So you’re about to write a paper. Or a chapter. You’ve gathered together all of the stuff you think you need – analysed data, a short list of references to cite, some early jottings. Now you begin to think about doing some free writing to get into the swing of it. Or perhaps you might get straight to an outline or aTiny Text. 

Hang on a bit. Before you put the timer on, or start writing about context (the first move in an outline or Tiny Text) it might be quite helpful to consider a bit more structured writing-thinking work. It often helps to focus on what you want to say, why, how and to whom, right at the outset. So to that end, here are some relevant questions to ask yourself. I’ve adapted these from David Labaree, and added to them.

These five sets of questions…