Why You Should Create Annotated Outline to Plan Your Articles! And How to Create One.

Writing takes planning; learn how to organise your ideas.

I have published over 70 tech articles over the past two years, 40 here on Medium and another 30+ as a Freelance tech writer for various tech companies. Over time, I have built a small routine for writing articles. The annotated outline is one technique that contributes the most to my productivity.

The annotated outline is one of those approaches that help improve the quality of your writing. I learned this approach to writing during my Master’s thesis as a student. Annotated outlines are usually meant for long-form content such as theses, books, and articles, where prior organization and validation are crucial to accomplishing the task. They are very helpful for any writing.

Since we are not aiming to write dozens of pages, we can allow ourselves to be loose with the exercise rules while keeping the key reflection steps involved. As a result, this mini-course aims to teach you what those steps are and why they will help you.

Why You Should Create an Annotated Outline

When writing a 1500-word article, my annotated outline usually represents 500 words. Once I finish the outline, it is just a matter of shaping the…