Create your outline

What is an outline?

An outline is an initial layout of your document. It will help you organize your ideas and visualize the structure of your document. Once you begin to write, your outline will help you to stay on track and not sway from your document's purpose.

Note: It can be tempting to skip the outline step, but we advise against this, especially when you are a beginner. Without an outline, your writing project can quickly get off-topic, become much longer than intended, exclude vital information/include unnecessary information, or become disorganized. An outline will streamline your writing by organizing your thoughts and ideas from the start.

How to outline

Before you begin writing your outline, you must have an understanding of:

• The purpose of your document

• The audience for your document

If you do not know the answer to one or both of these statements, you need to go back and clarify why you are writing this piece of documentation. As a developer, the answers to both of these statements will usually be clear to you based on the type of document you are writing. But always make sure that you are clear on these two things before you begin anything. If you don't, you may find yourself struggling to keep your document within its intended scope. Once you know the answers to these statements, write ...