Pain or Gain? How Business Communication Students Perceive the Outlining Process

Abstract

This study investigates how students perceive the outlining process. Students in two business communication sections completed a survey regarding outlining perceptions and reasons for outlining or not. Using qualitative content analysis and qualitative coding, the researcher and an independent coder analyzed 34 students’ responses regarding outlining process, use, and reasons for outlining or not. Results indicate that students perceive outlining as more useful if their outlining process includes both organization and content exploration and less useful if it excludes organization or content exploration. Notable reasons for not outlining include concern for outlining time and difficulty generating content for the outline.

Keywords

outline outlining process structure organization content exploration

Open almost any business writing textbook to find instruction related to outlining (Bovée & Thill, 2018;Guffey & Loewy, 2015,2016;Hartley & Bruckmann, 2004;Lehman & DuFrene, 2011;Locker & Kienzler, 2013;Means, 2010;Munter, 2012). On the surface, outlining seems simple: It is a strategy for creating a hierarchical writing plan (Kellogg, 1990). Its benefits also seem clear: Outlining has correlated with higher writing productivity (Kellogg, 1986), more efficient writing (Kellogg, 1988), more highly evaluated writing (de Smet, Broekkamp, Brand-Gruwel, & Kirschner, 2011;Kellogg, 1987), and higher writer satisfaction (Torrance, Thomas, & Robinson, 2000). However, despite its apparent simplicity and benefits, some students still choose not to create outlines for their writing (Walvoord et al., 1995). This paradox leaves business communication instructors wondering how students perceive the outlining process, so they can motivate students to engage in outlining to realize its benefits, all while recognizing that some students may benefit more from other planning, organizing, or drafting techniques.

Existing studies on outlining provide valuable insight into the results of outlining but little insight into what motivates some students to outline or dissuades other students from outlining. These studies focus on outlining in use, which reveals the effects of outlining on writers and their writing. However, because the studies focus on the results of outlining, they assume writers have already chosen to outline or not; therefore, the studies provide little understanding about how students perceive outlining and about reasons that initially drive their choices to outline or not. Additional understanding of how students perceive the outlining process and their reasons for choosing not to outline could help instructors address possible misperceptions and concerns about outlining; in addition, insight into reasons students choose to outline could help instructors understand how to motivate them to engage in outlining to realize its benefits. Therefore, the purposes of this study are to investigate how business communication students perceive the outlining process and their reasons for outlining or not.

Literature Review

Outlining is a process that culminates in a written outline (Walvoord et al., 1995, p. 400). Besides reports on the teaching of various processes for outlining and resulting anecdotal student perceptions (King, 2012;Price, 1997), little business and professional communication (BPC) research exists related to students’ perceptions of the outlining process. BPC research does report on professionals’ use of outlining in their writing processes (Henry, 1998;McKee, 1972). In addition, researchers from composition and psychology have analyzed students’ use of outlining as part of their broader writing processes (Flower & Hayes, 1980,1981;Kellogg, 1987,1988,1990;Torrance et al., 2000;Walvoord et al., 1995). Therefore, this literature review will situate the present study’s argument within studies related to how professionals and students use outlines in their writing processes. However, the role of outlines in the writing process is still in debate, so this section will review the debate and its possible implications for motivating students to engage in outlining.

Professionals’ and Students’ Use of Outlines

The few studies that exist on outlining in BPC scholarship suggest that professionals and students engage in outlining beyond early planning stages in writing. Professional writers have reported that while outlining is important, other activities, including conducting research, taking notes, and thinking, occur often before outlining (McKee, 1972;Selzer, 1983). Other BPC practitioners have reported outlining, drafting, and then revising outlines (Henry, 1998). These studies indicate that before outlining, professional writers spend time exploring, researching, and even drafting content. Previous research on student writers reveals similar results. In their study of undergraduate writers across multiple disciplines, including business,Walvoord et al. (1995)found that students outlined at multiple points in their writing process—both before and after drafting. The role of outlining in the professional-writing process thus appears to be much more detailed, recursive, and persistent than the creation of a single, nonspecific organizational form that students are sometimes assigned to submit prior to writing.

Business communication students’ use of outlining may be informed by what they learn in their business-writing textbooks.Bovée and Thill (2018)discuss outlining as a planning activity in their three-part writing process of planning, writing, and completing, and they note that outlining will help business writers be more efficient and effective.Munter (2012)refers to outlining in the organizing stage of her five-part composition process of researching, organizing, focusing, drafting, and editing, and she suggests that outlining will help business writers organize and plan their writing.Locker and Kienzler (2013)mention outlining as a planning activity, yet they observe that it need not necessarily come before or after other activities in the writing process. They note that many authors do not outline when prewriting, asserting that outlining may set up false expectations about content and organization and hinder writers if they must alter their original outline when writing. In contrast,Carter (2012)mentions outlining as an essential organizing activity, noting that it can help writers increase the logic and impact of their messages. Yet she recommends that as students begin drafting, they add detail and content to their initial basic outlines to facilitate easier writing. These textbooks thus generally present outlining as a planning or organizing activity that takes place prior to writing; yet individual textbooks suggest that outlining may not be restricted to the planning stages in writing, as research studies byMcKee (1972)andWalvoord et al. (1995)indicate. In addition, they suggest that outlines need not simply consist of only nonspecific main points and that not all writers outline when prewriting.

