Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a free-association technique of spontaneously listing all words, concepts, ideas, questions, and knowledge about a topic. After making a lengthy list, sort the ideas into categories. This allows you to inventory your current awareness of a topic, decide what perspectives are most interesting and/or relevant, and decide in which direction to steer your research.
Example:
If your research question was, “Could liberalization of drug laws reduce crime in the U.S.?”
here are just a few of the potential keywords you could use to focus your topic:
| Drugs | Crime |
| marijuana cocaine crack meth speed methamphetamine pot dope heroin |
shootings gangs murder killing robbery Mafia smuggling drug cartel |
What words can you add to the list? How do your words relate to each other?
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brain•storm•ing
noun
1. A method of shared problem solving in which all members of a group spontaneously contribute ideas.
2. A similar process undertaken by a person to solve a problem by rapidly generating a variety of possible solutions.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000
keyword
noun
2. a word or concept of great significance. 3. a significant word mentioned in an index. 4. a word used in an information retrieval system [such as a database of full text articles like Academic Search Premier] to indicate the content of a document.
Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2007.
