For individual projects, use index cards to record quotes, sources used, or sentences and paragraphs of your own that you intend to include in your writing. Having elements on separate cards helps you organize your writing more effectively.

Keeping a library of ideas, thoughts, quotes, statistics, or any pieces of information you find interesting is a great way to generate new ideas for writing. You can categorize your note cards by subject (cars, sports, art, etc.), type (quote, paragraph, reference), or you can develop a categorization system of your own.

For fun, try drawing two cards at random from different categories and comparing them--often you'll find relationships between ideas you hadn't thought of before.