Previous research further suggests that outlines function varyingly in individual students’ writing processes, withWalvoord et al. (1995, pp. 406-413) finding that student writers used outlines in five ways. First, outlines provided a nonspecific format, with students creating few hierarchy levels in the outline and writing general headings such ascounterargumentrather than a specific counterargument related to the paper. Students rigidly followed their format in their research and writing, sometimes to the detriment of exploring or generating productive ideas. Second, outlines connected content to organization, enabling some students to break down the rigid structure of the nonspecific format. These students researched and connected their content to any applicable general heading, rather than rigidly exploring ideas in the order the headings appeared in their outlines. Students also left space in their outlines for adding content, and some revised their outlines, exhibiting an adaptive approach to outlining. Third, outlines helped students organize content not only under nonspecific headings but also under specific subheadings. For example, under the general counterargument heading, students might list counterarguments specific to the paper. Students also used outlines to organize their ideas and research, ultimately helping them categorize and hierarchically arrange their ideas into subcategories under general headings. Fourth, outlines provided students with forward-looking direction for writing. Finally, outlines provided milestones for backward-looking satisfaction. The researchers also found that students used outlines differently in various situations hinging upon outlining instruction received, paper length, and paper genre (Walvoord et al., 1995, p. 403). These findings indicate ways students use outlines in their writing processes, but further research is needed to understand how students perceive these functions—whether beneficial or otherwise.

Outlining’s Role in the Writing Process

The preceding studies suggest that outlining is more complicated than simply creating a list of points in hierarchical format. Given the various ways students use outlines,Walvoord et al. (1995)suggested that outlining be viewed less as a product and more as a strategy (p. 416). Outlining as a strategy argues against current traditional views of writing instruction in which outlining would be treated as a product (Connors, 1981;Young, 1978). It argues for a process-oriented view of outlining—not just as part of a broader writing process that may involve gathering information to write about, creating a writing plan, translating that plan to writing, and reviewing what was written (Emig, 1971;Kellogg, 1988), but as a process in and of itself. While aware of postprocess views of writing instruction that might critique social, interpretive, and contextual aspects of outlining (Blyler, 1999;Kent, 1999), I review literature in this next section that explores outlining from a process view, both as part of a writing process and as a process in and of itself.

Outlining processes include both generating and organizing content, and research into these processes has led to differing perspectives on outlining among researchers. Three perspectives are presented here that focus on the relative emphasis writers should place on organization and content when composing: one perspective suggesting that students should outline first, a second perspective suggesting that students should draft first, and a third perspective suggesting that students should both explore content and outline together. Each perspective is attended by its respective benefits and difficulties that could motivate some students to choose to outline or not, so this section presents each perspective and then its implications for outlining.

Outline First

The first perspective is the outline-first drafting strategy (Hayes, 2006), which suggests that developing an outline before drafting may benefit writers. Since writers may experience cognitive overload when writing (Flower & Hayes, 1980), outlining first may help writers by storing their ideas in a plan that frees up memory for other writing tasks (Kellogg, 1990). Outlining first assumes a linear approach to writing, enabling students to better focus attention on each successive step in the writing process (Kellogg, 1990). This eased cognitive load could result in better writing quality, sinceKellogg (1987)found that for writers in outline and no-outline experimental conditions, the overall writing of those in the outline condition was evaluated more highly (p. 287). From a cognitive viewpoint then, outlining captures writers’ ideas and moves them to external storage, enabling writers to reallocate their focus to other writing tasks.

Draft First

The need to define structure prior to writing has been questioned, and the draft-first perspective suggests that students lose certain benefits if they outline first.Elbow (1998)has argued that outlining reverses the natural writing process since writers have content to outline only after they generate that content. He thus proposed a drafting process in which students immediately begin writing and then let their understanding and organization of content emerge through subsequent revisions (Elbow, 1998). This process thereby reinforces the recursive nature of writing (Hayes, 2006;Kellogg, 1990). The draft-first perspective thus assumes the benefit that ideas and organization naturally develop from exploring and generating content.

Explore Content and Outline

The third perspective harmonizes the outline-first and draft-first perspectives by suggesting that both outlining and content exploration are necessary; emphasizing one over the other could erode the benefits of outlining. Related to the outline-first perspective and diverging fromKellogg’s (1987)findings,Torrance et al. (2000)found that outlining alone did not tend to increase overall writing quality. In addition, students who reported outlining and then having content and organization emerge when writing reported a higher level of difficulty and time spent on their writing. The researchers hypothesized that these students may have initially been motivated to succeed in their writing and, therefore, created an outline; however, when translating the outline to writing, they discovered that their outline was insufficient to produce an effective document (Torrance et al., 2000). Related to the draft-first perspective,Torrance et al. (2000)found that independent of outlining, students reported experiencing significantly lower writing enjoyment when their ideas and organization developed as they wrote. These students also reported significantly greater writing difficulty and received no significant increase in writing quality for their efforts (p. 192). Thus, a third perspective emerged that harmonized the outline-first and draft-first perspectives. The researchers examined outlining in connection to “content exploration” activities such as rough drafting, mind mapping, and brainstorming (Torrance et al., 2000, p. 196). They found that students who both outlined and explored content received significantly higher grades than those who outlined absent of content exploration. Higher quality came with a price, however, because students who engaged in both outlining and content exploration rated their writing as more difficult and reported more time spent on writing than those who outlined and wrote without previously exploring content (Torrance et al., 2000). Engaging in both outlining and content exploration demands time and effort, but benefits include higher quality writing and, presumably, sufficient content for students to translate from outline to writing.

