Article Writing – How to Outline Your Article
Article Writing – How to Outline Your Article
Once you have determined the topic and title of your article, you can start outlining your article, so that you have a firm foundation on which to write.
A note on this progression of steps: I personally write my headline first and use it as a sort of ruler, looking back to make sure my article content stays consistent with my headline. However, some authors will write their article first and then create a title that is consistent with the content of their article. Either method is fine, although I like the liability that is created when I craft my title first. I also don’t physically write an outline as I can easily do it in my head, and I should be able to do it easily after writing 20-30 articles. If you’ve never written an article before, I recommend writing a summary first; this will help you stay focused and not lose direction when writing your article.
Once you have your theme, you will create an outline using the following parts as a framework:
1) Introductory paragraph or sentence
2) 3 ideas to support the topic of your article
3) Concluding paragraph or sentence(s)
As an example, using the previous example from the list building article:
One of the sample titles we created was:
Top 5 Ways to Accurately Build a List, Starting With Your First Item
So my schema would look like this:
1) Introductory paragraph or sentence
2) 5 ideas to support the topic of your article
a) To accurately build a list, you need to have a very specific demographic that you are targeting your efforts at.
b) To build an accurate list, you need to coordinate the theme of your advertising engine with the theme of your capture page and the theme of your capture page with the content of your email campaign.
c) To build a list accurately, you need to continually send your subscribers useful information.
d) To build a list accurately, you need to continually survey your subscribers or ask them what kind of information or products they currently need.
e) build the list accurately, you should never forget the main purpose of your list.
3) Concluding paragraph or sentence(s)
As another example, using one of the time management titles:
Discover the secrets of time management: free up 2 extra productive hours a day
1) Introductory paragraph or sentence
2) 3 ideas to support the topic of your article
a) Secret 1: Track your time usage daily
b) Secret 2: Create a List of Goals
c) Secret 3: measure everything you do against the list of daily goals
3) Concluding paragraph or sentence(s)
There is no reason to write an outline that goes deeper than these examples. Remember, you are only writing a 400-700 word article on a strict topic idea. The purpose of your article is to deliver useful content to the reader, while also giving the reader a reason and incentive to click to your website or web page after reading the article.