The first steps in the writing process are the most crucial for developing a well-written unified¹ paragraph. These steps are called Thought Lines. Taking the time to develop and focus your ideas will ensure good writing. Ideas for writing can be developed in three basic ways: freewriting, brainstorming², and journaling. Each technique helps you generate ideas on a broad topic. Those ideas can become the specific idea you want to develop into a paragraph. Once you have generated ideas, they can be organized by grouping the ideas in your list and then labeling each group or by creating a map or cluster of related ideas. Once you have evaluated your groups of ideas, you can develop a topic sentence that reflects the point you want to make about your ideas. A topic sentence is a single sentence that conveys the main idea you want to make. Your paragraph will then use many of the details you generated through your brainstorming to support the topic sentence. A good topic sentence will be narrow enough to be thoroughly³ supported in a single paragraph, but not so narrow that there is not enough idea to support. A good topic sentence also isn't so broad that it can't be thoroughly supported in a single paragraph. Always remember - only one idea in each paragraph. Once you have completed these steps, the thought lines, you will be ready for the next step in the writing process-outlines.