Why — and How — to Use an Outline

A tool to make your writing easier and better

My least favorite kind of student

              When I teach outlining as part of the writing process, I usually tell students a story about a young man whom I call “my least favorite kind of student.” The reason he was my least favorite kind of student was that he was very smart and very lazy, spending most of his scholastic energy figuring out how to expend the least possible effort and earn the lowest possible A in any class he took.

              One thing this student hated was outlining. Outlining, he contended, was a waste of time. Why spend valuable minutes thinking through the structure of a paper and trying to organize ideas when you can jump right in and start knocking out those 1,000 required words? When teachers required that he turn in an outline with a completed paper, he simply created the outline afterwards and stapled it on before handing in the essay (remember staples? And handing in papers?).

              The strategy worked for this student, at least in the sense that he usually achieved his desired low A with minimal effort and maximal speed. That strategy, however, is less effective when what you are trying to write is a complicated dissertation or thesis that’s more than 100 pages long, is composed over a months or years, synthesizes relevant literature, builds a coherent argument, and persuades a committee of professors that you are competent to conduct and report independent research. When you have that kind of task looming, you need a better strategy. Outlining is one such strategy.

What Is Outlining?

              Outlining, at the most basic level, is creating a plan for your writing. This plan can be in your head only or written down. It can be detailed or simple. Early in my dissertation process, I created a three-page outline with citations that I shared with my chair and another committee member to make sure my plan made sense to them. On the other hand, before I started to write this post, I simply jotted down a few key points, and now I am filling in the spaces between them. Both processes helped me organize my thoughts.

Why Outlining Works

              When you are writing, you are doing a lot of things at once. You have ideas in your head, you are considering the order in which to share those ideas, you are thinking about different possible ways to express those ideas, you are monitoring your grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you are wondering how your reader might react to your ideas or expression, you are trying to make connections among ideas. This kind of cognitive overload can often lead to writer’s block (or just a poor finished product). Thinking of writing as a process allows you to separate some of these tasks, focusing on a few processes at once, rather than everything.

              One model of the writing process (Flower & Hayes, 1981) divides writing into planning, translating (ideas into words on a page), and reviewing, and suggests that these three processes are controlled by a monitor, which decides when each process is appropriate and how much time to spend on each process. Outlining allows the writer to focus on the planning stage, rather than trying to plan and translate simultaneously. In theory, deliberately separating the processes should spread out the cognitive load, making every stage easier. Ronald Kellog, who has conducted a lot of research into writing and cognition, suggests that this may be especially true for less experienced writers and those working on large projects (sounds a bit like many of us at the start of the dissertation process, no?)

              I do have to admit here that research into outlining indicates that my least-favorite student was right about at least one thing. Outlining does not appear to save time, what Kellogg (1988) called “process efficiency.” Both Kellogg and Shekarabi (2017), however, have demonstrated that outlining improves the quality of the finished product.

              So, outlining helps to make writing easier (if not faster) and leads to a better product. What more evidence do you need?

How to Outline

              At some point in your scholastic career, you probably learned the alphanumeric outline method. This helpful page on the Purdue Owl website explains that method, as well as a few other formats (sentence and decimal). You can also use bullet points, note cards, or even Post-It notes. Whatever method you use, the process is similar.

Have Something to Say

This is important. Kellogg (1988) notes that outlining is probably not going to be useful for writers who are completely unsure about the content of their writing. If you still have only vague ideas about what your dissertation or thesis will contain, probably you need to be spending your time in research or freewriting activities to more fully form your ideas. But if you have a general idea of the content you are going for – even if there are gaps – it’s time to outline. The first step is to write down all the ideas you have. Maybe these are themes for a literature review or aspects of the historical context for your topic. Maybe they are stakeholders in the problem of practice you want to address. Maybe all of these things.

Organize Ideas

              The next step is to decide which topics are major and which are subordinate. What are the big, overarching things you need to cover. What are the parts? What are the details.

              After you have identified major and subordinate topics, then you should arrange them in a way that makes sense. This is one of the key strengths of outlining – it allows you to consider what is the most logical way to present your information. Is it chronological? Thematic? Most important to least important? Most convincing to least convincing? Problem-solution? Cause-effect? There are multiple ways to organize.

Look for Gaps

              Another advantage of outlining is that it puts all the information in front of you at once, so you can think about what is missing. Do you need more research in a particular area? Have you forgotten key stakeholders or historical context? Outlining will help you figure that out.

Make Connections

              Finally, use your outline to start the process of translating your ideas into words that will lead your reader smoothly through your argument. Think about how ideas connect and how you can best communicate those connections to your reader. Think about when your reasons for including or omitting a topic might not be clear to someone who lives outside your head. Make notes on the outline about transitions and explanations that your reader will need to follow your logic.

Don’t Get Trapped in Your Outline

              Outlines are helpful tools, but you are the architect. When you are writing, you may find that it makes more sense to go in a different direction than you thought when you were making your outline. Maybe you realize (or someone tells you) that you have forgotten an important scholar in your field or that the digression into the history of composition studies just isn’t necessary. It’s okay to diverge from the outline, just make sure you are doing it on purpose and for reasons that make sense.

Reverse Outlines

              And here, I need to admit that my student of the first few paragraphs was right – again. Making an outline after you have written a chapter (or the whole project) is actually a great idea. This is called reverse outlining, and it can help you see problems with the organization or flow of your work. It’s especially good for complicated projects that you work on over an extended period of time. Here is a short summary of reverse outlining (again from Purdue Owl).

A Happy Ending

              So, my least-favorite kind of student made it through high school and college, and he eventually went on to get a master’s degree. Now he’s in a Ph.D. program. I texted him to ask whether he uses outlines now, and he told me that he absolutely does. I had his number because, although in his younger years, he was my least favorite kind of student, he was then, and remains now, one of my most favorite people . . . my son.

References

Flower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4), 365–387.

Kellogg, R. T. (1988). Attentional Overload and Writing Performance: Effects of Rough Draft and Outline Strategies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 14(2), 355–365. https://doi-org.xavier.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/0278-7393.14.2.355

Shekarabi, Z. (2017). The Impacts of Outlining and Free Writing Strategies on the Quality of Japanese L2 Academic Writing. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, 2(1), 63–76.

More Information

The Well-Ordered Mind exists to support graduate school persistence. Success coaching can bring structure, peace, and progress to your grad school journey. Click the button below to set up a free consultation and find out more.