I found an article on outlining[1] that promises I will write faster if I outline more completely.
The author thinks of her outlines as a series of questions that she will answer in her article.
I'm used to outlining when I already have the answers I need.
The idea is that if these two things are combined, you'll have a complete outline.
I could see this being especially helpful when planning for an SME (subject matter expert) interview. If your outline for the interview contained both the questions you wanted answered, and some example answers to goad your SME into correcting you, you'd probably get really good results.
Planning your documentation in terms of the questions your users might have is also a good idea.
The article makes good use of whitespace.
[1] http://www.onespoonatatime.com/how-to-save-tons-of-writing-time-by-using-a-complete-outline
News, articles, and reviews for technical communicators, presented by the STC Australia Chapter.
Although I am not typically a writer of articles, the occupation that seems to be the target audience for this one, I am thinking I might have to try this technique out soon in place of my typical "list writing" technique. And I LOVE the example you posted, Tim, about planning for an SME interview. Yes...I can see it working great in a number of situations.
ReplyDeleteI will certainly give this one a try
ReplyDelete