Implications for Outlining

The three perspectives reside on a spectrum, each differing in the relative emphasis it places on organization (a process that involves mapping, framing, selecting main points and subpoints, and finding main point and subpoint topics) and content exploration (a process that involves brainstorming, drafting, researching, thinking about, figuring out, or reading about content). On one side of the spectrum resides the outline-first perspective, the immediate product of which is an outline, a form that demands the organization of content into a hierarchical structure. When using this strategy, students could plausibly see outlines as emphasizing organization more than content. Furthermore, if an instructor assigns only an outline for a rigorous research assignment without requiring evidence of the researched content that supports the outline, students could plausibly create an outline without engaging in content exploration. Many students are familiar with common topics of invention, and in good faith they could quite easily create an organizational form that includes headings for an introduction of the topic at hand, a compare and contrast of differing views on the topic, and a conclusion that summarizes the views in the paper. (My own experiences as a student can attest.) As supported byTorrance et al.’s (2000)study, content exploration can be decoupled from outlining, yet students who reported outlining absent of content exploration received lower marks on their writing. Students who create only an outline without exploring its underlying content may, therefore, fail to garner the benefits of outlining.

On the other side of the spectrum resides the draft-first perspective, the immediate product of which is a draft, a document that demands the exploration and development of content in a written form.Elbow (1998)assumed that students generate and discover their organization as part of the drafting process. However, that organization could shine through less clearly in some students’ drafts than in others. In addition, if an instructor assigns only a draft of a rigorous research assignment without requiring evidence of the outline that supports the draft, students could plausibly create the draft without consciously organizing the content. Students face time and task constraints and may generate drafts just days or hours before they are due; as a result, the thoughtful organization that instructors hope for and expect may not take shape.Piolat and Roussey (1996)found that drafts of students’ essays exhibited varying levels of organization, but the presence of organization in drafts positively affected the students’ grades on their final essays, regardless of draft size. If students draft without otherwise organizing their writing, their writing may be evaluated less positively. Students who decouple content exploration activities from organization activities using a draft-first strategy may thus have a less positive writing experience than those who engage in both activities.

In the middle of the spectrum resides the perspective that students should engage in both outlining and content exploration, the product of which is an outline based on content. By actively engaging in both activities, students could perceive outlining as comprising both organization and content exploration. Through content exploration, students increase the likelihood of having enough content both for outlining and for translating their outline to writing. In addition, because they actively organize their writing, students increase the likelihood that their writing exhibits the organization their instructors seek. As findings fromTorrance et al. (2000)suggest, engaging in both processes could take more time and be more difficult for student writers; however, the benefit could be higher grades.

While proponents of the three perspectives may have no intention of placing varying emphasis on organization and content exploration, students may still perceive and put into practice these different emphases. When they do, some student writers could become disenchanted with the outlining process when they, for example, experience organization without content exploration. One management communication scholar noted that sometimes “we put a Roman numeral ‘I’ at the top of the page, sketch out a first major point, and then hope everything else will fall into place” (Clayton, 2002, p. 3). In the absence of content exploration as part of the process, some outlining experiences could be frustrating, causing some writers to doubt the usefulness of outlining or give up on outlining altogether.

Given the possible varied emphases of the three perspectives and the lack of research into students’ perceptions of the outlining process, business communication instructors are left to wonder how their students perceive the outlining process. Understanding what students perceive outlining to be (whether organization only, content exploration only, or both organization and content exploration together) would provide instructors with insight into how to effectively teach outlining to their students. Thus, the purposes of this study are to investigate how business communication students perceive the outlining process and to investigate the reasons these students provide for outlining or not. With these purposes in mind, here are the research questions this study seeks to answer, with the first two focusing on perceptions and the second two focusing on reasons:

Research Question 1:What are business communication students’ top-of-mind associations with the termsoutlineoroutlining?

Research Question 2:What do business communication students perceive their outlining processes to be?

Research Question 3:What reasons do business communication students provide for outlining or not outlining?

Research Question 4:How do business communication students’ reported outlining processes compare to their use of outlining and their perceived usefulness of outlining?

Research Design and Method

As a student, manager, teacher, and researcher, I experienced varying benefits and difficulties in my own use of outlining. I determined to investigate my students’ perspectives to aid my teaching of outlining and to inform my research on outlining. I thus approached this study as Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research, which aims for valid and increased comprehension of learning (Potter & Kustra, 2011), an approach thatPope-Ruark (2012)has argued for BPC scholars to adopt to aid their teaching and research. By understanding students’ perceptions of outlining and reasons for outlining or not, business communication instructors can adapt their teaching of outlining to meet some students’ needs and to anticipate and address other students’ concerns about outlining.

Site and Participants

The research site for this study was the classroom of two business communication sections at a large U.S. state university. Although the course was business related, students came from business, engineering, science, and the humanities. Research participants were recruited using a convenience sample of my own students (Wrench, Thomas-Maddox, Richmond, & McCroskey, 2013), a practice accepted for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research (Pope-Ruark, 2012). Recruiting university students for writing studies is common (Torrance et al., 2000;Ward, 2009), since these studies seek to benefit the writing instruction of students. All institutional review board–mandated policies were followed strictly through the design and administration of the study. Thirty-seven individuals voluntarily chose to participate.

Instrument

Similar to previous outlining and writing studies (Hartley & Branthwaite, 1989;Torrance et al., 2000), this study utilized survey methodology (Plumb & Spyridakis, 1992). The survey was an in-class reflection (see theappendix). Survey questions included (a) open-ended questions to capture students’ perceptions of outlining, their outlining process, and reasons for outlining or not (Plumb & Spyridakis, 1992) and (b) a 5-point Likert-type questionnaire to measure students’ perceived usefulness of outlining (Wrench et al., 2013). The Likert-type scale was coded so that higher scores represented more perceived usefulness. Students entered their responses into the online survey tool Qualtrics.

