Given your overwhelming requests and significance of structure and formatting, this section is considerably long; therefore, feel free to use contents to navigate.

If you think before you write and then sketch a tentative plan, drafting goes faster and produces a better result. Those who just sit down and try to think of the first word and then the next risk writer’s block or, worse, a trickle of words that puddle into shapeless paragraphs. But before you plan a draft, you should first reflect on both why and how you draft.

Structure and Formatting for an academic piece vary depending on the disciplinary context as well as the kind of document being prepared. Hence, it is important to thoroughly analyze the instructions provided for the structure and formatting of academic piece, by the concerned institution.  Although, there are no set rules shared across all kinds of academic works, but there are some underlying best practices that can be considered when defining the structure and formatting.

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Everyone does outlines. Many people actually use them to shape their writing. Some use them most at the start of the writing process as a device for getting a sense of the paper as a whole, and then abandon them as they write. Others create an outline at the start and then modify it as they go along, making outlining part of the iterative process of writing, using the outline to document the changes they make as much as to structure the writing they do.

There are generally three levels of outlining, starting from minimum to maximum details.

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Level 1, generally includes definition of the following, from a broad perspective, connecting every section to the defined thesis statement and research objectives:

• Context/Background

• Topics and Sub-topics in the literature review

• A basic research approach/conceptual framework

• Topics and sub-topics for results and analysis

• An overview of discussions

• An overview of conclusion

Level 2, is based on disintegrating topics defined in each section into their 3 counterparts.

Level 3, is based on further defining each counterpart into its 5 constituents.

Each counterpart and constituent is given an appropriate title, which should be chained to the ones before and after. In this way you will give a certain direction to each paragraph and all of them will have a role to play in light of the defined research objectives.

Every writer does a level 1 outline, going to the first level of outlining, some go into slightly more detail, moving into level 2, but, as far as I can tell, almost no one bothers to go as far as level 3. There may be good reasons for this. Perhaps people feel that they will be wasting their time by doing so much outlining. Perhaps they have internalized the sub-structures that level 3 requires, although for new writers this may be less likely. Perhaps those who never go as far as level 3 are not aware of the benefits; they are not aware, for example, of how the columns can structure the essential thinking processes that are an important part of writing an academic paper. Producing column 3 may take hours of thinking, checking and rethinking.

Yet, each level has a purpose in the writing process. All of them can be used for different purposes, as you design your paper. In practice, you may find that while you favor one or other level – or perhaps you have some other way – of outlining, each has a distinct effect:

• Level 1 outlining is useful for setting out the proportions of your main sections. In this form it is easy to calibrate your outline with the target journal, checking that your sections are named in a way that is appropriate for that journal and that the proportions match.

• Level 2 outlining means making additional content and structure decisions. You can also do some checks on continuity: are the sub-sections in the right order? Do you really need them all? Can some section topics be compressed into a sentence or two? You can begin to think of the links and transitions you will need to use to make connections and changes of direction in your argument explicit.

• Level 3 outlining is a way of developing a detailed ‘design’ for your paper. You can decide exactly what is going into each section. At this level you can also check for internal continuity: are the content, proportions and connections coherent? Each level can be seen as having its own purpose in the writing process, helping you to make different levels of decision. Staging the decisions in this way may be easier for new writers or for busy, experienced writers who can only work on their outlines in short time slots.

Of course, you will adapt your outline – even the level 3 outline – as you write, but you will more quickly and coherently be able to distinguish between what you should add and what you should cut from your paper if you have level 3 outlining; even with a detailed outline, you may find that you write a section that is not relevant to your paper. You can calibrate your writing with your outline: should you change one or the other? Will that still fit your target journal?

Outlining is not about word counting for its own sake; it is about you finding a way to prompt yourself to make the numerous decisions about content and order that will construct your argument. Each stage involves much more thinking than counting, but counting words as you go is a way of keeping a check on your writing. It is safe to assume that you will not always write exactly the number of words that you set out to write. You are likely to write more or less, in unpredictable patterns. In order to keep control and focus, you need to have some way of checking that what you are writing is relevant to your paper. An added benefit – and an important motivational tool – is that as you complete each section you see yourself achieving numerous sub-goals. What are the implications of these approaches for your writing practice? If you only do level 1 outlining, you create a set of writing tasks that inevitably require large chunks of time. If you only do level 2 outlining, you still have decisions to make about content and continuity, and you will have to make these as you are writing. If, however, you have writing tasks as small as 100 words, you know that you can do these in short bursts. You can more easily fit them into your busy timetable. Your writing process is more easily and coherently ‘fragmented’, in a positive sense.

Once you have designed writing tasks, get them into your timetable, diary or electronic organizer. Establish writing slots for each task: how much time will you need for each task? When will you find it? This may involve some trial and error: how much time do you need, for example, to write one of those 100-word sub-sub-sections?

If you do not define your writing tasks precisely – perhaps even as precisely as this – you may struggle, and even fail, to establish how long you will need for each one. In fact, you may not even see the point of doing so. You will fail to learn how long you need for each different writing task. This is not to say that there is one set pace of writing to which you should aspire, but if you note how long you take to produce each section you can begin to set yourself realistic goals, goals based on your actual experience of writing, rather than on someone else’s output or some notional ideal rate. Setting specific, realistic goals is an important step in the process of becoming a productive writer.

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