Outline Your Writing Like a Pro With These Easy Tricks

Writing is one of the many crafts that people develop through practice. As writers or bloggers, we need to hone our skills not only to produce high-quality blog posts but to get more readers in the process. Meanwhile, up-and-coming bloggers and writers need to remember that pros don’t simply write and produce articles. It involves a meticulous writing process that starts with outlining. A writing outline is crucial to ensure that any piece of writing follows a logical flow. Plus, it serves as a practice to guide the writer in creating coherent pieces of writing. In this article, we discuss the steps in writing, the importance of a writing outline, and the three examples of outlines. We’ve provided some tricks here and there to help you get through the process of outlining in a breeze.

Writing Process & Outlining

Proofreading software company Grammarly says that pre-writing (preparing), researching, drafting, revising, and editing and proofreading are the steps of the writing process. Writers should practice and remember these five basic steps as they pen their novel or compose their articles.

Some writers may choose not to follow the writing process religiously. But drafting, revising, editing and proofreading follow the same order. Regardless, they go through a pre-writing process whether they use an outline or not.

However, for many writers out there, outlining is the most important part of the pre-writing and researching processes. As you compose your writing outline, you should integrate research. From there, you’ll get a sense of what ideas you need to integrate into the document. As you fact-check and verify your ideas and sources, you can adjust your outline as you finish the first two steps of the writing process.

Learning how to write an outline may be tough (for some), but you’ll get through it once you’ve started implementing how to do it. Pros sometimes have trouble following an outline once they’ve started writing and that’s fine. Outlines do typically serve as guides and some writers tend to divert from their original thoughts, but sometimes their ideas remain.

The Need to Outline

Outlines help you organize your thoughts and the flow of your article. Before you write anything, you should put all your ideas into a document or piece of paper. From there, you can decide how you’d like your article, novel, or essay would run.

Some writers may choose not to write an outline. It’s not taboo, but most writers advice on using an outline to prevent any problems that would contribute to an incoherent article overall.

Writers can create simple bulleted outlines or elaborate sentence outlines. Luckily, writers have different options on how to write an outline.

Outline Examples

According to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL), there are three forms of outlines. It’s the writer’s choice as to which outline would best suit their process.

The first of three is the basic alphanumeric outline. It follows this order:

Main Point 1

1. Sub-point 1
2. Sub-point 2

Main Point 2

1. Sub-point 1
2. Sub-point 2

Main Point 3

1. Sub-point 1
2. Sub-point 2

It’s one of the simplest outlines you can craft for your article or essay. Let’s say you’re writing a blog post, start with three key ideas and three sub-ideas for each category.

Others might prefer writing a full-sentence outline. As the name suggests, some writers can choose to craft an outline that they would stitch together during the drafting process. Many students are required to use this outline for their research papers.

This writing outline method can take some time, but it’s effective for a few writers. It’s a way for writers to never get sidetracked in their train of thought. It also allows more room for editing sentences as the writer starts to type out their article.

Here’s an example of the sentence outline:

I. INTRODUCTION (Usually thesis statement)

1. 1. Point 1
      1. Explanation of Point 1

II. FURTHER EXPLANATION AND RESEARCH

III. CONCLUSION (Reiteration of the thesis statement)

The final type of outline is the decimal outline. It follows the same format as the alphanumeric one. According to Purdue OWL, decimal outlines may help the writer follow a more logical flow as compared to the alphanumeric one.

Here’s an example of the decimal outline:

1.0 Main Point 1

        1.0.1 Description of Main Point

        1.0.2. Causes of Main Point (Reasons of Main Point)

        1.0.3. Effects of Main Point (Benefits of Main Point)

Some writers don’t depend on an outline and that’s also acceptable. Some could write a fictional work on a whim. While some would use bulleted points to help them remember which ideas to include in their articles or novels.

Outline Formatting Tips

Tip 1: Brainstorm

To format your outline, you can start on the basic ideas of your article, novel, or essay. For example, if you’re writing an article about the environment, think about three to five arguments as to why humans should do their part to care for their environment.

From there, you can write your sub-points under the three to five main key points. Three to five key points are standard in most outlines. It’s up to you which outline would best suit your writing style.

But if you’re unsure what to add on your writing outline, you can go ahead and search on the web. As mentioned before, the pre-writing and researching process go hand-in-hand. So you’ll need to make adjustments as you go about the writing process.

Tip 2: Keep writing elements in mind 

You may not notice it, but writing elements should also take part in your outline. As a refresher, here are the five elements according to National Geographic Learning, there’s:

• Purpose
• Audience
• Clarity
• Unity
• Coherence

Purpose refers to the type of article you’re writing, the next tip covers this one with added tips on each outline.

You should also keep your audience in mind. You should envision how you’ll write the article as you prepare your writing outline.

Of course, as you write your outline, you need to make sure that all your points are clear and unified. That way, you’re able to express all your thoughts logically.

Finally, for coherence, although not necessary, practice making parallel headings in your writing outline. Parallelism makes everything consistent.

Tip 3: Remember the Why and What

Remember why you’re writing the article and what type it is.

For example, you can use any type of outline for a list post. But if there’s no specific order, go for the alphanumeric one for flexibility. Standard list posts typically have 10 to 20. From there, expect to write that number of headings.

As for sentence outlines, these work if you’re writing more than 2,000 words. It can help writers recall any idea that popped instantly in their minds and wouldn’t want to forget. Also, since it’s content-heavy, a sentence outline can hasten the writing process.

You may write sentence outlines for these blog post types:

• Long-form content
• Ebooks
• Case studies

Meanwhile, for copywriters or SEO writers, a decimal outline can work when you’re writing product descriptions. Since decimal outlines form different levels, you may start about the product, information about the product, reasons for using the product, and the benefits of using the product.

How-to posts work best for decimal outlines. Since you’re following a process, your headings can be the name of the step, then the process can act as the subheadings.

What if you’re in a time crunch and need to write an article in a few hours, can you still create an outline?

Yes, you can. It doesn’t have to be elaborate like the sentence outline (unless you’re accustomed to using it). A simple bulleted outline with key ideas should do the trick.

In cases like writing a news article, you need to get your facts correctly and base your outline on the inverted pyramid. That way, you’re not missing any piece of information.

Tip 4: Integrate your keywords

Include your keywords in the outline. That way, you don’t forget how you can integrate the keywords in your blog post. Remember, keywords are important in your SEO efforts. Also, you won’t forget that you’re writing your blog post with the keywords you need to rank and get more views.

Tip 5: Expect Revisions

Like your first draft, the first outline you’ll create may not follow what you expect. This usually happens when you write an outline first before you research, and that’s normal. 

Your outline would also have revisions over the course of your pre-writing journey. You may perhaps use your first then revise during the writing. You could also settle for a revised one as you write. Either way, both are fine.

Key Takeaways

Writers use outlines to guide them in writing their articles, blog posts, or novels. By using outlines, they’re able to express themselves better because the writing piece is coherent. However, some writers choose not to use an outline and that’s okay. To each his own, as they say.

For some, outlines can get complicated since there are many elements to follow and you may have different options to choose from. However, once you’ve gotten the hang of how to write an outline, you can stay organized and write better.