Once you have come up with ideas or gathered information that you would like to include in your paper, it is important to consider how this information would make the most sense to your reader. Most U.S. academic writers organize their papers according to four principles—space, time, logic, and association (St. Martin’s Handbook 64).

The following links can help you understand different organizational strategies so that you can decide how to best organize your text:

Some Useful Handouts

Understanding Writing Assignments, from the Purdue OWL This link will take you to the section on understanding writing assignments of Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. This hand out “describes some steps you can take to better understand the requirements of your writing assignments.”

Some Useful Web Resources

Outlining
This article, by David Kornhaber for the Writing Center at Harvard University (2000), provides a clear, efficient explanation of the benefits and the elements of outlines.

Beginning the Academic Essay 
This article, by Patricia Kain for the Writing Center at Harvard University (1999), provides clear, practical advice on figuring out a good opening for your essay, figuring out how long it should be, how it should be organized, and other common concerns.

The Assignment Calculator, from the University of Minnesota
As described on the University of Minnesota Center for Writing website: “Students can use this tool to break down any assignment for any course into manageable steps. After entering a due date and the academic department in which their course is being offered, users are given a series of suggested stages and deadlines to follow as they complete the assignment—the newest version of this tool will even provide email reminders if students request it. This tool was developed by the University of Minnesota Libraries in collaboration with the Center for Writing and the Center for Teaching and Learning Services.”

Drafting Legal Documents
This resource, presented by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, covers the following topics: Arrangement, Headings, Purpose Clause, Definitions, Ambiguity, Principles of Clear Writing, Cross References, Punctuation, Capitalization, Typography and Spelling, and Formatting Requirements for Regulatory Documents.

How to Give PowerPoint Presentations
This link will take you to an article by Jeff Wuorio of the Microsoft Small Business Center. The article contains ten easy-to-follow tips for good Power Point presentations. Two other excellent resources on organizing and designing PowerPoint presentations are: Designing Presentation Slides: Re-thinking the Design of Presentation Slides, Michael Alley’s work from Virginia Tech, and Design of Scientific Posters.

Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students
From the website: “These guidelines for engineering writing and scientific writing are designed to help students communicate their technical work. To that end, these guidelines contain advice, models, and exercises for common writing and speaking assignments in engineering and science.” The website covers Audience, Format, Style, and other subjects. Contributors are Virginia Tech, the University of Illinois, the University of Texas, and Georgia Tech.

How to Organize Your Thesis, by John W. Chinneck of Carleton University (Ottawa)
As described on the University of Minnesota Center for Writing website: “This advice from Carleton University (Ottawa) computer science professor John W. Chinneck is widely generalizable across the disciplines. Not only does Chinneck offer a clear basic outline for a dissertation, but he helps writers conceptualize the project of a dissertation in the first place (see section entitled ‘What Graduate Research Is All About’).”

Writing Websites for a Global Audience
In addition to offering advice, this resource offers links to related resources for planning and organizing websites.

Invention is the “idea generating” step of the writing process. Although most writers use invention strategies before they sit down to write, these strategies may also be useful during any time in your writing process when you get stuck and need to generate more ideas. For more information on getting over writer’s block, please visit our writer’s block page.

Some Useful Web Resources

Prewriting (Invention), from the Purdue OWL
Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab is one of the largest and best regarded online writing labs in the world. This link will lead you to their section on Prewriting (invention). It includes processes, strategies, and questions to help you begin to write.

Prewriting Strategies, from the Kansas University Writing Center This website has a variety of prewriting strategies, from the conventional—outlining and clustering—to the unconventional—looping and freewriting. These prewriting strategies are pretty easy to understand and use.

“Conscious” Prewriting Strategies, from York University This website explains more advanced and out-of-the-ordinary prewriting strategies, such as Aristotle’s topics, tagmemics, and synectics. Don’t be intimidated by their names. These prewriting strategies are great for inspiring ideas about your topic. This website not only explains the prewriting techniques, but it also shows examples of each technique in action.

Analyzing your document’s audience is one of the most important things your can do as you plan, write, and revise your work. Even if an assignment does not explicitly identify a target readership, your work will have a reader (or readers). Your work’s audience and context will drive many of your decisions about your work’s length, approach, scope, organization, language, details, and format.

Some Useful Handouts

A Quick Guide to the “Traditional” Academic Essay in U.S. Academic Settings

Audience Analysis, from David A. McMurrey’s Online Technical Writing Handbook
This is a chapter from McMurrey’s very highly-regarded (and frequently cited) online textbook. This section profiles common kinds of readers in technical (and business) industries and writing situations, and it offers advice on using that information to plan and write your documents.

Academic vs. Business Writing, from the Academic Center of the University of Houston-Victoria This handout offers a clear, efficient description of 5 important differences between “work and academic writing.”

Some Useful Web Resources

The following links can help you analyze and understand your audience as you plan your text:

Preparing to Write, Understanding Writing Situations, Audience, and Adapting to Your Audience, from Colorado State University
This thorough writing guide contains short blurbs about topics that writers must consider when planning their writing. Especially helpful here is the article about “Adapting to Your Audience.”

Working with Topics, from Colorado State University
This excellent resource provides advice and examples for developing assigned topics as well as for generating ideas for your own topics. Individual topics pen in new pages, but the entire handout is printable.

Understanding the Rhetorical Triangle, from Indiana University 
This link gives a brief explanation about Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle. Understanding the rhetorical triangle can help you see how writers must take into consideration the existence of audience and text. This short article also explains the rhetorical concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos.

How to Blog for a Global Audience
This blog, by Darren Rowse, shares 5 tips from Liz of Pocket Cultures, “an independent site which aims to provide a guide to world culture,” on how to develop a blog “that is friendly to those from around the world.”