Structuring your post

Thus far you have read about the building blocks of a text and you have analyzed a few posts. Now it is your turn. Before you start writing, first create a structure.

The first thing to decide when writing a text, is to establish its goal and main point or question. I usually first write a lead that starts at an everyday level and arrives in a clear main point or question. This can take some time and usually mutiple versions, but it pays. A good lead with a concrete main point or question, creates a clear frame around your text. It helps to decide what to put in and what to leave out. Sometimes, out of impatience, I skip this step. This results in much more writing time, more frustration, and a less clear end result.

When you have a clear idea about the main point and direction of the text, brainstorm about the possible ingredients. You can do this on post-it notes: one for each paragraph. Start with key words, then write topic sentences (or a sub-question that the paragraph answers). Shuffle the post-its around untill you have a logical order.

To do:

Create your text structure by filling in the following points:

• What is the text goal? Is your text
  • informative (your reader knows…),
  • opinionating (your reader thinks that…),
  • activating (your reader does…),
  • or entertaining (your reader had fun)?
• Lead, including main point/question
• Topic sentence of each paragraph
• Cosing: conclusion + present