A suggested bottom-up/reverse outlining workflow for structuring your ideas.
Bottom-up vs top-down structuring (i.e. reverse outlining vs. outlining)
This is a bottom-up (reverse outlining) approach. Use it when you have raw material (notes, data, literature, messy drafts) but the narrative structure isn’t clear yet.
If you already know exactly what claims you’ll make and in what order, use top-down outlining instead: sketch the IMRaD sections and subsections first, then write the paragraphs to fit. Top-down is generally easier once you’re experienced with writing papers in your field.
How to structure your ideas
Readers have certain expectations of where they’ll find information. That means you need to organise your information following these expectations.
Step 1: Braindump all content
Dump all the information you have gathered throughout your research into a document, and organise by Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion. This is the content you’re going to work with.
Don't know where something should go?
Create an extra section ‘Unassigned’ for information that doesn’t have a destination yet.
Step 2: Organise into subsections
Take a look at the IMRaD sections. This will tell you what information needs to go where roughly: in which paragraphs and subsections.
Subsection or paragraph
I use the terms subsections and paragraph, but they are slightly different units. Subsections are things like the ‘current state of knowledge’ (see: IMRaD sections). Subsections can contain multiple paragraphs, where each paragraph defends its own specific claim (e.g. the current state of knowledge and gaps can contain multiple paragraphs, each arguing their own gap).
Step 3: Identify key points
For each paragraph, distil the key point that you’re trying to get across.
For the Introduction and Discussion, that will most likely be a claim you’re making or a conclusion you want to support. For the Methods, it will be probably simply be a topic sentence announcing which procedure you’re going to explain in that paragraph. In the Results, it will likely be the main result, which you’re going to explain using the your underlying findings.
See also:
Step 4: Support key points
Then, check if the information you’ve provided supports that point, or if you’re missing steps in your logic (e.g. you might need more literature or you’re making too big a conceptual jump in your reasoning). This is key for the Introduction and Discussion.
Use bullet-points
If you place each sentence in a bullet point, it is easier to move them around that if you’re working with a dense paragraph. It also allows you to check if your sentence is making one claim or multiple claims (which can hide your reasoning).