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: 3815

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-08-18 18:35:53

It’s hard to answer without knowing more about your outline.Sometimes it is necessary to get away from the outline to get a fresh perspective. One tactic is to write a mini-draft of the document without consulting the outline. Then see what you thought was important in the outline that you omitted from the draft, and the reverse. You will be likely to remember what’s most important, and this can be a basis for excluding material you have outlined or analyzing why your concept did not permit you to easily recall the important point.

But sometimes the outline gets in the way because of bad outlining practice. If you just cut and pasted reference material into the outline, this material can help you write the document, but don’t think you can avoid actually writing. When writing, you should distinguish between what you wrote from material you have gathered. Confusion arises when the writer tries to follow the course of pasted material in the outline as though it were part of the architectonic of the document.If you use an outline as the equivalent of note cards, you need to organize and rewrite the note matter, whether you do it in the outline or while writing the paper.

Another kind of bad outlining that can stymie the writer is to outline the research instead of outlining the topic. After doing some preliminary reading and notetaking, the writer should develop a sharp if tentative thesis before beginning to outline.Or if the writer has done the research by plugging into the preliminary outline not focused on a precise thesis, then he should be prepared to abandon material completely that turns out to be irrelevant.

If I had to guess about your problem, it would be that you have far too much in the outline for it to serve as the direct basis for a document. But that’s just a guess; my apologies if I am completely off target.

Stephen R. Diamond

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