If you have to write, do yourself — and your readers — a favor: create an outline.
List the points you want to make and assign them a priority. Then start writing in a clear flow, with confidence.
When I was a college freshman, a beloved English teacher named John Finch taught us that method of creating an outline. He then assigned each of us to write a "research paper" on a serious topic. I chose the history of lynching.
After doing my research, writing the paper and handing it in, I was eager to get my graded paper back. But when Prof. Finch handed the papers out to the class, mine was not among them. He summoned me to his office, where he had one question: "How did you write this paper?"
I asked him what he meant.
He said: "Because your writing jumped from one style to another, I went to the library and checked your sources, and I found that you lifted material, verbatim, from Time magazine, without attribution. That is plagiarism, something you can be expelled for."
Imagine my panic. I realized that my high-school experience had not prepared me for an assignment like this one.
After a few deep breaths, I said: "I wasn't trying to cheat. I spent 40 hours on this paper. If I wanted to cheat, I wouldn't have spent all that time and energy."
My desperate explanation affected Professor Finch. "I will give you a grade of incomplete," he said. "If you do better from now on, I will not report this infraction to the dean."
My next breath came easier.
My next opportunity: a one-hour Blue Book exam on John Milton's "Paradise Lost."
I opened my Blue Book, looked at the exam question, and spent 20 of the allotted 60 minutes creating an outline. When I finished I began to write, hewing carefully to each bullet point. I could write without taking time to think; all my thinking had gone into the outline.
Done.
Until … the day Prof. Finch handed back the graded exams. Everyone got one but me. Panic struck again.
When he had returned all the other papers he held up one Blue Book and opened it to the inside of the cover. "This," he said, "is an outline."
It was mine.
And it was a triple play: an "A" on the exam, relief from panic and the unforgettable lesson Prof. Finch had taught us — how to create an outline.
My grade for the course? Happiest "B" of my life.
No matter the length of what you are writing, an outline will guide you to success.
Gary Gilson, a Twin Cities writing coach and five-time Emmy Award winner in public television, has taught writing-intensive journalism courses at Colorado College for 22 years. Contact him through www.writebetterwithgary.com.