Data Collection

Students took the survey prior to receiving any outlining instruction in the course, thereby preserving their original perceptions of outlining. A research assistant administered the survey to students in a computer lab after I exited the room. Students filled out all responses online, taking approximately 10 minutes. Of the 37 students who consented, there were 34 who took the survey.

Codebook Development and Data Analysis

To answer Research Question 1 investigating what students associate with the terms outline or outlining, I used coding procedures common to qualitative data analysis to analyze students’ responses to the survey’s first question: “What comes to mind when you hear words such as ‘outline’ or ‘outlining’?” To conduct the analysis, I followed coding steps prescribed byBlakeslee and Fleischer (2010): first, identifying themes; second, identifying categories within the themes; and lastly, coding the data. AsBlakeslee and Fleischer (2010)suggested, I recursively read and analyzed the data, engaging with it on several occasions to find the themes and categories that seemed most descriptive of the associations. The number of responses related to each association varied; therefore, in the Results, I detail associations based on frequency of response, omitting some associations that students mentioned less frequently. Some responses included multiple associations and thus received multiple codes. For example, a student’s response of “The basic rough draft of a paper. It is the main points allowing you to later expand on it” was coded twice aslacking specificityandaiding writing.

To determine students’ perceived outlining processes and thereby answer Research Question 2, I used qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005;Neuendorf, 2017) to analyze student responses to the survey’s question “Imagine that you have been asked to create an outline for an upcoming writing assignment. What steps would you most likely follow to create the outline?” Content analysis enabled me to create categories to associate with students’ reported use and usefulness of outlining (see Research Questions 3 and 4). I developed codes following a directed approach to content analysis, which draws on existing theory to inform codes (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005); consequently, I formed codes deductively from the preceding literature review (Elbow, 1998;Flower & Hayes, 1980;Kellogg, 1987,1990;Torrance et al., 2000). To code the data using the resulting codebook, I normed on a sample of three responses with an independent coder, a doctoral student studying rhetoric and professional communication who had previously taught business communication. After norming, the independent coder and I separately coded the data, agreeing on 26 of 34 responses, or 76% agreement and intercoder reliability of .6 as measured by Cohen’s kappa (Cohen, 1960). We discussed disagreements and refined the codebook accordingly. Using the final codes and definitions reflected inTable 1, we independently coded a second time and agreed on 31 of 34 responses, or 91% agreement and an acceptable Cohen’s kappa of .85 (Landis & Koch, 1977). Given the high levels of agreement, we discussed and agreed on the remaining three responses.

Table 1.

Codes and Definitions for Outlining Processes.

Code title	Definition
Organization only	A student’s description of an outlining process that reports the student engaging only in organization. Organization may include outlining, mapping, framing, selecting main points and subpoints, and finding main point and subpoint topics. The description does not report the student engaging in content exploration.
Content exploration only	A student’s description of an outlining process that reports the student engaging only in content exploration. Content exploration includes thinking about content, figuring out content, brainstorming content, reading about content, drafting content, and researching content. The description does not report the student engaging in organization.
Both organization and content exploration	A student’s description of an outlining process that reports the student engaging in both organization and content exploration.

To answer Research Question 3 investigating reasons students provided for outlining or not outlining, I first determined which students reported using outlining. To determine students’ reported use, I used qualitative content analysis to create subgroups of students’ responses to the first part of the open-ended question “Do you generally outline your writing? Why or why not?” Students did not always state only yes or no; therefore, I developed a coding scheme to identify and code responses. I developed codes through a conventional approach to content analysis, which allows codes to “flow from the data” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p. 1279); therefore, I formed codes inductively after reviewing the data. To code the data using the resulting codes and definitions (seeTable 2), I normed on a sample of three responses with the independent coder. We then independently coded the data, achieving agreement on 32 of 34 responses, or 94% agreement and an acceptable Cohen’s kappa of .91 (Landis & Koch, 1977). We discussed and agreed on the remaining two responses.

Table 2.

Codes and Definitions for Reported Use of Outlining.

Code title	Definition
No	A student reports not generally outlining his or her writing.
Yes	A student reports generally outlining his or her writing.
Depends	A student reports sometimes outlining his or her writing, depending on the writing situation and context. The situation and context might include assignment requirements, timing, or length of the writing to be outlined.

Using the resulting three groups, I further analyzed the second part of the open-ended question “Do you generally outline your writing? Why or why not?” To determine the reasons students reported, I used qualitative coding procedures similar to those I described to answer Research Question 1. This coding process enabled me to determine the reasons the students reported for outlining, not outlining, or sometimes outlining.

To further assess reasons students outline or not, I followed a similar qualitative coding process to analyze answers to the survey questions that asked students to think of the benefits and difficulties they had experienced when outlining and of situations in which they think outlining would be useful or not useful. No clear patterns emerged among students who reported outlining, not outlining, or sometimes outlining, with students from almost all groups reporting the benefits and difficulties. Therefore, outside of a detailed breakdown by groups in their associated tables, I report the benefits, difficulties, and situations for use from all students without respect to their reported outlining use.

