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Use Structure to Help You Choose Your Content

Not everyone likes to use outlines when they write. If you’re writing something very short and straightforward, an outline might be unnecessary. But sometimes with a longer document, structuring your message with a quick outline can help you make sure your content is complete and you’re presenting it in a logical way. The outline doesn’t have to be complex; it can be a list of topics, which you then arrange in the order in which you want to present them.

You can even outline after you’ve written a draft, to check whether you’re including the appropriate information—and nothing extraneous. Outlining after the fact is called “reverse outlining.” Let’s look at reverse outlines of the two versions of Mona’s message above.

Original version Diversity training is mandatory for compliance purposes. You have to go to the diversity training once during twelve months so we can get our licensing. If you haven’t been to a session yet, you must go to one of the two remaining ones this year. Let me know if you have problems.

Revised version Everyone has to do this training or we won’t get licensed again. Here are your chances. Here are the two dates of trainings. I’ll help you make sure it gets done; let me know if you have problems. We have to do this.

You can see in the revision of Mona’s message that she hasn’t just added the missing information (the dates and times of the training sessions); she’s also restructured her entire message to make it clearer to her readers.

Writing a quick outline doesn’t have to be a big deal, but it can make a big difference in the content and quality of your message.

How to Get the Content Right

If you like to plan before you write, you should think about your content in light of the work you did for Step 1, Get the ask clear, and Step 2, Write for your reader. Ask yourself these questions:

What content must I include to achieve my purpose in writing? What content does my reader need?

If you’re the kind of writer who likes to create a first draft and then edit, make sure you do a content check as part of your revision process. Including extraneous content often comes from the writing equivalent of “thinking out loud”—mulling over or reviewing content in your own mind without considering if your audience needs it. Sometimes it’s helpful to your thought process to write everything out. But if the content isn’t useful to your reader, you should go back and cut it out. If you’ve already got a draft, take a quick pass over your

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