Re: Slave of an outline

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 3796

Posted by graham.smith
2005-08-17 18:35:41

Peter,

There are no rules, and I suspect that everyone here will use Outlines differently, and will use them differently for different tasks.

For me, the importance of the outline (most of the time) is to give the intitial structure to the document: headings and sub headings plus bits of text that I think of as I create the outline.

At some stage the outline breaks down because it forces you to think in terms of “text chunks” rather than a flowing document, and at that stage you need to start writing, but possibly only one chapter.

In a science thesis I would be looking to write the results section first. Then after reviewing the objectives and seeing how they fit in with the results I would write the conclusion. The structure of everything else being dictated by how I want to lead the reader through from the introduction to the conclusion. Onc you know the conclusion it is easier to build an argument supporting that conclusion.

Then I would re-visit the results when writing the discussion, often undertaking new anlalysis, and adding new charts to illustrate points I now know I want to include in the discussion.

You will gather that I am constantly re-structuring a document, and I certainly would not be bound by the original outline.

The most important aspect of the outline is that it forces you to think about the structure, what you want to say, and where you want to say it. For me it is going through that thinking process that is important - even if I completely scrap the outline and start again.

The free writing that you did today almost certainly benefitted from the thought you put into the outline, because you “knew” what you wanted to free write about. I would continue to free write and use the Outline as a reference to check that you are still including all the topics you need to include.

Subject matter, end product and mood all affect the way you write.

Sometimes, I just create a quick mind map of key ideas and then start writing. Or I will use Brainstorm to collect thoughts and data restructuring that data into an approximate order of writing and then use the Brainstorm model as reference material when I begin writing. I have just bought NoteMap, which seems to give me an ideal mid-way point between Brainstorm and Word as it has enough word processing power to start writing some sections while still working on the outline of others.

So to return to the beginning, there are no rules. However, most of the time, if not all of the time, it is important to make the effort to review/plan what you want to say in your writing together with how it should be said and structured. An outline is a good way of doing this.

Graham

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