Write for Business - Blog

“Although I still don’t work from a formal outline, I write a plan, usually a few phrases scribbled on a yellow pad.…My plan helps me see the big parts of the story.”

—Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools

Everyone comes programmed with a need to put his or her writing in order. Even those of you who are, at best, reluctant writers, who may be unsure of many things when it comes to writing, know that your ideas must be organized to be understood. Knowing this, of course, is one thing; achieving order in writing may be quite another. Your internal wiring will take you only so far. To ensure that your writing is orderly, follow these five steps.

1. Identify your main idea. Are you making a request, solving a problem, offering a proposal, sharing bad news? Actually state your main idea on paper; then organize your writing around it.
2. Decide on the best way to develop it. It may be enough to know that you want to work deductively or inductively. To work deductively, you state the main idea right up front and then explain or develop it in the rest of your writing. To work inductively, you build up to the main point. (See my blog entry “Just a Reminder” for more information.)
   
   Then again, your writing may clearly follow a more exacting pattern of development such as time order, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, problem/solution, or so on.
3. Create a writing plan. Some people use an outline—complete with Roman numerals, capital letters, and so on—to organize their supporting details for writing. I am not one of those people. A more informal listing works just fine for me. It’s not so left-brained, if you know what I mean.
   
   

   Formal Outline	Informal Listing
   I. First main idea      A. Supporting detail            1. Example/explanation            2. Example/explanation      B. Supporting detail            1. Example/Explanation            2. Example/Explanation            3. Example/Explanation II. Second main idea      A. Supporting detail            1. Example/explanation Etc.	– Main idea       – Detail       – Detail       – Detail – Main idea       – Detail       – Detail – Main idea       – Detail       – Detail       – Detail Etc.

   If your supporting information clearly follows a specific pattern of development as mentioned in the second step, you could use a graphic organizer to help you arrange your details for writing. Here are two examples.
   
   

   Flowchart (time line)	Cause/Effect Diagram

4. Form a meaningful whole. This may seem obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: An organized piece of writing includes three parts—a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Introduce your topic and/or state your main idea in the beginning. Include the supporting details in the middle, and tie everything up in the ending. Think of this step as organization at the conceptual level: Everything that you say in your writing has to “fit” into the appropriate part. (See my blog entry “In the beginning…” for more information.)
5. Use transitions as needed. Transitional words and phrases can strengthen the orderliness and clarity of your writing sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph. Notice how the transitions (in italics) work in the following passage:

   …The sound system allows team members to tune into different conversations at the Center. As a result, children who might feel overwhelmed with too many people in the room can relax and play naturally.
   
   In addition, parents also use the sound system to listen in on sessions in the therapy room.…

Special Note: A reliable writing handbook such as Write for Business will provide more information about planning and organization, including example graphic organizers and lists of transitions.

In his book The Art of Readable Writing, Rudolf Flesch talks about the value of setting your writing aside for an extended period of time after you have collected your information and before you do any actual planning or drafting. He says the period between “legwork and outline is the most important part of the whole writing process” because as your collecting percolates in your mind, you will begin to envision the “big parts”—the focus and shape—of your writing. Give this strategy a try, and see for yourself if a little downtime early in a writing project is time well spent.

—Dave Kemper