Revising for Structure

Learning Objectives

  • Revise drafts for structure, using techniques such as a reverse outline

Revising for structure goes beyond checking for an introduction, body, and conclusion. It involves evaluating how well your ideas flow and whether the order makes sense. Ask yourself:

  • Does necessary background information come first?
  • Are evidence and commentary clearly connected?
  • Is all supporting evidence included in the body, not the conclusion?

Poor structure—such as delaying key details, separating evidence from commentary, or introducing new evidence in the conclusion—can make an essay confusing and leave readers with unanswered questions.

Strategies for Revising Structure

By using the strategies outlined below, you can refine your essay’s structure, making it clearer, more logical, and easier to follow.

Write Stronger Introductions

Readers prefer to see the big picture early, which you can provide in your introduction, thesis statement, or in smaller introductions to major sections within your document. However, consider your audience’s time—if writing for a busy boss, keep introductions concise and get to the point quickly.

Find a Better Thesis in Your Conclusion

Often, the thesis restated in the conclusion is clearer and more assertive than the original. Its not uncommon that your argument changes during drafting, and your thesis may no longer match the conclusion. In some cases, replacing your introduction with a refined thesis from the conclusion can improve clarity.

Consider Audience Receptiveness

Writers often place counterarguments at the end of an essay, as it’s easier to focus on supporting their position first. However, if your audience is likely to disagree with you, consider the Rogerian method of argumentation. In the Rogerian method, you address opposing views early, show you understand them, and then present your rebuttal to support your position. This approach strengthens your argument, helps you recognize biases, and fosters common ground with your audience.

Cut Up Your Essay

If you’re stuck in the revision process or need a break from the screen, try cutting up your essay. Print your essay with one paragraph per page, using only one side. Shuffle the pages, spread them out, and experiment with different paragraph orders to refine your structure. You can also ask a writing partner to arrange them—if you disagree on the best order, discuss your thought process with them to clarify and strengthen your ideas.

Create a Reverse Outline

A post-draft outline, or reverse outline, helps refine your essay’s structure after drafting. Creating a macro outline helps you with the big picture, summarizing main points and supporting them with short phrases or keywords. This is useful when organizing flexible or broad ideas.

A micro outline gets into the drilled-down, specific details of the essay’s content. It is particularly useful when the topic you are discussing is complex in nature. When creating a reverse micro outline, it can also be useful to include planned quotations (with citations) and your analysis. Taking this extra step helps ensure that you have enough support for your ideas and that the order of evidence and commentary makes sense throughout the entire essay.

Watch It

A post-draft outline can help you quickly see where you went with your essay and can help you more easily see if you need to make broad changes to the content or the organization. View the video below to learn more.

Try It

Consider this excerpt from an essay on children and smartphone usage. Once you’ve read the paragraphs, arrange the sentences below to create a macro reverse outline for the essay.

Having a video or TV on when a child is doing something else can distract them from play and learning, negatively affecting their development. Hours of background TV has also been found to reduce child–parent interaction, which has an adverse impact on language development. This displacement is a big concern: if kids are left with screen-based babysitters then they are not interacting with caregivers and the physical world. There are only so many hours in a day, and the time spent with screens comes at the expense of other, potentially better, activities.

Under-threes, in particular, need a balance of activities, including instructed play, exploring the natural environment, manipulating physical toys and socializing with other children and grown-ups. The rise in screen use means less of all of these things. “Parents need to think strategically,” says pediatrician Dimitri Christakis, Director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. “If your child has 12 hours awake and two of those are spent eating, how will you allocate the rest of the time?”

The problem is that tablets are extremely appealing to children and adults alike. Thanks to their design, versatility and intuitive interfaces, tablets are a perfect way for children to draw, solve puzzles, and be entertained on the move. Combine that with marketing efforts of digital media companies and app developers – whose measure of success tends to be the amount of time people are glued to their creation – and you have a toy that’s difficult to pry out of tiny hands.

Many apps are designed to be stimulus-driven, with exciting audiovisual rewards for completing tasks. Christakis refers to this as the “I did it!” response, which triggers the reward pathway in the brain. “The delight a child gets from touching a screen and making something happen is both edifying and potentially addictive,” he says.