After completing the Details module of Project 1, turn your attention to the Structure module. Its instructions are included below:
Create an outline for your think piece essay. Typically, these kinds of articles
begin with a problem or question or issue, and the writer discusses, grapples with, and
works through the issue in the subsequent paragraphs, and concludes with a resolution or
better understanding of the issue at the end. Your outline is a way to help you think
through how you want to write your think piece, which will save you time in the long
run. Without a good structure for your think piece going into it, writes often get bogged
down in details or tangential points, which have to be cut from the final essay before
publication. Save yourself time in the long run by creating an outline that you stick to as
you write the think piece. Besides aspects of the issue that you will be writing about, you
can select quotes/observations/points raised in your research as a paragraph in your
outline. Each paragraph should be about a single issue, discussed, and leading into the
point of your next paragraph. If it seems like you have one paragraph on your outline
with several quotes or points, you should break it into smaller paragraphs. For those
paragraphs where you plan to discuss a quote from your research, copy-and-paste the
quote, citation, and bibliographic info into that point on your outline. Again, you are
setting yourself up for rapid writing and saving time in the next step.
Format this document as a memo, save it, and then copy-and-paste it into a comment to this blog post. If possible, complete this part during class, but if needed, you may take more time with this module. It is due before class on Feb. 16 so that we can focus on the Execution module during class on that day.
