Writing from Scratch (part 2)
If you haven’t read part 1, then I recommend checking that out in my previous mid-week post.
Writing from Scratch (part 2)
Phase 6 — Read Out Loud
A. Now you’ve got something.
It may not be pretty or stylish, but it might contain nearly all the basic ideas you want to express. To find out, read it out loud, as if you had a real audience of intelligent people listening to you.
Reading aloud, even if there’s nobody to hear you but yourself, forces your brain to take the content more seriously. When you read aloud something that doesn’t make sense, it will be much more obvious. Reading silently allows us to just skip over things, while reading aloud is a kind of commitment to giving every point an equal emphasis. Reading aloud affords a more objective view of your work, because it places you in the imagined audience. (Reading aloud to specific people is also valuable, because it affords insight into how they will respond.)
B. As you read it aloud, ideas will come.
You’ll probably notice that there are still holes in the flow of ideas:
Some background is missing.
A conclusion isn’t supported.
An important idea is buried three indents in from the previous main point, but really deserves to be a main point itself.
A section is no longer relevant and should be deleted.
C. Read aloud again and again — and refine.
After fixing your discoveries from the last step, read aloud again, and repeat until your attention goes mainly onto the style, the flow, the tone, the grammar, and other aspects of presentation. At this point, it’s time for some attention on style editing.
Phase 7 — Refine the Style
A. Polish the Main Points.
Check the flow of ideas by making sure all the Main Points are in the right place.
B. Polish the headings.
Make sure the sub-headings are also in the right place and have appropriate main points above them. These sub-headings will help you develop what’s needed in the following text. They will also reveal whether the following text is on the topic of the heading.
C. Make your sentences smooth.
If the sentences are too short and choppy (hopefully, they did start out that way), then allow a little descriptive language to flow into them. But recognize that stylistic polish can go on forever, and try to stop when it’s just “good enough.” You’ll be able to do a “final polish” after all the content-creation is really finished.
D. Check for correct grammar.
Get help if you need it, but don’t worry about grammar you don’t know for sure. Don’t obsess on grammar: that’s what editors are for. (If there won’t be an editor, then try to get someone more literate than you to give it a read.) Good grammar goes unnoticed, but grammatical mistakes can undermine your credibility.
E. Check your facts.
Check for missing information. Check for points that are over-developed or under-developed. Check for factual accuracy (names, dates, etc.).
F. Decide if it’s ready to send out for review.
If not, keep polishing until it is. Do this even if it’s not destined for review.
G. Read it aloud again.
See if you’re fully convinced it’s ready.
Phase 8 — Get a Second Opinion
This step is, of course, only possible under ideal circumstances, but it’s highly recommended. We tend to think a piece of writing is done before it really is as good as it should be. It’s usually worth taking steps to make sure it is.
A. Send it to someone you respect.
You’ll get useful ideas from someone who knows you, and who will give you honest but friendly feedback. Listen closely to their reactions. You don’t have to implement any of their suggestions, but try to understand why they respond the way they do. If your reader just says “It’s great!” try to find another, more critical reader. Or, perhaps it already is great...
B. Get a third opinion.
For contrast, try to find someone who knows the subject area but might not be a friend or acquaintance. This can lead to some very important new thinking.
C. Read it aloud one last time.
Is it finished? It’s done, right? It couldn’t possibly get any better, right?
Sadly, these questions almost never get a definitive answer. But at least now you have something well organized, clearly presented, reviewed, and ready for action.
Advanced Organization
If your writing project is large and its internal structure has become fairly complex, the following is an advanced approach for tightening up the logical flow and ensuring that the content is complete. This approach expands the use of headings to formalize the reasoning and provide the reader with an integrated summary of the paper’s thinking process.
Headings as Assertions
We’ve already strongly recommended that headings be framed as sentences, that is, as assertions of what amounts to your main point at that location in the document. If we take that a step further, we can work to ensure that all the headings do in fact comprise all necessary steps in the logical progression of your thesis. The goal here is to make sure that the sequence of top-level headings can serve as an outline of the steps of logic that present your ideas. If done with sufficient care, this can result in a series of headings that serve as a complete outline of your argument.
Headings as Structure
If this approach is followed, it should become very clear where certain steps in your reasoning are missing, or redundant, or in the wrong order. This is the same general process we recommended in Phase 5 (Headings), but taken further and given a more formal role in the structure of your paper.
Double-Header Headings
This is the difficult part, but it can result in a wonderfully cogent paper that will never confuse a reader and can be exceptionally powerful. The essence of double-header headings is that main headings—the ones that carry the sequence of main points—come in pairs. The first heading is an abstract statement of the main point itself, and the second one is a more specific elucidation of that point, perhaps even an example of the main point at work. For example, the following double-header might be used to introduce this section you’re reading right now:
Double-Headings Focus the Reader’s Attention on the Logic:
State the Principle, then Show How It Works
If the reader skims through the paper, just reading the first line of each double-header, they will get a clear picture of all your main points, in logical order, and may not even need to read the full text. If readers pay attention to the second line of the double-headers, each main point will be driven home with a succinct dash of specifics. This combination of principle and example, theory and application, can make every point abundantly clear.
Double-Headers as Writing Guides
Perhaps the most significant benefit of going to the trouble of framing good double-headers is their effect on the text that follows. If the headings are “correct,” that is, if they really do summarize the logical flow of your argument, then the text that immediately follows each heading must directly address the point of the heading itself. With double-headers, it becomes painfully obvious if the following text is off-topic, redundant, ineffectual, or unclear. The double-headers, much more than ordinary one-line assertion headings, dictate almost exactly what specific elaboration and discussion must follow.
This concludes “Writing from Scratch,” which was, ironically, written from years of revising and condensing, responding to seminar participants, using the technique myself, and working with various writers in a variety of contexts. I hope you find it helpful. Suggestions, corrections, additions, and improvements are all welcome!