Revising for structure

I really like organizing stuff around my house: closets, cupboards, drawers, shelves. It gives me great satisfaction to use the end product, functional storage where everything has a place and is easy to find when needed. I enjoy the process, too. Taking everything out, getting rid of the stuff that is no longer serving me, finding the most logical and pleasing way to arrange the stuff that I’m keeping.

I realize that not everyone feels this way.

For the same reasons some people dread cleaning out a closet or kitchen drawer, some writers dread revising for structure. It feels overwhelming. Too big a job, too many options, too many decisions. Just as many people need the help of a professional organizer to get their house working, many writers benefit greatly from the help of a developmental editor to get the structure of their manuscript working. I love working with clients on structure.

If you like organizing around your home, you might find this closet analogy useful as you revise your own writing for structure. If you hate organizing around your home, or already know you need a fresh brain to help, read on to get a sense of how I would support you to revise for structure.

Before we begin: Structure before or after drafting?

In reality, writers develop the structure of their work both before and after drafting. In some writing situations, a lot of the structure is given to you before you begin drafting. You might have to follow a dissertation template, for example, or readers in your discipline expect a standard problem-lit review-methods-results-discussion structure for your article. Other times, you really have to create your own structure that serves your purpose. This is the case with a scholarly book and with some dissertations. When you have to create the whole structure from scratch, it’s awfully hard to do it in advance unless you have a lot of experience with the genre, and even then the writing process has a way of bringing up stuff you didn’t anticipate when you created your original outline. So it helps to keep a flexible mindset and be open to revising for structure. From here on, we’re assuming you have a draft.

Pull everything out

If you’re going to organize a closet, the first step is usually to take everything out. Yes, you might be able to do some organizing with the stuff in the closet, but it’s harder to see (it’s dark in there!) and harder to make decisions. Taking everything out also really helps you gauge how much stuff you have—does all this stuff actually fit comfortably in this closet?

For many writers, the equivalent of taking everything out of the closet is often printing out the draft. Before or as you are doing that, check the word count of the whole document. It’s going to be either longer, shorter, or about the length it needs to be when its done. If you aren’t sure about the target word count of the finished product, find out! You need that information to make decisions. Crucially, if your draft is well over the target word count, you are looking for the stuff that doesn’t belong. If you’re short, you need to figure out what’s missing and expand.

Get containers of roughly the same size

When you have everything out of the closet, you can see what categories of stuff you have and about how much of each there is. You can assess whether any containers you have in the closet are sufficient for storing these different categories of things. Part of your closet reorganization project might involve getting some new containers.

With a draft, the containers are your sections and paragraphs. These containers are crucial for your readers to categorize the information you’re sharing, and readers expect containers of roughly the same size.

Look through your printout or check the word counts of sections and paragraphs on your computer. For any container that is much longer or shorter than the others, ask why. Perhaps one part of your argument is short on evidence. Maybe in another place you used more examples than you really needed. Find ways to get all containers similarly sized.

Make sure stuff is in the right container

Shoes and underwear might both live in the closet, but it doesn’t really make sense for them to be in the same container in the closet. We humans tend to be awfully good at sorting, and we typically want to have things that are alike in the same place.

With your sections and paragraphs, the contents within them need to be bound by a common purpose. They have to be working together to do something for the reader. Common purposes in academic writing are supporting arguments with evidence, defining key terms, critiquing opposing views, and so on.

For each section, make sure you know what the purpose is, and then make sure each paragraph is working for that purpose. With paragraphs, make sure you know what the purpose is, and then make sure each sentence is working for that purpose. Making notes on your printout can be really helpful here. Adjust the contents of your containers until you are satisfied everything is in the right place.

Put the containers in order for the reader

When you use a closet, you probably don’t have to go through all the containers in a particular sequence, but you do need to be able to find what you are looking for easily. If multiple people share the closet, the organizing principles need to make sense to all. Organizing principles have to be functional, and they can also be pleasing—like a closet with the clothes arranged by color.

Reading usually happens in a sequence, although of course there are exceptions, and your labels for your containers—section headings and subheadings—provide guidance for both sequential and non-sequential readers. Now that you have distinct containers each serving a specific purpose, you want to ask yourself if the order in which you are presenting these containers has a logic to it. If you see a clear logic, will your reader also see that logic?

Some of your purposes demand to be in a certain order. For example, most academic writers have to start off by hooking their readers with an interesting, important problem or puzzle worth reading more about. Additionally, you have to define a key term before you start using it. Often, you will find yourself with several examples that show readers something, and you need to decide what order to put those examples in. Chronological? Simple to more complex? Weaker to stronger evidence? Usually there are several good options, and you just have to choose one.

Try it

Once you have pulled everything out, gotten your similar-sized containers, wrangled the right stuff into the right containers, and put those containers in order, you have completed the task of revising for structure. You can test the structure by getting reader feedback, either friendly feedback or the feedback of the advisor, editor, or peer reviewer evaluating your work. You might end up reorganizing based on their feedback, but know that, for now, you’ve done your part.