ClearTips: Riveting reports

5. Create a Paragraph-by-paragraph Plan

You now know roughly the number of paragraphs you will have in each section. The next step is to assign a topic to each of those paragraphs. What you will end up with is a list of paragraph topics in the order they will appear in your report, interspersed among your section and subsection headings—in short, a paragraph-by-paragraph plan of places to gather your material. Don't worry about getting the list of paragraph topics right the first time. The first list will suggest other topics in different order. And as you begin to write, many of the topics will be divided or collapsed. But the more time you spend on this, the more solid the structure of your argument.

Paragraph-by-paragraph plans can be made at any stage of the writing process. I often prepare one for manuscripts that I edit—to get me quickly up to speed on content, structure, and balance. But it is most helpful to make one in the planning stage, after you've determined your messages and section headings, and then revise it when you have completed your first draft. The revised one will help you stay aware of changes in structure and the continuing relevance of your messages. Showing your paragraph plan to the people who will be reviewing your report—or to your fellow authors in a group project—is a good way to have them buy into what you're planning write. It also allows them to comment before you've invested a lot of time in writing.

Here is the paragraph-by-paragraph plan for the Census Bureau's policy brief:

Introduction (no heading)

¶ 1. Summary of messages
¶ 2. Quotation from analyst Paul Campbell: "Keep in mind that these are just projections …"

Different paths to growth

¶ 3. California, Texas, and Florida take different paths
¶ 4. California's losses through interstate migration
¶ 5. Texas's gains from all three contributors
¶ 6. Florida's small natural increase
¶ 7. Biggest interstate migration-New York

27 Floridas

¶ 8. 27 states will have one in five people elderly
¶ 9. 21 states will double their 65 and older population
¶ 10. Youth population-Alaska will have largest gains

Big gains for Hispanics and Asians

¶ 11. Hispanics and Asians and Pacific Islanders—61 percent of the growth
¶ 12. Big gains in California and the East
¶ 13. Growth in Black population in Georgia, Texas, Florida, Maryland, and Virginia
¶ 14. Growth in White population in Florida, Texas, Washington, North Carolina, and Georgia
¶ 15. American Indian population rising
¶ 16. Campbell quotation: "What might seem unusual today will be usual tomorrow …"

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