Choose a topic and determine the larger purpose of your article. We’ve featured a comprehensive guide on this particular step because identifying a suitable topic from a host of possibilities already make up half the battle in writing your first article. Knowing your article’s role in achieving the larger purpose of your blog or website is equally important. It will help you set guidelines and constraints on what is appropriate content for the article you are writing.
Develop a list of “talking points” you hope to get across. This is the brainstorming portion of the writing process, where you need to come up with a list of central ideas that you want to present in the article. Depending on the topic, it could be steps on how to do something, a list of resources, or arguments to answer a question. Regardless of the topic, this is your chance to get exhaustive so make sure you’ve thought of all the possibilities.
Organize your main points into a structure that makes sense. This step is pretty straightforward. You’ve got a list and you want to present it in a way that your readers will be able to understand. Simply put, you want to add some order to your ideas. Whether you use process, chronology, cause and effect, or classification as the approach in writing your article, you need to give your ideas some structure.
Flesh out your main points. Now that you have your main points and some structure, it’s time to add relevant content to support each of your article’s “talking points.” Supporting content comes in the form of examples, facts & figures, theories, quotes, images, and anecdotes.
Review & Adjust. Most would say your outline ends there, but writing is an iterative process and good writers constantly review and revise their writing. The same goes for an outline. It should not be a static framework but more so like a living road map