Writing Support Services, Student Success Centre
ucalgary.ca/ssc/writing-support
Developing Ideas: Alternatives to Outlining
There are many people who love outlining; if you aren’t one of those people or you just want to try something new,
consider some of the following ideas. Use these techniques to develop the main ideas, supporting arguments, or subtopics in your paper.
Freewriting
Cluster
Mapping
Set a timer for 10 to 15 minutes. Sit down and write down whatever you know
about the topic. Think of it as a “brain dump.” Don’t worry about spelling or
grammar because this writing is for you. When you’re done, go through your
writing with a highlighter and note key ideas and phrases. Repeat the process,
focusing on key ideas to develop in the next level of your paper.
This technique focuses on grouping ideas and words together to develop
sections of your paper. Like free writing, make sure to set a timer for 10 to 15
minutes. Using free association, list keywords you associate with the subject.
What concepts, theories, or course material relate to these words? Do you
see any connections between the words that you are writing down? Draw
lines and arrows as needed. If you run out of ideas, go back to the key
words. Starting with general association, you will develop an underlying logic
that you can use to build your paper.
Brainstorming
Chance
Questionbased
Outlines
Start by listing a series of arguments that could be made about
your topic without censoring any ideas. Start to organize them
by looking at which arguments could be used to support others
to develop sub-arguments. You can also start with information or
examples and work backwards towards an argument; i.e., what
kinds of arguments can this evidence support? Eventually you
will be able to see your main and supporting arguments.
Get a pair of dice. Use one die to mark your progress, i.e., you will write
about six different perspectives on your topic, one for each side of the die.
The other die is used to determine how many points you should write on
each perspective. After going through the six sides, you should be able to
select ideas or concepts on which you want to expand. You can use the die
to randomly set the number of points you need to write or the number of
minutes that must pass before moving on.
If outlines are challenging because they require you to know all the answers before
you start, consider starting with questions. As you build your questions, consider the
relationship between them. Can you break down broad questions into a series of
smaller ones? Often questions that start with “why” or “how” address sub questions
like “what” “who” or “when.” By working through questions and using them to
organize the material you need, you can create a series of short answer questions,
allowing you to write your paper in any order you want.
Revised September 2014