The Power of Outlines - Bulletproof Your Articles

byericapless

105 followers

Updated 7 years ago

When I was in high school (and college) I hated making outlines. It was sooo boring. But now they are a life saver. I would be lost without them.

No, I don’t stick to the ridged ABC/123 structure taught in AP English. But I do make sure I figure out what I want to talk about before I start writing.

This is what I do...

1. I pick a topic I think I want to write about.
   
2. I do some basic research on my topic.
   
3. Pay attention this is important, once I decide what I want to write about I take a breather. I let everything I just read marinate in my mind. During this stage I wait for an angle (the direction I want to take with the article). There is no time limit on this stage.
   
4. When I have my angle, I write out the most important topics I think would benefit my audience based on my research. What did I like? What didn't I like? What is missing? Basically, how can I improve upon all the other articles I just researched?
   
5. Now it’s time for Jaaxy. Yes, I finally figured out how to use it. And it’s amaze balls! I use Jaaxy to come up with my title, and fine tune which keywords I want to highlight in my text and H2 and H3 tags.
   
6. Time to write. This process should be fast because I front loaded all the work already.
7. This is the fun part. It’s time to revise and edit, and edit some more. This is when your piece becomes your very own work of art.
   

So, when writing your articles make sure they're bulletproof. Do your research and structure your posts. It will make your life a whole lot easier.

Happy Writing,

Erica