Do you remember writing essays when you were in school? If you were like me, you tried to avoid doing an outline until you were eventually forced to as part of a larger research paper. Outlining can feel like a pain at times, but it serves a very important purpose. It helps you lay out your thoughts and figure out the direction of your paper before you start writing. By writing down your thoughts, you can see where you want to take the reader, where you are missing important information, and what needs to be clarified. Outlines save time and help you write faster by putting in some initial work upfront. It also helps make your writing more coherent and flow from topic to topic. Outlines are foundational and serve as a roadmap for an individual piece of content. In school, that is often sufficient since papers are assigned, are designed to stand alone, and are for an audience of one (the teacher or professor). In marketing, outlines and content briefs are still essential for...
