Outlines are useful in academic writing generally, but especially in projects like ours. We’re on a short timeline with multiple authors. The outline provides a top-level view to make sure that every topic is assigned to a team member and gets written.

The purpose of the outline is to limit the writer’s options, which can be both a source of frustration and a benefit. You might love this step of the process because it involves planning and scaffolding the content for your audience. You might also be itching to get started writing and just figure it out as you go.

Stephanie Lenox, Instructional Editor, recommends embracing structure because “limitation produces better, more deliberate results.” At the same time, you can write down your brilliant and creative ideas in your {Course #} Parking Lot document as they come to you so that they don’t get lost. If you do this, go quickly. Write down what will jog your memory when you come back to it later, then get on with your outline.

Note: It’s common to use the terms “outline” and “table of contents” interchangeably, but these two terms are distinct because they describe different functions.

• A table of contents is a record of what has been written. Its main audience is the reader, and its purpose is to help the reader find what they need within the text.
• An outline is a plan for what will be written. The outline comes first and goes through multiple iterations before eventually establishing what will appear in the table of contents.

Often authors will review the table of contents in existing OER to plan their own outline. This can be a valuable way to build on the work of others. Existing tables of contents can also provide a baseline of what is currently available so you can differentiate your equity-minded outline.

Your Outline Audience

The first audience for the outline is the author team, and its purpose is to help you, the authors, decide what goes into the book and what to leave out. When you start drafting your outline, you are writing for this internal audience.

After the author team has used the outlining process to define the scope of the book, you will continue to use it to keep your chapter structure consistent while you write separately.

Later, your outline will go to external audiences for a few different reasons.

Peer Reviewers and Workforce Advisory Board members will provide feedback on your entire {Course #} About This Book document. Peer Reviewers are other Oregon instructors who will weigh in on whether the textbook described in your document would work for their course – or if not, what changes would be needed for them to be able to adopt it. Workforce Advisory Board members are professionals who work in fields that students in your course might choose to work in. They will provide feedback on language, content, and relevance to their work. The feedback from external reviewers will inform revisions to your outline and affect the textbook you eventually write.

If you bring on additional contributing authors at any point in your project, your outline will orient them to the overall project and provide details on their writing assignment.

Later, your revised outline draft will be shared with potential Pilot Instructors. It will help them decide whether the textbook will work for their courses.

What’s Included in the Outline

Your outline will include the following elements to support the purposes described in the section above.

• One-sentence argument explaining the point of view of each chapter for your peer reviewers
• Chapter-level learning objectives
• Key terms
• Required chapter elements
• Sentence fragments with enough information to let the reader understand what each subsection is about (in other words, not a one-word topic)

To see where you’re headed, return to the completed About This Book sample document for Mental Disorders and the Criminal Justice System [Google Doc]. We directed you to this example in Unit 1; please take another look now with a focus on the outline section.

The later sections of this unit will show you exactly how to develop each element of your outline.

Licenses and Attributions for Outlining Your Textbook

Open content, original

“Outlining Your Textbook” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open content, shared previously

“Outlining Your Textbook” introduction is adapted from Course and Textbook Development Pathway by Stephanie Lenox, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0.