Planning a first draft

In a nutshell

Planning a draft is a great way to begin a longer piece of writing. It simply means putting your ideas onto paper in a simple and organised structure that you can later use to guide you as you write. If you have a clear, well-ordered plan, your writing is likely to be clear and well-ordered too. This will make its purpose clearer and its arguments easier to understand.

Texts to plan for

Not all writing requires a plan. For instance, if you were writing a one-line answer to a question, the structure and argument of the sentence would be easy to keep track of without needing reminders. For longer, more complex pieces of writing, however, such as stories, essays or articles, a plan might be necessary. 

What does a plan look like?

Since the plan is for organising ideas into a structure before you start writing, it is often useful to lay out your ideas in a way that is visually easy to read. For this reason, it should not be a big chunk of writing and is rarely written out in full sentences. Instead, bullet-point lists, spider diagrams and mind maps, which all contain just the key information in them, are good examples of organised, visual plans. 

What to put in a plan

The plan should contain any key pieces of information you would like to put in the text you eventually write, known as your final draft. This could be notes, facts, arguments or evidence that is relevant to the purpose of your text. In fact, the purpose of your text should be the main priority of the plan - this way, your text will remain on track with its purpose when you start writing.

Example

Imagine you are writing an article about a football player who has inspired you. In your plan, you might add specific facts about that player's life that are inspirational to you. Part of the plan could look like this:

• Grew up with little money, now earns thousands and gives to charity
• Suffered a bad injury in 2019, but remained positive
• Won the Player of the Year award the next year

Analysis

The list format and shorter sentences of this plan help to clearly express the information needed for the article. This makes it easier to follow when writing later.