1. Use brain teasers with built-in outlines

Classification, comparison, contrast, alternate viewpoints, and asking questions create a structure by their nature. You may have to consolidate or rearrange a bit, but they point you toward a narrow thesis and an outline. For example, if you do classification brain teaser on “Death,” you may classify different ways people behave while dying.

Calm—death is natural, a part of life

Begging forgiveness—to make up for wrongs

Humor—playing a joke

Religious—death leads to afterlife

This is already an outline. You only need to make a thesis assertion and find examples to illustrate each heading, and you are ready to write.

However, one danger of using brain teasers with built-in outlines is falling into a cookie-cutter approach: stamping out outlines without thinking of your message first.

2. Make a bullet summary from your brain teasers or freewriting

A “bullet” is a little dash, star, or box. Read through your brain teasers or freewriting, and on a separate sheet of paper, write the highlights in list form, starting each one with a bullet. Imagine that your notes are a lecture from which you are trying to pick out the key points for a test. These should be ideas, not details—for they are your potential outline headings and should summarize other items. If you end up with more than four or five headings for a short paper, try combining some. Les than three headings means you may need another idea or two.

3. Use clustering or do a visual diagram.

Write your general topic in the center of a clean page and then draw lines out, like radiating spokes from a wheel hub, to related ideas. It stimulates ideas (as brain teaser does) yet keeps the key topic at the center of focus. Each item must connect to another by a line—either to the central topic or to any radiating headings. Go through your brain teaser lists and assign each item a place on the cluster sheet. Try connecting each item to headings first. If it does belong, connect it with a line to the main topic. When done, you’ll have a visual representation of your ideas—where you have most ideas, what fits what.

Your last step is to decide what order the outline headings should follow. Don’t worry about the order of details. You can always re arrange them to come up with the most creative idea.