Backwards Through the Looking Glass

Facing an academic writing task, students often start their writing process with a back-of-the-envelope outline. Or not. Some people decided long ago that making an outline doesn't work for them. Maybe those who don't like to write outlines find they always turns out to be just a long list of ideas or titles. Or they get overwhelmed with the task of writing an outline instead of moving ahead to the next stage of writing. There's definitely an art to crafting an outline, so if it is not helpful to you, there are other planning techniques you can use (more on this in a future posting) in a writing process that for all of us looks more or less like this:

Plan → Draft → Revise → Edit 

In the spirit of the title of this post, we're going to suggest writing an outline after you have written a complete draft of your paper or chapter. This step, known as backwards outlining is not intended to jump-start a draft, but to power the revision phase of your writing. Here's how to do it:

Make a list of topic sentences of each of your paragraphs (one per paragraph only) to see how they look without all the other stuff vying for your attention. Do these sentences-in-a-list reflect the logical flow of your paper? If not, what is keeping them from doing so? Is there a problem with the way they are written or are they out of order? If you are not sure what a topic sentence is, this is a great time to ask a writing coach. The paragraphs of your paper/chapter are the building blocks of your paper. If their topic sentences don't convey a strong skeleton holding up your draft, then you need to rethink the way your paper/chapter is built.

If you did write an outline before you started your draft, you can compare your backwards outline to the original one. You can decide if you have justifiably junked the original outline or if you have unwittingly strayed from a good plan. Because people don't usually turn in an outline with their finished paper, it isn't necessary to rewrite the original outline if your draft shows a different organization. The point is for the organization of the paper to reflect in the most effective way what you have to say.

Backwards outlining as a revision technique allows you to see the organization of your draft not as you imagined it, but as you have written it. Your eventual readers will be able to see the organization of your paper as they read it. If you want to come off as knowing your stuff and being organized about it, backwards outlining is a great tool for controlling the 'flow' and 'structure' of your paper or chapter. Making a conscious effort to step away from and look back on your draft will give you more control over the creation of everything you write for academic purposes.