How You Organize Your Content Matters. Here's Why.

Recently, I was reading a textbook on conflict resolution. In the preface, the authors admitted that the chapters had been organized arbitrarily.

I shook my head as I read that.

Unless you’re in the brainstorming or free association stage, the way your content is organized shouldn’t be arbitrary. Organizing your content effectively, especially if it’s long-form, like articles or textbooks, is critical to ensure your audience understands you.

Read on to learn why organizing your content effectively matters and how to do it.

Why Effective Organization in Writing Matters

Take a moment to think about the last thing you read that didn’t seem to flow well. The ideas didn’t seem organized. Most likely, it left you feeling confused. You might have even been annoyed that you wasted your time reading when you could have been doing something else.

You don’t want people to feel that way about your writing. What you want them to do is say, “Wow, that makes sense. I learned something from that.” Making sure your ideas are well-organized and flow from one to another is the best way to do that. 

Organizing Your Writing Effectively

You’re probably thinking, “Doesn’t organizing my writing effectively depend on the topic at hand?”

No. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing about. Whatever topic you choose, there’s going to be a main idea, and all subsequent ideas flow from there.

I’ll illustrate with an example. Let’s say I’m writing about generative AI and how to use it for creating content. I’d start by introducing what generative AI is, how it works, and popular applications. Then, I’d talk about best practices for using generative AI in writing. Next, I’d discuss the risks of not following those best practices. Finally, I’d conclude with the importance of following those best practices, especially as generative AI evolves.

I start with an idea, and then I link it to the next idea that makes sense, and so on and so forth. But this doesn’t just apply to writing about generative AI. It applies to anything—I could be writing about hedgehogs or genetics or race cars. As long as ideas flow logically from one to the next, the topic doesn’t matter.

How do you know if your ideas flow logically? What if what you think is logical actually isn’t? First, create an outline. Start off with your main idea, then add your second idea, and so on and so forth. After you’ve drafted your outline, take a break. Then, read it over with fresh eyes. You might realize that some things don’t flow as well as you think they did.

Second, ask someone to read over what you’ve written. They’ll be able to tell you whether what you’ve written makes sense.

“What if I have more than one main idea?” you ask.

You might have more than one main idea but ask yourself what you want to communicate to the audience. What do you want them to think after they finish reading what you’ve written? Will they be confused by more than one idea? It might be worth breaking your two main ideas down into two separate pieces of content. I’ve realized that sometimes it makes more sense to write two blog posts about a topic because the two main ideas are too much for one post.

Make the Right Choice for Your Writing

Ask yourself this: do I want my writing to sound arbitrary? Or do I want my readers to come away with the sense that I’ve presented a coherent, well-organized argument?

Arbitrary organization in writing is an accident, but if you publish it, it’s a choice. You’re choosing to tell your readers you don’t care. I’m pretty sure that’s not the impression you want to make.

Well-organized writing is also a choice. It’s a choice that says to readers, “I respect your intelligence and your time. I’m going to present you with something valuable.”

When it comes to your writing, which choice do you want to make?