Working With an Outline. . .Even When You Don’t Want To

Last spring, I worked with a coaching client writing on a deadline. The focus of our sessions was to help her stay on task and manage a relatively large, high-stakes writing project in a short timeframe. During one session, our conversation turned to outlines. She recognized the value of having an outline but also resisted it. This conversation prompted me to think about outlining as a writing tool, why we might resist adopting it, and how we might use it effectively.

Many of us likely had the experience in middle or high school of being required to produce an outline for a writing assignment. The outline assignment may have been presented as an invention or brainstorming activity, or as an organizational strategy after brainstorming. Particularly onerous was the assignment that required you to create a full-sentence outline (ugh!). For many students, this may have felt like a lot of extra work for a task (writing an essay) they already weren’t excited about. Others, who may have been interested in writing, may have found that the requirement to outline stifled discovery or was too confining. I have known many people who have written their essays and produced the outline after the fact to satisfy the assignment. (This can be a helpful revision strategy, but I don’t think the people I know were using it this way).

To be sure, the emphasis on outlining assumes a linearity in the writing process that simply doesn’t exist for many of us. Indeed, our younger selves may have thought that the outline was static and that we could not vary from it once we started writing without suffering the consequence of a bad grade. As such, it may have indeed hampered our ability to write fluently and eloquently.

I am an evolved outliner. Throughout graduate school, I almost always created a pretty detailed outline (complete with Roman and Arabic numerals, upper and lowercase letters) after doing a deep dive into the literature. The outline gave my argument a coherent structure, but it also helped me organize my research. Once the outline was complete, I would review my notes and source materials with my outline in front of me. I would add marginal tags beside material I wanted to be sure to include in a specific portion of my paper. When I got to that section on the outline, I went back through the source material again, looking for the corresponding notations and incoporating them into my draft.

Today, I am much more likely to create what I call a header outline. I open a new document on my computer and type headers and subheaders. Sometimes, these will be stock headers that reflect the type of piece I am writing (e.g., introduction, literature review, method, findings, discussion, conclusion). At other times, they will reflect the topic and the general path I plan to take. Under the headers, I might type some quick bulleted lists if I already know specific points I plan to address in a particular section. Having the headings in the document eases me into writing because I am not staring at a blank screen. It also allows me to move around in the draft more efficiently, working on the different sections in any order I choose. I also feel at liberty to move sections around as the draft evolves.

My coaching client likened working with an outline to following a recipe: the outline sets out the parameters for the paper and offers a step-by-step guide to follow. At the same time, it allows for some creativity. You can substitute ingredients if you are out of something or prefer a different flavor profile. And as someone who cooks regularly, I have found that most recipes are generally forgiving. I routinely skip steps or get things out of order, and the results almost always turn out fine.

Do you use an outline as part of your writing process? If so, what does that look like for you?