Develop Ideas

 Focus on writing- How to develop ideas

What a lengthy, if not impossible, task it would be to write everything there is to know about Canada. The topic of Canada is too big or broad to write about. 

You can ask probing questions to narrow the topic. 

 Canada is too big a topic to write about. I need to ask myself some questions to help me choose something small enough to write about. 

An example:

Who am I writing this for? my cousin who is coming from Washington and has never been to Canada.

What does my cousin (my audience) already know about the topic?  she knows the political and geographic areas of Canada; she knows some of Canada’s history.

Where will my cousin visit while in Canada? Saskatchewan region

Why is she visiting? to see family and some of the local area.

Asking and answering these probing questions has helped to narrow the topic from Canada to the Saskatchewan region. It is helpful to write a main idea or main message that identifies exactly what you want to write about. By using the information from the probing questions, the main idea or message of this piece of writing might be: What a visitor to the Saskatchewan Region needs to know.

Many writers might start with the same large topic, but each writer could end up with a different narrower topic and a main idea or message.

The video below shows how you can brainstorm and choose a topic.