INVENTION STRATEGIES
Targeted brainstorming
Good persuasive ideas rarely come out of nowhere – usually you have to start by thinking about something, with even a vague goal in mind
Best taken slowly and strategically
Best ideas don’t appear instantly or at random – usually you have to work for them
Sometimes sitting on an idea really is the best thing you can do
But make sure that meets requirements of your work
Better to be organized to avoid lapsing into procrastination
Thinking about your audience
demographics (what group(s) does your audience fit into? What do you know about these groups?)
expectations (What does the audience want to hear? What does the audience not want to hear? How is the audience likely to take you seriously?)
how do you establish common ground with the audience? (you do not want to turn your arguments into an uphill battle)
What kind of supporting materials can you bring to bear on your arguments?
-Facts, statistics - research
-Narratives, expert testimony
-Humor, emotionally-engaging content
Different audiences respond differently to different supporting materials/evidence
-better to cover more than one approach,
-but remember to be strategic and emphasize the kinds of materials that will be most effective
(e.g. in an academic essay, facts and quotes from peer-reviewed academic journals will always be the best way to convince your prof!)
Appeals: Ethos/Logos/Pathos
again, different audiences respond differently and may prefer one type of appeal over the other
a good idea is to address all three at least to some extent
but at the same time be strategic about the appeals that you will believe will be most effective
don’t put your eggs in one basket!
Kairos
Think about the right time to pitch an argument
logos is the one area that you will need to cover in most academic and professional situations – you cannot move far without clear, rational logic
ethos is important at least insofar as you establish yourself as credible
pathos is the trickiest one – in any setting, it can be both extremely effective (if you strike an effective emotional note) and extremely damaging to your ethos (if you appear overly-emotional, irrational, or disingenuous). Use with caution in serious settings.
Now for some practical suggestions…
4 PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO INVENTION
LISTING
List the ideas, arguments, facts, questions, key words, goals you want to cover
Point form only – avoids getting stuck on wording or style
Good for generating initial thoughts, not necessarily most useful for structuring
Don’t sort until you run out of ideas
Use another strategy to organize (e.g. mapping)
FREEWRITING
Useful for generating unsorted ideas if you think better in ‘stream of consciousness’
Start writing down whatever comes to mind (preferably with a goal in mind) and don’t stop until you reach a limit you set (e.g. 500 words or 15 minutes)
Again, useful for generating initial thoughts and often results in surprising ideas that you didn’t have in mind before
Also not very useful if you need organization – use another strategy to organize thoughts after you freewrite
MAPPING
Like listing, but with text bubbles instead of bullet points
Use lines/arrows or clusters to connect bubbles of related ideas together
The result is often a bit complex, but also gives more cues on future organization of your arguments
Especially helpful if your project requires finding connections between ideas
CUBING
Approach an idea from 6 different sides, thus putting it inside a discrete ‘cube’
Describe (‘What is it?’)
Compare (‘What is it like/not like?’)
Associate (‘What other ideas does it belong with?’)
Analyze (‘What parts is it made up of?’)
Apply (‘How can you use this idea?’)
Argue (‘How can you support or oppose it?’)
Useful for developing coherent theses for academic essays – helps avoid one-sided thinking
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