Organizing Your Writing

Introduction

Your prewriting activities and readings have helped you gather information for your assignment. The more you sort through the pieces of information you found, the more you will begin to see the connections between them. Patterns and gaps may begin to stand out. However, only when you start to organize your ideas will you be able to translate your raw insights into a form that will communicate meaning to your audience.

Tip: Longer papers require more reading and planning than shorter papers do. Most writers discover that the more they know about a topic, the more they can write about it with intelligence and interest.

Organizing Ideas

Your prewriting activities and readings have helped you gather information for your assignment. The more you sort through the pieces of information you found, the more you will begin to see the connections between them. Patterns and gaps may begin to stand out. However, only when you start to organize your ideas will you be able to translate your raw insights into a form that will communicate meaning to your audience.

Tip: Longer papers require more reading and planning than shorter papers do. Most writers discover that the more they know about a topic, the more they can write about it with intelligence and interest.

Methods of Organizing Writing

The three common methods of organizing writing are chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance. You need to keep these methods of organization in mind as you plan how to arrange the information you have gathered in an outline. An outline is a written plan that serves as a skeleton for the paragraphs you write.

Later, when you draft paragraphs in the next stage of the writing process, you will add support to create “flesh” and “muscle” for your assignment, but this will be described in the next section of this lesson.

In the last section of this lesson, you created your purpose for your essay. Your purpose for writing should always be in the back of your mind, because it will help you decide which pieces of information belong together and how you will order them. In other words, choose the order that will most effectively fit your purpose and support your main point.

The list below shows the connection between order and purpose:

• Common purposes of chronological order are...

  • To explain the history of an event or a topic

  • To tell a story or relate an experience

  • To explain how to do or make something

  • To explain the steps in a process

• Common purposes of spatial order are...

  • To help readers visualize something as you want them to see it

  • To create a main impression using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)

• Common purposes of order of importance are...

  • To persuade or convince

  • To rank items by their importance, benefit, or significance

Writing a Thesis Statement

One legitimate question readers always ask about a piece of writing is “What is the big idea?” Every nonfiction writing task—from the short essay to the ten-page term paper—needs a big idea, or a controlling idea, as the anchor for the work. The controlling idea is the main idea that you want to present and develop.

The big idea, or controlling idea, you want to present in an essay is expressed in a thesis statement. A thesis statement is often one sentence long (it can be two sentences, but check with your instructor), and it states your point of view. The thesis statement is not the topic of the piece of writing but rather what you have to say about that topic and what is important to tell readers.

Therefore, the thesis is your main argument that you are trying to support with your body paragraphs. Notice that it is an argument, something that can be agreed or disagreed with. That is why body paragraphs are important; they help justify your thesis to make it "true."

Tip: For a longer piece of writing, the main idea should be broader than the main idea for a shorter piece of writing. Be sure to frame a main idea that is appropriate for the length of the assignment. Ask yourself, “How many pages will it take for me to explain and explore this main idea in detail?” Be reasonable with your estimate. Then, expand or trim it to fit the required length.

You might be wondering what the difference is between a topic and a thesis statement. Basically, a topic is a subject for the paper, something that does not have an opinion, and a thesis is the main argument for the paper. A thesis is also a complete sentence, where a topic is not.

The table below compares topics and thesis statements:

You can use a topic to create your thesis. Basically, ask yourself how you feel or what your opinion is about a topic and put it in a complete sentence. The first thesis statement you write will be a preliminary thesis statement, or a working thesis statement. It is a "work-in-progress" thesis, and that is okay. You will need it when you begin to outline your assignment as a way to organize it. As you continue to develop the arrangement, you can limit your working thesis statement if it is too broad or expand it if it proves too narrow for what you want to say.

Writing an Outline

For an essay question on a test or a brief oral presentation in class, all you may need to prepare is a short, informal outline in which you jot down key ideas in the order you will present them. This kind of outline reminds you to stay focused in a stressful situation and to include all the good ideas that help you explain or prove your point.

For a longer assignment, like an essay or a research paper, many college instructors require students to submit a formal outline before writing a major paper as a way to be sure you are on the right track and are working in an organized manner. A formal outline is a detailed guide that shows how all your supporting ideas relate to each other. It helps you distinguish between ideas that are of equal importance and ones that are of lesser importance. You build your paper based on the framework created by the outline.

Tip: Instructors may also require you to submit an outline with your final draft to check the direction of the assignment and the logic of your final draft. If you are required to submit an outline with the final draft of a paper, remember to revise the outline to reflect any changes you made while writing the paper.

Below is what the skeleton of a traditional outline looks like. The indentations (where the text shifts left or right) help clarify how the ideas are related and what "level" they represent (main point, supporting detail, etc.).

1. Introduction

   • Thesis statement

2. Main point 1 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 1

   • • Supporting detail → becomes a support sentence of body paragraph 1

       • Subpoint

       • Subpoint

     • Supporting detail

       • Subpoint

       • Subpoint

       • Subpoint

     • Supporting detail

       • Subpoint

3. Main point 2 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 2

   • • Supporting detail

     • Supporting detail

     • Supporting detail

4. Main point 3 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 3

   • • Supporting detail

     • Supporting detail

     • Supporting detail

5. Conclusion

   • • Reformat thesis

     • Summarize topic sentences

     • Significance of paper

Tip: In an outline, any supporting detail can be developed with subpoints. For simplicity, the model shows them only under the first main point.

Tip: The information compiled under each number (introduction, main points, conclusion) will become a paragraph in your rough drafts leading to your final draft. In the previous example, the outline follows the standard five-paragraph essay arrangement, but longer essays will require more paragraphs and thus more numbered-bullets. If you think that a paragraph might become too long or unorganized, add an additional paragraph to your outline, renumbering the main points appropriately.

The video below, although made for another class, gives a nice example for how to create an outline for a research paper.

Formatting an Outline

The videos below show you step-by-step how to format an outline in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, including how to create the bullet points and indent different levels.

Sentence vs. Topic Outlines

A sentence outline uses complete sentences to outline your ideas for an essay. This can help show more of your ideas as well as help you progress easier to the draft stage of the writing process.

A topic outline is the same as a sentence outline except you use words or phrases instead of complete sentences. Words and phrases keep the outline short and easier to comprehend.

Many times, writers will start-off with a topic outline and build on it to create a sentence outline. They will then build on the sentence outline by adding transitions, more thoughts, and eliminate the bullet points to eventually create a draft.

Sample Outlines

Follow along as we move through sample outline structures into a draft.

The document below depict an example of going from an outline (traditional or bubble map) to an essay. More information on how to draft an essay will be discussed in the next section of this lesson.

Outlining Checklist

This checklist can help you write an effective outline for your assignment. It will also help you discover where you may need to do additional reading or prewriting.

• Do I have a thesis that guides the development of the entire piece of writing?

• Do I have enough main points that I want to make in this piece of writing to complete the requirements of my assignment? Does each main point connect to my controlling idea?

• Is my outline in the best order—chronological order, spatial order, or order of importance—for me to present my main points? Will this order help me get my main point across?

• Do I have supporting details that will help me inform, explain, or support my main points?

• Do I need to add more support? If so, where?

• Do I need to make any adjustments in my working thesis statement before I consider it the final version?

Key Takeaways

• Writers must put their ideas in order, so the assignment makes sense. The most common orders are chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance.

• After gathering and evaluating the information you found for your essay, the next step is to write a working thesis statement. It can be modified as you continue the writing process.

• Effective writers prepare an outline (topic or sentence) to organize their main ideas and supporting details in the order they will be presented.