JAC Volume 1, Issue 2

Since the mid-1960's, the main focus research on the composing process has been on discovery processes, called prewriting by D. Gordon Rohman in 1966. The tendency to emphasize rhetorical invention heavily as the first phase of the composing process also dominated innovative pedagogy and textbooks in the early 1970's. This emphasis was a useful corrective to the traditional North American (and British) separation of writing from thinking, which reduced the composing process to little more than the stylistic problem of choosing words to represent ideas that had been previously thought out. The revival of interest in discovery processes was a concrete criticism of the linear and mentalistic model which suggests that we first observe, second think (and perhaps feel) and third express our thoughts.

But, as Richard Young has pointed out, Rohman’s model – ‘writing consists of pre-writing, writing and re-writing'- is also "essentially linear and mentalistic."¹ The implication that discovery precedes real writing remains (as does the implication that revision is something less than a re-envisioning). The underlying error, which has been cogently discussed by Kenneth Burke, is the assumption that a category which is logically prior to another must also come first in time (i.e., must also be temporally prior).²

Like any creative process, writing is brought to fruition by a process of critical selection and arrangement. Material must be generated, perhaps using the discovery techniques that have been emphasized by recent pedagogical innovators, and then it must be culled. Like a gardener whose seeds have sprouted and whose young fruit trees are starting to branch, a writer must cut, thin, transplant, graft, prune and refertilize.

Of course, the two processes—generation and selection—interpenetrate: writers do not first uncritically generate a complete set of potential meanings, words and arrangements and second select the ones that serve their purposes. Very often it is precisely the rejection of a phrase during revision which leads to the generation of an alternative. And arrangement—which is properly conceived as an aspect of selection because it is the selection of what to put in a particular location— is often crucial because the pattern of meaning in a piece of writing is often more important than individual propositions. The arrangement and rearrangement of material often leads to the regeneration of that material, replete with the discovery of new insights.

Because of the emphases of the past fifteen years or so, we as a profession have an adequate complement of techniques for teaching student writers how to generate material. What we lack, largely because we have deemphasized rhetorical arrangement, is a set of techniques for teaching students how to regenerate material by a process of critical selection and rearrangement. The main purpose of this article is to offer one such technique, which I call "outline later."

Essentially, there are two types of changes writers can make in their drafts. Firstly, they can add, delete or substitute. Technically and logically, addition and deletion are forms of substitution (i.e., deletion is the substitution of nothing for something, and addition is the substitution of something for nothing). Secondly, they can reorder.

Reordering is often more important. As I.A. Richards said in 1936,

As the work of Frances Christensen made clear, the most important characteristic of a unified writing is the proper relationship among levels of generality. What has traditionally been called unity in writing is created not only by making certain that all particulars are relevant to the general  propositions with which they appear, but also by observing proper relationships among various levels of generality.⁴

But most inexperienced writers do not know how to rearrange. Their revisions consist almost entirely of low-level substitutions, largely a matter of looking for a better word or phrase. They are unlikely to modify meanings or even reconsider their relationships with their prospective readers—let alone consider alternative arrangements of their material. And yet rearrangement—cutting and pasting is often one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve a draft. The much maligned outline—presented in a new context which gives it a new meaning—is one technique which can help students overcome this set of inabilities.

In the standard textbook rendition of the composing process -- (1) find or be presented with a topic, (2) narrow and focus, (3) formulate a thesis statement, (4) collect information and arguments, (5) make a sentence – outline, (6) write a rough draft from the outline, (7) revise for clarity, coherence and correctness, (8) recopy and (9) proofread -- the implicit assumption is that writers know what they want to communicate and know what they will use to support their assertions and know how they are going to organize their material before they begin drafting. The preliminary outline here is not some rough jottings, but a developed sentence outline.

Some writers actually work like this, at least when they are working on certain types of writing. Most do not. Many students, if assigned an outline that must be handed in, will write the paper first and then derive the outline from it. Such students are on the verge of a useful insight.⁵ Outlining can be not only easier but more useful somewhat later in the writing process than the traditional textbooks would have it.

