The Art of the Content Outline: From Pre-Writing to Production

Do you have a favorite film or TV show? Or a favorite book or online publication you look forward to reading? Of course, you do. But have you ever thought about what goes into creating those pieces of content?

The end product results from weeks, months, or even years of preparation and work that spawned from an idea. And for most workloads, that preparation involves a content outline.  

As a writer, an outline is your most effective tool for structuring content. The outline is your map; it shows which points go where, and allows you to insert research seamlessly into your work. In this article, you will learn how content outlines improve workflow, focus the research process, and provide a solid foundation for a quality draft.

Content Creation and Timeliness

How long does it take to produce a piece of content? The answer is it depends. 

The topic and length of your piece are contributing factors. A 2,000-word think piece will take considerably more time than a 500-word blog post. An explanation of a new technology may require more careful research than a weekly newsletter. 

Regardless of the type of content, implementing an outline in the process is one way to reduce time spent writing. The outline ensures you’re not circling needlessly around moot points and dead-ends but instead hitting on the key points and making the workload feel more manageable.

By creating an outline, you can focus exclusively on the structure of your writing and making sure everything is in its proper place. This benefits you in the drafting phase by ensuring that you include all the essential information and main ideas so that you can save concerns about sentence structure and clarity for later. 

“Some worry that working to an outline stifles creativity. Quite the opposite: having a structure in place enables the type of creative thinking where interesting things happen. Did Shakespeare bristle when he learned that sonnets were always 14 lines long?”  

-Richard Pattinson, Founder of CMC Editorial.

Researching your Content Outline

Outlines do more than streamline the creative process: they also help simplify and focus the research.

Whatever you want to say, you must have facts, statistics, or anecdotes to help bolster your ideas; they will strengthen your overall message and indicate to your audience that you are well-versed in a subject. The only way for this to happen is through research. But it’s easy to get carried away, tumbling down a rabbit hole of endless sources.

Writing with a well-structured outline allows you to see how you will construct your ideas and how your points will flow into one another. When laying your work out like this, writing is more straightforward; it allows for more manageable segments. 

This helps you properly track your research. You can insert links and data points which you’ve already found, as well as reminders of what stats and facts you still need to track down. The outline helps ensure that you track sources and that all the necessary information finds its way into each section of your writing. 

“Writing strategy with outlining is more efficient and successful. It can help a writer organize his ideas and give focus on relevant materials as well as organize logical supporting details. Besides, it can make the writing run smoothly since the outline of ideas is already at hand.”

-Dr. Kisman Salija, author of a 2017 study on the effectiveness of outlines on idea quality.

Adopting a Basic Framework

Your outline is an organizational tool that keeps track of all the topics and points you will include in writing and in what order they will go. Outlines are often sorted by paragraphs, with supporting details to bolster your main ideas. 

While there is no official structure for outlining, there are some best practices. Many outlines use an alphanumeric system, alternating letters and numerals at the start of each section.  For example:

I.) Intro

A.) Point one

B.) Point two

C.) Point three

II.) First section

A.) Point one 

B.) Statistic reinforcing point one

…etc.

Writing the content within your outline in blurbs, short phrases, or even incomplete sentences is okay. Complete sentences can be helpful if you want to be thorough, but sketching out the main facts and ideas of your writing in the outline is sometimes all you need.

Putting it all Together

How does pre-writing preparation, research, and outlining play into content creation? Done correctly, they all reinforce one another. 

Ideation. Preparation is the first step in the writing process. Once you know what to write about, you can plan your outline. You can always add more information later, but the more you prepare before you start writing, the smoother the rest of the writing process will go.

Organize. Now that you know what you want to write, the next step is to organize it. The most effective way to organize your topics and ideas is by paragraph. You will group all your research and ideas into separate issues. Each paragraph should have only one main topic, so group everything with their related themes. You will want to connect details like statistical data and evidence to their most relevant paragraph topic.

Find Order. Create a backbone for your outline by putting the topics in an order that best makes your points. You will want to consider what issues the reader will understand immediately and what requires background knowledge. Discussing background information early on prepares the reader for more advanced topics later.

Fill in the Blanks. After you’re satisfied with the structure of your points, you can start filling in quotes, evidence, and references to sources. Including links and direct quotes in your outline makes it easier to find the source material later. This sets you up for a quick and easy drafting, and a faster overall turnaround in the writing process. 

Rework and Revise. Once you create an outline, you can review it for improvement. Seeing your ideas listed out allows you to recognize potential problems. Perhaps you lack evidence for specific ideas, or rearranging certain subsections helps your writing flow better. Take time between finishing and revising your outline to give your mind time to rest. You’ll come back to your work with fresh eyes. 

Write! Remember, your outline isn’t set in stone. If you change your mind at the drafting stage, you can shuffle bullet points around as you see fit. The exception is when a client has pre-approved your outline, and prefers you to adhere to it closely.

A Template For Success

“Writing without an outline is like constructing a building without an architect’s plan. You may get there in the end, but expect a lot of wrong moves and waste along the way.”

-Richard Pattinson.

Outlining will save time and focus your research. Your outline should contain at minimum an intro, a conclusion, and a few sections supporting your message. Following this basic template will help you organize your thoughts before the drafting stage.

From ideation to draft, you are working with an evolving, living document from planning to researching to outlining. So, next time you find yourself consuming a piece of media, think about all the invisible work that has gone into it. And the next time you set out to create content, think about all the work you’ll have to do for it and how to best help yourself throughout the pre-production process.