you are brainstorming, all ideas are good ideas. You do not write complete sentences when you brainstorm. You just write words or phrases. Write all the things that you think of. Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages

Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages Here is an example of what an office worker wrote when he brainstormed about the topic Daily Routine. Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages

Clustering is another way to think of new ideas Clustering is another way to think of new ideas. The word "cluster" means a group of similar things. Clustering means putting words into groups. Each group, or cluster, has a number of words that are related to each other. Clustering is similar to brainstorming. You try to think of many words and phrases. When you make a cluster map, you write the words and phrases in groups. Here is an example of a cluster map about daily routine: Here is an example of a cluster map about daily routine:  

How to Make a Cluster Map 1. Write the topic in the center of your page, inside a circle. 2. Write general ideas about the topic around the circle

Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages 3. Write more ideas about each general idea.   [Note to trainer: With Outlook 2007 installed on your computer, you can click the link in the slide to go to an online practice. In the practice, you can work through each of these tasks in Outlook, with instructions to guide you. Important: If you don’t have Outlook 2007, you won’t be able to access the practice instructions.] Manage your mailbox V: Retrieve, back up, or share messages

4. Continue until you can think of no more ideas

Here is an example of three lists about daily routine: Making lists is a way to think of new ideas. When you make a list, try to think of ideas in an organized way. For example, you can make a list of actions, a list of places, a list of people. Here is an example of three lists about daily routine: Actions Places People bus driver waitress boss co-worker Boss friend customer

Asking Yourself Questions Asking yourself questions is another way to think of new ideas. When you answer the questions, you think of ideas. Here is an example of some questions about daily routine: When do I get up? What do I do in the morning? When do I go to work? What do I do at work? When do I have lunch? Where do I have lunch? When do I go home from work? How do I get home from work? What do I do after work? What do I do in the evening? When do I go to bed?