This New York Times article by Aaron Hamburger introduces a
way to tackle the tedious process of writing an essay. Instead of writing an
outline to plan for the essay, the outline is written after the completed essay
to better comprehend/critique the work. Now, the outline becomes a revision
process instead of a planning device. This concept intrigues me because I’ve always
thought outlines were a waste of time – especially during timed writings. I may
brainstorm and write down a few ideas before writing, but I don’t go and spend
a full ten minutes writing out each claim, detail, and concluding sentence of
each body paragraph. I find the process a bit repetitive when I start writing
my essay. It also conforms my writing into a certain structure and doesn’t
allow for creativity when writing a fictional piece.
For in-class essays, I wouldn’t necessarily write an outline
after my writing is complete because of the time constraints, but I would consider outlining in reverse for
longer and more analytical essays that I write at home. I always like to just
sit down and write a complete essay instead of writing one section at a time.
That way, I can keep a constant flow of ideas without breaking my train of
thought. However, this can cause me to leave out certain details, so outlining
afterwards would help me fill in the gaps of my essay.
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