How to start your paragraph or essay:

There are a few strategies when coming up with your ideas and examples.

OPTION 1 (BOTTOM-UP): Think of support/examples about your topic—brainstorm every example you can think of. From those examples, choose the ones that are related, and craft a main idea based on them.

Challenge: You may struggle to come up with a coherent central idea based on examples that might not have a lot in common.

OPTION 2 (TOP-DOWN): Think of your main idea (what you want to convince your readers of) and then find support/examples to support it.

Challenge: You may have a great, interesting, arguable idea, but not be able to come up with supporting examples.

OPTION 3 (UP AND DOWN): Think of your topic and have a loose idea of what you want to discuss. Think of supporting examples and come back to your topic and change it as needed. Then add/delete examples as needed.

Challenge: Moving among and changing ideas could lead to confusion.

NOTE: Our brains all work differently, so if one strategy doesn't work for you, try another! Just as some of us write better with music playing and others need silence, there's no one way to write.

Lots of great tips on coming up with ideas: