Organizing Your Writing: Outlines
Bill Walsh
The only way I've written, all the way from junior high
school really, is in outline form. Point one and two and three, or point one,
A, B, C, or whatever. And a distinct thought, or statement is made, then I move
to the next. Then following that, I then add narrative to it.
Debra Wilson
Any time you're writing anything, regardless of whether it's
for comedy, or whether it's a college course, or whether you're writing for a
newspaper, you have to start with an outline. And that outline will be your
skeleton. It will support, which is what it does, a skeleton supports
everything around it. And so no matter how great the idea is, no matter how
wonderful the idea is, it's going to be all over the
page without a skeleton.
Dave Barry
I remember learning the, learning the outline form. And you
know, Roman numeral, capital letter, Arabic numeral, lower case letter. I
remember thinking, I thought God, I thought this was
actually in the Bible somewhere, that that's how you did it. And if you had a one, you had to have a two. And then I later realized
this had almost nothing to do with the way you actually think or write. It's
how you make an outline and get an A on your outline.
Joe Harris
Back in the bad old days, I'm told, that teachers did tell
students—OK, roman numeral one, capital letter A, Arabic numeral one, etc.
You'd make that long elaborate outline. And I think that the problem…there
were two problems with that. One was that it asked students to map out what
they were going to say before they had said it, and if they were in a position
to make that kind of outline you would think they were done as a writer rather
than beginning as a writer. The second thing was that it imagined that
everybody went about the process of organizing their thoughts in the same way.
Janet Turner
One thing I don't like at school is that outline they make
you write before you write a paper. You do whatever you need to do to get your
thoughts on paper. Roman letters, ABC, forget it. I can't operate that way. In
fact what's so funny is in high school you'd always have to turn in your
outline before your paper…well, I'd write my paper and then go back and do my
outline, because I could not think that way. It's ridiculous.