What is a reverse outline?
We often outline our paper before we write. But for a reverse outline, you create an outline of a draft you’ve already written.
Why should I make one?
A lot of times, we feel like we’re just rambling in a first draft. Truth is, we usually are… and that’s normal!
What often happens with a first draft is that we put down every idea or sentence that pops into our heads about our topic. That can create paragraphs that are stuffed full of ideas that may or may not have anything to do with each other.
When you create a reverse outline, you make a visual “map” of the ideas so you can see how many are in each paragraph. When you do that, you can decide whether to move things around, put similar ideas together, or get rid of extra ideas.
Even better, it can let you see if you’ve found a better organizing idea than the one you started with — one that you can use to reorganize and improve the whole thing!
How do I make one?
- Number your paragraphs.
- One another page, write down the numbers in a list.
- Next to each number, write down the idea or ideas that are in that paragraph.
What do I do after I’ve done that?
- See if any paragraphs have more than one idea. If so, do you want to make a new paragraph for each one?
- Did you discover what you really want to say about 1/3 or 1/2 of the way in? It happens all the time. If so, do you want to use that idea to reorganize the whole paper? What ideas/paragraphs can you keep or move or eliminate when you do?
- Does the same idea seem to keep coming up in different paragraphs? Do you want to gather all of that into a single paragraph all their own?
- Are there ideas or sentences that you can get rid of now that you know what your true organizing/main idea is?
Bottom line —
It’s all about focus. You’ll be amazed what you discover about ideas and organization simply by using this simple but powerful tool, and how much it can help you with your revisions!
