Narrative outline

This is an outline or plan of your report with explanatory sentences inserted at key places:

• to explain in a declarative style the point of each section;
• to explain how each section links to the previous one and to the larger section or the whole report it is part of.

Insertion of the explanatory sentences helps you move beyond the preliminary thinking that goes into a standard outline, i.e., one that looks like a table of contents. For some people a standard outline has some value—but not much. It does not ensure that, when you write, your ideas and material really will fit your outline and the draft will flow from your "pen" (keyboard). To help make this happen, you should take two steps beyond a standard outline. The first is to turn the standard outline into a nested and connected table of contents:

• nest or indent subsections inside sections, and sub-subsections inside subsections; and
• indicate with arrows and annotations how each section or subsection connects with the previous one, and how each connects with the larger whole (including the paper) of which it is a part.

The second step is to turn the nested and connected table of contents into a narrative outline by inserting the explanatory sentences mentioned above.

(See Phase G)