The "outline later" technique is applied after the draft is complete or just before the conclusion is drafted or at any time during the drafting when the writer is blocked and does not know what to write next. At any of these points, the writer makes an outline of what is already written. All the writer need do is to write down the main point of each section or paragraph, preferably in sentence form. Often these sentences already exist in the draft and need only be copied out. If not they are relatively easy to compose since they are nothing more than summaries of assertions already implicit in the draft.

To transform this list of assertions into an outline, one must classify them according to level of generality. One marks the most general statements, those which seem to englobe others. The traditional way to mark them, of course, is with roman numerals, or one can follow Christensen and call them level-one generalizations. Then remaining statements are then subclassified (perhaps with capital letters, arabic numerals, lower case letters. etc.)

The purpose of such an outline is to enable a writer to see what she has been saying. Instead of three or five or ten pages of messy draft she now has a sentence-outline of less than a page which reveals the underlying structure of the draft it represents (literally: re-presents). Since writing is a discovery process the writer did not necessarily know quite what she was going to say before she said if: now the outline serves to help her see what she has been saying. Looking at that outline on a single sheet paper, she can see the pattern of what she has written.

This being the purpose, it is important to keep the outline on a single sheet perhaps by using a very large sheet. For very long writings it maybe necessary to make one general outline and then detailed outlines of each chapter or section.

If the writer is blocked in mid-draft, the pattern of what has been written often suggests what else needs to be said and what logically comes next. Because the outline functions as a summary of main points, it often virtually writes a missing conclusion. In either case, it serves to get the writer writing again, serves to help the writer discover the missing part of the draft.

After the draft is complete, the outline functions as a basis for revision which, it must be remembered, includes re-envisioning and thus may involve generating new material or rearranging existing material. The key question is this: does the pattern of meaning make sense as it stands or would it make more sense if these propositions were reordered? The outline, since it represents the underlying structure of the writing, enables the writer to see and judge that whole pattern of meaning.

The key question breaks down into various more specific questions: is each point where it belongs in relation to the point which englobes it? do the various sections support the main point(s) or theme(s) of the whole writing? do the various paragraph support the sections? Do the examples exemplify what they are supposed to? is there support for each generalization?

Certain problems can be resolved by substituting, adding or deleting. Perhaps the more appropriate example should be substituted for one which does not quite work. Perhaps some point has been left unsupported or supported less than it need be while another point has been supported beyond what readers will require to be convinced. Such imbalances in the development of the writing are likely to stand out like the proverbial sore thumb once outlined.

Other problems may require the rearrangement of the whole writing or of some section of it, perhaps without any substitutions, additions or deletions at all. This potential for recording a piece of writing is rarely considered by less experienced writers even though it is, as noted above. Often one of the quickest ways to radically improve a draft. Whole sections or paragraphs be moved, often literally with scissors and paste or staples, and suddenly the seemingly incoherent writing reveals its true unity. The reordered parts usually need to be recemented with new transitions (paste and staples alone will not do), but the logic which mandated the rearrangement often suggests the new transitions. (The preceding nine paragraphs, incidentally, are not in the order in which they were originally drafted.)

We have long known, and have recently confirmed with controlled research, that one major distinction between good writers and ordinary writers is the amount of time spent on revision. Less competent writers look at a draft and fail to see the cues which indicate revision is needed and sometimes even suggest the nature of that revision. The outline applied after rather than before drafting is a technique which can help writers see those cues. It moves their attention from particular words to the structure of the whole writing. It helps them to see organization and dis- or mis-organization.

This technique, which implicitly critiques linear models of the composing process has two major virtues: it helps less experienced writers learn an important revision process, and it turns their attention from the superficial surface characteristics of their drafts to the deep structure and hence (since the composing process is dialectical) to the structure of the though processes.