It was a few weeks before I started as a first year journalism student at a university in the East Midlands area when I was reading and studying about essay writing because it is a common academic writing task we would perform. I read that getting essay writing ideas for essays would be a crucial stage of the essay writing process because the quality of the content of the ideas and on how a student was able to convey or discuss the ideas in the essay is one of the important factors considered by a lecturer when he evaluates an essay. So I read extensively on how to develop and gather ideas for essays so I would have less difficulties when I actually start researching and writing essays when I start my studies.
I read that whether the lecturer assigns a topic or we are given the option of choosing the topic, an effective research on getting ideas for the topic is very important. So the first step in getting essay writing ideas for the topic is through thorough and comprehensive research from materials and other resources from the library and from the Internet. I learned that I should thoroughly read and analyse the information so I would only collect the materials that are relevant and applicable for the topic.
The next step I learned is to be creative or original in obtaining essay writing ideas. Since there are instances in our essay writing tasks that we would have similar or related subject areas or topics of interests, it is important that we should have uniqueness in our choice of ideas without losing the theme or point of the topic. So a good way of getting unique ideas would be reading information or other materials that have little relevance to the topic. This method could inspire or stimulate my creative mind in thinking of ideas for the topic.