Research Question 4 investigated whether students’ reported outlining processes related to their use or perceived usefulness of outlining. To determine perceived usefulness of outlining, I analyzed students’ quantitative responses to this survey question: “How useful do you view outlining to be in your writing? Please indicate on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least useful and 5 being the most useful.” To relate these usefulness ratings to students’ reported outlining use, I compared the average ratings of the three groups that emerged from Research Question 3 (students who reported outlining, not outlining, or sometimes outlining). To relate these usefulness ratings to students’ reported outlining processes, I compared the average ratings of the three groups of students that emerged from Research Question 2 (students whose outlining processes involved organization only, content exploration only, or organization and content exploration).

Findings

In this section, I report what students associated with the terms outline or outlining (Research Question 1), what students reported as their outlining process (Research Question 2), what reasons students provided to explain why they outline or not (Research Question 3), and how students’ outlining processes compare to their use and perceived usefulness of outlining (Research Question 4).

Research Question 1: Association With Outline or Outlining

The survey presented an open-ended question asking students what they associate with the terms outline or outlining. Students associated these terms with organizing, prewriting, lacking specificity, and aiding writing (seeTable 3).

Table 3.

Students’ Associations With the Terms Outline and Outlining.

Association	n(%)
Organizing	11 (32)
Prewriting	10 (29)
Lacking specificity	9 (26)
Aiding writing	5 (15)

Note.Some student responses included multiple associations and thus received multiple codes.

Organizing

Out of 34 students, 11 (32%) associated outlines with organization. Students frequently mentioned the wordsorganization, organize, ororder, with other students mentioning the wordsstructureorframe. Some students even described how the outline itself would be formatted, such as “creating a way to organize a writing using uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers.” These students focused on the function of outlining, suggesting they perceived outlines as promoting organization.

Prewriting

Ten students (29%) associated outlining with prewriting, or a process that occurs before writing. As one student noted, outlining is “something you do before you write a paper.” Another student observed, “What comes to mind is how you start a paper. You begin with getting all of your basic ideas down and start formulating what you want your paper to look like.” These students focused on the temporality of outlining, with outlining occurring before writing.

Lacking Specificity

Nine students (26%) associated outlines and outlining with generality or a lack of specificity. For example, one student reported this association: “Generalizing the idea of a subject without too much detail.” Other students reported associating outlines with “the basic content of my paper” and a “summary of bullet points.” Other students focused on main points, for example, “writing main points and terms of a text.” These students focused on level of detail, suggesting they perceived outlines as providing a high-level view of their content.

Aiding Writing

Five students (15%) associated outlines with aiding writing. These students usually first mentioned the lack of specificity of outlines or the organizing potential of outlining, after which they expounded on how the resulting outline would enable their writing. For example, one student associated, “The basic rough draft of a paper. It is the main points allowing you to later expand upon it.” Another student wrote, “Putting your thoughts in order so that it will be easier to write a paper in order.” These students mentioned a goal of outlining, which they perceived as facilitating writing.

Research Question 2: Perceptions of the Outlining Process

While Research Question 1 explored students’ associations with outlining, Research Question 2 explored students’ perceived outlining processes. The survey prompted students to describe the process they might follow if they were asked to create an outline for an upcoming writing assignment. Three groups of students emerged: (a) students who would only organize, (b) students who would only explore content, and (c) students who would both organize and explore content (seeTable 4).

Table 4.

Frequency of Students’ Reported Outlining Processes.

Outlining process	n(%)
Organization only	16 (47)
Content exploration only	4 (12)
Both organization and content exploration	14 (41)

Organization Only

Of the 34 students who responded, 16 (47%) would engage in organization only (a process that involves mapping, framing, selecting main points and subpoints, and finding main point and subpoint topics). These students tended to use words such asmain points, topics, categories, andsubcategories. For example, one student reported, “I would create a document, map out the introduction, main points, then conclusion, then make subcategories under each main category.” The student viewed the outlining process as an opportunity for mapping out a plan for the eventual paper, and the student did not report exploring content as part of the outlining process. This organization-focused group represented the largest percentage of students in the study.

Content Exploration Only

Responses coded as engaging in content exploration (a process that involves brainstorming, drafting, researching, thinking about, figuring out, or reading about content) represented the smallest group, with only four students’ responses (12%) falling within this category. These students mentioned drafting or generating their ideas without any mention of organizing those ideas. A student’s response exemplifies this group: “I would start with a rough draft in writing and form some ideas first, and then once I have a more concrete idea, I would type it.” This student reported exploring content through drafting, yet the student reported no organizing activity. The small size of this group suggests that relatively few students perceive outlining as only content exploration.

Both Organization and Content Exploration

Content analysis revealed that 14 students (41%) would engage in both organization and content exploration. In addition to mentioning words related to organization, these students reported searching for content and frequently used words such asread, brainstorm, research, andthink. The following response illustrates this outlining process:

First, I would brainstorm an idea and think through the process of how I would like to discuss my thoughts. Then I would jot my ideas down on paper, reorganizing them as I review them. Next, I would start to fill the outline out with more description and details. Lastly, I would review my outline and make sure that the information I am presenting is being adequately organized.

The student described a process of content exploration through brainstorming ideas, thinking, and filling out the outline with content. The student then described a process of organization through reviewing. This group was the second largest, suggesting that many students perceive outlining as consisting of both organization and content exploration.

Research Question 3: Reasons to Outline or Not

The survey next prompted students to provide reasons for outlining or not. Open-ended questions elicited responses related to whether students outline, what their reasons are for outlining or not, when students believe outlining would be useful or not useful, and what benefits and difficulties they have experienced when outlining.

Outlining Use

AsTable 5reflects, 15 (44%) out of 34 students reported not outlining their writing, whereas 12 (35%) outline and seven (21%) sometimes outline. In addition to asking students whether they outline, I asked them to detail why they choose to outline or not. Depending on whether students outline, their responses differed.

