Make an Outline your favorite part of writing

Do you want to be this stressed ? 

We all know that writing could be a hassle at times, especially for some. According to Fish, high school and middle schools are not teaching writing skills well, and honestly, I do agree with him. Stanley Fish wrote an article titled What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3. In this article he says that because students are coming in to college without being able to write "clean English sentences" and the college professors must make up for it. At this point you might be wondering who is this Stanley Fish? Stanley Fish is a Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University, he taught at other universities and wrote 15 books, so you can see he's credible.

Fish says that sentence structure is important in writing, and even though I do agree with him I feel that without planning, thinking, free writing, you won't be able to get the write sentence structure, you possibly won't know where to start. A couple weeks ago I was able observe a student during a tutoring session at The Ohio State University Newark Writers Studio and during that tutoring session the student started with an outline.

                                         

Road Map:Outline

I also remember looking up the definition of an outline from The University of Kansas Writing Center and what stood out to me was that "there are as many types of outlines as there are writers" meaning there is no one way to create an outline. In Fish's blog he brings up a time when he told his students to take a sentences like "John hit the ball' or "Jane likes cake" and make it to 100 words. this idea stood out to me because I thought about how difficult this might be, and how if I had to do something like that I would be erasing and adding a lot. Therefore I think thats when an outline would be helpful. You can start off with adding words that might make sense in the sentence.

it would help if you start with "broader topics and then work toward the specifics. " An outline is there for your needs, like a road map, or a GPS. When we are lost and need help getting to our destination we turn on our GPS. In this case the "Jane likes cake" or "John hit the ball" would be the starting point and the destination is the end hundred words . When I did the survey, I asked the students, how often do you create an outline before writing a paper, and most students picked one or less, I noticed that students see it as an option, I also noticed that students had a hard time starting a paper and keeping it flowing especially when the topic is about something you don’t know about. That’s why I think an outline should be a necessary step.

So yes, I do agree with Stanley Fish that sentence structure is important in writing, but I also think that you should always start with an outline first. Starting an outline should be made into a priority and not an option, especially if you have time. Make it a habit, and see how it goes . But try it, what do you have to lose?