Creating and using writing outlines/Before creating and using a writing outline

1: Before Creating and Using a Writing Outline

Before it comes to the second stage when you create and use your writing outline, it is important to acknowledge the role played in summarizing material you read that will make it into your piece of writing in the form of cited work (for more information on integrating sources into your work, see the associated page on our site).

Reading lots of relevant material is important to make sure you are able to present an up-to-date picture of the current thinking in the area of research you are writing about, but the more you read, the less you remember, and the less you remember, the more you forget! This is why it is vital that you make short summaries of work that you read, in case you wish to cite this material in your written draft.

Even if you are working with a relatively small number of sources, you’ll be surprised how quickly you forget the content in these, and how often you have to re-read whole articles when it comes to writing your piece to find something to cite. When it comes to writing a detailed report, or a journal article in which you might cite more than 20 other pieces of work, it would be impossible to effectively cite material without making short summaries.

You could choose to either:

A) Print each article and annotate it with coloured pens (underline interesting points, make brief notes in the margins)

OR

B) Compile a document that comprises five or six lines of information outlining the major content and/or arguments made by the author(s) of each article

Either way, you should have hard copies of your own summarized material that you can refer to quickly and easily when writing. You will also plug some of this information in to your writing outline before you start writing…