Table 5.

Frequency of Students’ Reported Outlining Use.

Outlining use	n(%)
Do not usually outline writing	15 (44)
Do usually outline writing	12 (35)
Sometimes outline writing	7 (21)

Do Not Outline Reasons: Time and Preference for Free Writing

When asked to justify why they outline or not, eight (53%) of 15 students noted their belief that outlining takes too much time. As one student noted, “I prefer to just get straight to the point because outlining seems like a waste of time to me.” Five students (33%) also stated their preference for rough drafting or for thinking about ideas free of form. One student in this group noted, “I generally just write out all my thoughts as they come then go back through and try to make some sense out of them.” The main reasons given by this group of students for not outlining were thus that outlining takes too much time and that they prefer other planning or drafting strategies.

Do Outline Reasons: Organization, Focus, and Ease of Writing

Of the 12 students who indicated they do outline, five (42%) reported that they outline because it helps them organize their thoughts and their writing. As one student noted, outlining “makes my writing more organized and it flows better.” Three students (25%) reported that outlines keep them focused and on track in their writing, with one student noting that outlining “helps me focus my attention on main points.” Two students (17%) noted that outlines make writing easier because they provide content to expand on. As one student noted,

It is easier to plan out how I write so I don’t have to sit at the computer trying to think about what I need to write. With an outline, I can quickly look at the heading and subtopics and form sentences and paragraphs around them.

This group reported outlining because of a better organized product and because of various benefits to them as writers.

Sometimes Outline Reasons: Requirement, Length, and Time

Of the seven students who reported sometimes outlining, four (57%) reported that their use of outlines depends on whether the outline is required for an assignment, two (29%) said it depends on whether the writing task is short or long (with students reporting using outlines for longer assignments), and two (29%) reported that they outline if they have time. For example, one student stated, “I do if I have the time to.” Another student wrote, “I usually only do it when it is required.” Thus, these students outlined or did not outline depending on situational factors related to requirement, length, and time.

Situations of Use

To better understand reasons why students may or may not outline, I specifically asked students to describe situations when outlining would be useful or not. Based on responses from all students, the reported situations predominantly focused on length and genre.

Length

Of 34 students, nine (26%) viewed outlining as more useful in situations when the resulting writing was long because outlines resolved problems caused by length. For example, one student suggested that length causes a writer difficulty in keeping track of ideas: “Outlining would be useful in any important document that is long enough that causes you not to be able to think about everything included at one time, for example research papers.” Other students observed that outlining longer documents could “help you to think of all the ideas you could possibly put in the paper” and could help “gather all of your information and figure out a way for it to flow and make sense, without just struggling to sift through all of your information while writing.” These responses suggest that the usefulness of outlining is not only driven by length but also by situations in which the writer is unable to think of all the content for a document at once, needs to generate content, or needs to determine an organizational strategy separate from content.

Ten students (29%) viewed outlining as less useful in situations when the resulting written product was short because outlining such documents seems unnecessary. Students noted that outlining short documents would be “a waste of time” because it is “easier to just begin writing instead of trying to outline them beforehand.” Another student similarly observed, “It takes more time to make an outline than to write a paper.” Other students mentioned that outlining shorter documents is unnecessary because these documents usually require “no in-depth thinking” or because the outlining process can be done “quickly in one’s head.” These students thus suggested that if outlining would take longer than writing the paper, then no outline is needed; in addition, if the final product demands little thinking or if the outline could be processed in one’s mind, then outlining is unnecessary.

Genre

Students reported specific genres when describing situations when outlining would be useful. They associated these genres with both length and importance. Of longer genres that would benefit from outlining, students mentionedpapersorresearch papers19 times. Students also associated the idea of importance three times with research papers, suggesting that the more important the paper, the more useful an outline might be. Of genres that would benefit less from outlining, students mentionedemailsthree times,lettersthree times, andmemostwo times. At least one student used the adjectiveshortwhen mentioning each of these three genres.

Benefits and Difficulties

To better understand reasons why students may or may not outline, I asked students to describe the benefits and difficulties they had encountered when outlining their writing. The following benefits and difficulties reflect categories in the responses from all students.

Benefits: Organization, Eased Writing, Focus, Overview, Time Savings, and Idea Repository

Similar to the reasons that students provided for outlining, students most frequently reported organization as a benefit of outlining, with 11 (32%) of 34 students reporting an organized paper as a benefit and three (9%) reporting organized thoughts (seeTable 6). In addition, six students (18%) reported that outlining eases the writing process, and five students (15%) reported that outlining helps them and their writing to stay focused and on track. Beyond benefits already mentioned, seven students (21%) reported that outlining provides a clear overview of their writing. For example, one student stated that outlining makes it “easier to see the main topics,” while another stated that outlining makes it “simple to look back and figure out what is where and if something doesn’t fit correctly.” Six students (18%) reported outlining saving them time. This perceived benefit of outlining saving time contrasts with the perception that outlining takes more time, as reported in a preceding section as the most frequent reason for not outlining by those who do not outline. Four students (12%) reported the benefit of an outline acting as an idea repository. One student appreciated how an outline preserves ideas across time, reporting, “If I am unable to work on the writing assignment in one sitting, outlining allows me to have all my ideas together.” Thus, students see benefits of outlining as it promotes organization and focus, eases and overviews writing, saves time, and functions as external memory.

Table 6.

Benefits Students Reported Experiencing When Outlining (by Outlining Use).

