As my colleague Lauren Beehler recently pointed out in her article, “Improve Outlines to Enhance Your Writing,” it can be beneficial to organize your thoughts when beginning a new assignment or project. Beehler explains that an outline can help “ensure your writing is organized, thorough, and achieves its purpose,” among other things.

To build upon Beehler’s recommendations, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the process for the creation of a short piece like an article or essay.

Phase 1: Develop a first draft

Once I feel good about my outline, I’m ready to begin writing, introduction through conclusion. I like writing beginning to end in sequential order, paragraph by paragraph because I want to complete the first draft before I spend time editing sentences I may later cut. After all, it’s a waste of time perfecting a sentence that you find no longer has a home in your piece.

As I’m writing, if I discover I’m missing an example, I simply leave a placeholder for it, using the notation TK^[1], an editing mark that means “to come.” It’s equivalent to leaving a blank or brackets in the text. By using TK, I avoid getting sidetracked and distracted by research that would delay my completion of the first draft.

Phase 2: Take a break to identify problems

Once my draft is complete, if possible, I set it aside for a day. If I don’t have the luxury of that much time, then I try to work on something else for at least one hour before re-reading it. After even a short break, I can usually identify and address problem areas.

Common areas to fix might include adding concrete details like data, improving a transition or providing additional examples. At this point, I also make sure to address any remaining placeholders, so no TKs remain.

Phase 3: Read your work aloud and refine it

In the third phase, I read the piece aloud, often numerous times, considering the flow and the rhythm of the information, word choice, sentence structure and paragraph breaks. The readability of a piece can be greatly improved by selecting just the correct word, varying the lengths of sentences, and decidedly arranging information into paragraphs.

When considering word choice, take the time to look up definitions, consider synonyms and think about the connotations and emotional impact of words. When looking at the flow of the piece, consider the four different types of paragraphs at the writer’s disposal: the direct paragraph, the climactic paragraph, the turnabout paragraph, or the statement paragraph. For examples of each of these, along with ideas on when to employ them, I recommend reading chapter 19 of Priscilla Long’s “The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life.” It’s an excellent book with many hands-on exercises that you can use for your work-in-progress.

Of course, everyone’s process is different, but I hope that you can learn from my thoughts on the topic. Many years ago, I worked with a web designer who said she wanted “to get the right idea, before getting the idea right.” This same philosophy can be applied to writing. It’s best to organize your thoughts, write your piece, examine your argument, consider your structure, and then refine to make it as strong as possible.

^[1] In case you’re wondering why it’s not TC, apparently editing marks are often misspelled to make them stand out and catch the attention of copy editors. Consider, for instance, graf and hed for paragraph and headline.