How to Organize Ideas for Writing

Many approaches can help you organize your thoughts for writing---the trick is to choose one that not only suits your way of thinking, but also fits the writing project. Organizational, project management and writing software attempts to automate the process, but whether you use software or good, old-fashioned paper and pen, the method is the same: Record ideas; then put them in an order that makes writing and editing easier. Given this, there's no one "right" way to organize ideas. Any method that doesn't get in the way of recording thoughts and that encourages the flow of ideas can work.

Things You'll Need

• Large dry erase board or paper such as newsprint or poster board plus appropriate writing tools in more than one color (e.g, dry erase marker) for the bubble method
• Large supply of index cards plus writing tool and marker for the card method

Instructions

Bubble Method

1. Write the subject of your writing project or its title in the middle of the dry erase board or large piece of paper. Circle it.

2. Write as many thoughts about the subject as you can think of, circling each and drawing lines between connected thoughts. You'll find writing a thought will likely spur a rush of ideas related to that thought. Cluster the ideas around the one that sparked the rest, drawing spokes to connect them to the "hub" thought. Jot the ideas quickly. Don't stop if you have a bubble unconnected to the others.

3. Take stock of your effort, connecting any lone bubbles. Sometimes bubbles might connect to more than one other idea; draw these lines.

4. Distinguish the main ideas---those thoughts necessary to cover what's most important and fundamental about your topic. Mark them with another color---a dot or by underlining---so you can see them all at a glance.

5. Distinguish the supporting ideas---those thoughts that further explain, provide examples or prove the main ideas you've just marked. Mark the supporting ideas with a third color.

6. Take stock of the bubble map to see if one main idea or another has too much coverage or is perhaps is too thin. Also look to see if there are too many main ideas for the length of the writing project. You might find that the original topic is too broad (you have two or more writing projects worth of material) or too narrow (your topic might actually be a subtopic or you need to do more research to get new ideas).

7. Order your ideas, using one of the methods in the "Choose How You'll Order Your Thoughts When Writing" section.

Index Card Method

1. Write down everything you can think of on your topic, using a separate card for each thought. Do it quickly, without stopping to think.

2. Spread the index cards out in a large rectangle of columns and rows.

3. Separate the main ideas from the rest, marking those cards with a different color. Gather up the rest of the cards.

4. Use the marked main idea cards to form the tops of new columns. These can be thought of as categories or labels.

5. Lay the other cards under the column cards to which they're related.

6. Make any leftover cards heading cards---main ideas---if appropriate, or create new headings under which they might go.

7. Take stock of the work, rearranging to better group batches of related cards. Decide whether there is too much of one idea, not enough of another and where more research or thought into the topic might be called for.

8. Order the thoughts in preparation for writing, using one of the methods below.

Choose How You'll Order Your Thoughts When Writing

1. Consider a spatial approach to the writing: A spatial approach might be appropriate if writing about a place or about something that has dimensions, like a house. Start writing at point A, moving to adjoining areas until you've written about all the spaces and places of your subject. If you choose this approach, determine the first and last things you'll write about, and plot a writing path between them by numbering the major topics---the subtopics will be written about before moving to the next major idea.

2. Consider a chronological approach, which would have you start at the beginning of events, moving through time until the end of the story is reached. Fiction usually employs this approach, as might a history topic. Prepare by ordering the cards from beginning to end or numbering the main idea bubbles in the order in which you'll use them.

3. Consider starting with the general topics, then moving to those with more specific information. This might be appropriate if your material has few major ideas, but a lot of specific information that supports those ideas. Decide in what order you'll cover those few general topics, along with the more specific supporting information.

4. Consider starting with the specific topics, then moving to the more general. This might be appropriate if you have specific thoughts that serve as essential examples that illustrate the general ideas or themes. Decide in what order you'll cover the general topics---you'll lead into them with the specific examples.

5. Consider arranging the ideas (or numbering them) according to a logical order. This is the approach to choose if a reader needs to understand one idea's information before he or she can comprehend another.

6. Arrange the ideas---moving the cards or numbering the bubbles---in cause-and-effect order, if appropriate, as might be the case when writing about something like a lab experiment or a sequence of events that occur one after another like falling dominoes.

Tips & Warnings

• If you'll be writing a lot of specific information to support more general ideas, you might want to separately organize each group of supporting information as if the general idea is the subject of its own project. If outlines make you feel secure, the stage to create one is after you have chosen what approach you'll take to writing about the topic.

Resources

• Online Tool to Create Bubble Maps
• Create Graphical Maps to Print Out