Benefit	Do outline	Do not outline	Sometimes outline	Total
Organized paper	4	6	1	11
Clear overview of writing	2	3	2	7
Eased writing	2	2	2	6
Saved time	2	3	1	6
Focus	2	2	1	5
Idea repository	1	1	2	4
Organized thoughts	0	2	1	3

Note.Some student responses included multiple benefits and thus received multiple codes.

Difficulties: Time, Content Generation, Organizing, Starting, and Translating

Students also reported the difficulties they encountered with past outlining. Overall, the difficulties centered on the experiences the writer had when writing the outline and when writing the final product (seeTable 7).

Table 7.

Difficulties Students Reported Experiencing When Outlining (by Outlining Use).

Difficulty	Do outline	Do not outline	Sometimes outline	Total
Taking too much time	3	3	1	7
Coming up with material and main points for outline	4	1	0	5
Organizing material for outline	2	2	1	5
Starting outline	3	1	0	4
Having enough material to translate outline to writing	1	2	1	4

Note.Some student responses included multiple difficulties and thus received multiple codes.

When outlining, students reported difficulties related to time, content generation, organizing, and starting. Similar to the reason students provided for not outlining, students reported most frequently that time was a difficulty they faced when outlining. Seven (21%) of 34 students reported outlining taking too much time. Students also faced difficulty coming up with material for the outline. Five students (15%) noted the difficulties of coming up with material for the outline, with three of these students (9%) specifically noting the difficulty of coming up with main points or topics. For example, one student stated, “Sometimes it is hard coming up with the topics ahead of time when you are writing a paper.” Other students found it difficult to know how to organize content once they had it for their outline. Five students (15%) reported difficulties organizing content, an idea exemplified by one of the students: “It was difficult to come up with ideas and sometimes difficult to decide how I wanted to organize the outline.” While students faced difficulty generating and organizing content during their outlining processes, others faced difficulty starting the process. Four students (12%) reported this difficulty, which was described by one student this way: “Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out where I should start and what exactly I should put as main ideas and what I should put as supporting details.” These students thus faced difficulty getting started, generating and organizing content, and investing necessary time.

Students faced difficulty not only outlining but also translating an outline to writing. Four students (12%) reported that they did not have enough material to write about their main points. One student noted the difficulty of “putting something on my outline, then finding out there wasn’t enough information on that topic so [I] had to scratch that area, then find something different.” Given students’ reported difficulty of generating content for an outline, it is not surprising that students also reported the difficulty of translating an outline to writing; if there is little content for an outline, there will be little content to translate into the final product.

Research Question 4: Relationships Among Outlining Processes, Use, and Perceived Usefulness

After discussing the benefits and difficulties of outlining, students were asked to rate the usefulness of outlines on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 beingnot useful, 3 beingsomewhat useful, and 5 beingvery useful. With all students combined, the average usefulness rating of outlining was 3.76 (N= 34,SD= 1.02), suggesting that, on average, students saw outlining as more useful than not useful. The students’ ratings of usefulness can be broken down into finer detail based on previously discussed groups.

AsTable 8shows, 16 students reported engaging in organization only when outlining, and their average usefulness rating was 3.69 (n= 16,SD= 1.08). In contrast, the four students who reported engaging in content exploration reported an average usefulness rating of 3.00 (n= 4,SD= 1.41). For the 14 students who reported engagement in both organization and content exploration, their average usefulness rating was 4.07 (n= 14,SD= 0.73). Thus, some association appears to exist between outlining process and perceived usefulness.

Table 8.

Average Student Perception of the Usefulness of Outlining (by Outlining Process).

Outlining process	n	M	SD
Both organization and content exploration	14	4.07	0.73
Organization only	16	3.69	1.08
Content exploration only	4	3.00	1.41

Outlining use can also be associated with students’ perceptions of outlining usefulness. As noted previously, 15 students self-reported not outlining their writing, 12 reported outlining their writing, and seven reported that their outlining use depended on various factors.Figure 1displays the usefulness rating of each of those three groups. Theyesgroup rated outlining the highest at 4.42 (n= 12,SD= 0.90), thedependsgroup second at 3.86 (n= 7,SD= 0.90), and thenogroup third at 3.20 (n= 15,SD= 0.86). Although these answers are not surprising, they suggest that students’ perceived usefulness of outlining corresponded to their use of outlining. In addition, this relationship suggests that students reported reliably across the multiple survey questions.

Figure 1.

Students’ perceived usefulness of outlining (by outlining use).

Conclusions and Implications for Teaching

Previous research on outlining has focused on outlining in use, but little is known about how students perceive outlining. The objectives of this study, then, were to better understand business communication students’ perceptions of the outlining process and their reasons for outlining or not.

Research Questions 1 and 2 investigated how business communication students perceive the outlining process. Nearly a third of students associated the termsoutlineandoutliningwith prewriting and organization, suggesting that students perceive outlining as an organizational form that they produce prior to writing. The prewriting association disagrees with BPC scholarship that reports professional use of outlining as a recursive process that extends beyond early planning stages in writing (Henry, 1998;McKee, 1972;Price, 1997). Students’ perceptions of outlining as a prewriting activity may thus not prepare them for professional writing situations. When outlining is determined appropriate for an assignment, instructors may better prepare business communication students for workplace outlining by encouraging students to recursively outline throughout their writing process.

