| Outlines
Advantages of Outlining
- Larger and more complex
subjects are easier to handle by breaking them into manageable
parts in the outline.
- Logic errors are much easier to detect and correct
in an outline
than in a draft.
- Parts of an outline are easily moved around
so you can select the most effective arrangement of your ideas.
- Like
a road map, an outline indicates a starting point and keeps you
moving logically so you do not lose your way
before you arrive
at your conclusion.
- Creating a good outline frees you
from concerns of organization while you are writing a draft.
- An
outline enables you to provide coherence and transition so that
one part flows smoothly into the next without
omitting important
details. (Alred, Brusaw, & Oliu, 2003, p. 384)
Outlines help you to:
- Partition material
- Develop a point of view
- Establish the scope of your document
- Sequence your topics
- Develop a writing strategy (Perelman, Paradis, & Barrett, 1998,
p. 21)
Developing An Outline
Check Out Purdue’s suggestions @: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_outlin.html
Thinking
about Outlines as Guides to Revising
- What are the major
sections of the outline? What are the minor sections or subparts
under each major section? Make these major
and minor sections your outline headings. Are these appropriately
identified in the outline or should some of the items identified
as major become minor points and vice versa?
- How does the
document represented in this outline meet the purpose(s) identified
for this task?
- How does
this order of headings and sections, points, and elements under
the headings help to present the document’s information
to the audience?
- Where does the outline look thin? Which sections
are overcrowded with information?
- Which sections need further
information? Which needed sections are missing? Which sections
are extraneous?
- Are the sections related logically? If so, how? What
is the principle of organization and what are the methods
of organization
that provide
the framework for this document and this outline? Do
they
suggest a useful conception of genre, or conventional
form, for this
task?
- Is this system of logical relations and organization
articulated clearly for the reader? Where would a reader
trying to
move from section to section get lost?
- Are the elements
at each level representing information that is equivalent in importance
or status? Does further
work
need to be
done with organizational structures to clarify subordination
and superordination? (Lay, Wahlstrom, Rude, Selfe, & Selzer,
2000, p. 65)
References
Alred, G. J., Brusaw, C. T., & Oliu, W. E. (2003). Handbook
of
technical
writing (7th ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Lay, M. M., Wahlstrom, B. J.,
Rude, C. D., Selfe, C. L., & Selzer,
J.
(2000).
Technical communication (2nd ed.).
Boston: Irwin, McGraw-Hill.
Perelman, L.
C., Paradis, J., & Barrett, E. (1998). The Mayfield
handbook
of technical and scientific writing. Mountain
View,
CA: Mayfield
Publishing Company.
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