The data also indicated that students perceive their outlining processes in three ways: as organization only, as content exploration only, and as both organization and content exploration. Of these processes, more students reported their outlining as involving organization only or as involving both organization and content exploration than as involving content exploration only. These data corroborateWalvoord et al.’s (1995)finding that student outlines functioned as rigid organizational forms or as fluid flexible forms that bridged content and organization. These findings also supportTorrance et al.’s (2000)conclusion that not all students engage with content when they outline. Business communication students, therefore, have varied preconceptions of outlining that instructors should acknowledge and address if they choose to teach outlining.

Research Questions 3 and 4 focused on understanding why business communication students outline or not. The data indicated that students most frequently report not outlining because of time. However, when all students reported the benefits they have experienced from outlining, they reported outlining as saving them time. These findings are significant because while previous studies have measured time and outlining in relation to writing efficiency (Kellogg, 1987,1988), no previous studies have expressed the extent to which students are concerned with time when outlining. To overcome students’ concern with time, instructors could motivate some students to outline by helping them understand outlining research related to time. Specifically, students may benefit from knowing that overall writing time in outline and no-outline groups has been found to be the same, and that outlining is a time investment not only toward organization of an outline but also toward a higher quality written product (Kellogg, 1987). Instructors might also emphasize other benefits mentioned by students in this study that could accrue from investing time in outlining: promoting organization in both the writing and the writer’s thoughts, easing the writing process, keeping the writer and the writing focused and on track, and functioning as an idea repository.

In addition to the time it takes to outline, students reported that they sometimes outline because the writing assignment is long, and when asked to describe situations when outlining might be useful, students viewed outlining as more useful in situations when the resulting written product was long. This finding corroborates results fromWalvoord et al. (1995), who found that only 14% of business students in their study created an outline for a one-page paper, in contrast to 77% of the business students who created an outline for an eight-page paper. In this study, students tended to associate longer length with papers and research papers, and thus saw outlining as more useful in writing situations demanding these genres; in addition, students tended to associate shorter length with memos, emails, and letters, and thus saw outlining as less useful in writing situations demanding those genres. Thus, if instructors assign business communication students to outline for longer documents that require research, such as analytical reports, recommendation reports, or business plans, students could find the outlining process more useful for these genres. When assigning outlines for shorter documents such as memos, emails, and business letters, instructors should be sensitive to students’ perceptions by providing a more thorough rationale for outlining or by varying the way the outline is produced. For example,Kellogg (1988)found in an experimental study that writers of shorter papers experienced similar benefits when producing a mental outline as writers who composed a written outline. For shorter documents, instructors could thus assign a mental outline, possibly reported orally in class, as opposed to a written outline.

Finally, students reported difficulties with generating material and main points for an outline and not having enough material to write about when translating the outline to a final paper. Both difficulties likely stem from students not exploring content prior to outlining, a phenomenonFlower and Hayes (1981)described when students tried to create an outline based on content with which they were not yet familiar. Furthermore, this study’s results indicate that students report outlining as more useful when they perceive their outlining process as consisting of both content exploration and organization as opposed to only one or the other. To help students engage in both content exploration and organization when outlining, instructors could teach students outlining strategies that emphasize both activities. Such strategies might include reverse outlining a draft that students write first and organize second (King, 2012), bottom-up outlining a draft for which students first brainstorm details then form categories second (Baker & Baker, 2015), clustering ideas that connect to a main point (Rico, 1983), or brainstorming ideas that emerge from an understanding of a document’s audience (Wagner, 1994). By coupling the organizational affordances of outlining with content-generating activities, students may perceive outlining as more useful and experience fewer difficulties with generating material for outlines and translating them to writing.

Limitations and Future Research

This study is not without its limitations. The sample size was relatively small, making it adequate for qualitative coding but less generalizable to other populations beyond the two sections of a business communication course where the data originated. In addition, the sample size limits the statistical inferences that can be drawn between subpopulations uncovered in the quantitative data. The results from this study can help researchers understand some business communication students’ perceptions of their outlining processes and the benefits and difficulties of outlining, but more research is needed to generalize the findings.

These data also relied on students’ self-reported perceptions that could be prone to bias or error. However, future researchers could build on the study’s findings to understand how these perceptions translate into actual use. For example, controlled experimental studies could assess whether using the three outlining processes uncovered in this study influence the reported benefits, difficulties, and usefulness of outlining. Future studies could also explore relationships between the three outlining processes and the length or genre of the writing tasks.

Time also emerged in this study as a major factor that deters some students from outlining. Previous experimental research compared drafting and outlining and found that because outlining increases writing efficiency, students’ overall writing time does not increase when they outline (Kellogg, 1987). The research accounted for students’ use of outlines but not for students’ differing outlining processes. The findings in this study suggest that students’ outlining processes vary, so future work is needed to explore business communication students’ use of various outlining strategies and their influence on writing time.

While no one approach to writing exists and students may have other drafting, planning, and organizing techniques that work better for them, previous research suggests that writers may garner many benefits from outlining. This study provided insight into how students perceive their outlining processes and into their reasons for outlining or not, including the benefits and difficulties they report experiencing when outlining. To help students more fully engage in outlining to gain its benefits, instructors can use this study’s results to assuage students’ concerns about outlining and to tailor their instruction to their students’ various perceptions of outlining.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank many colleagues for providing comments on this article; Jill Grauman, who served as intercoder; and the editor and reviewers for their time and helpful suggestions.

Author’s Note

A previous version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, Tampa, FL, 2015. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Iowa State University (Approval No. 14-043). Participant comments are reproduced by permission.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Matthew J. Baker

Author Biography

Matthew J. Bakeris an assistant professor in the Linguistics Department at Brigham Young University, where he teaches editing and publishing. His research interests include professional communication and editing.

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