How I Structure My Writing

The author says that she learned to write early, did many research papers and, later, used APA format and psychological research a lot in college. She uses this experience to explain how she organizes technical texts when she needs to unlock an idea.

Reading notes

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• The author says that she has practiced writing for a long time and associates this with school, college and research papers.
• She explains the 3-3-11 structure for a paragraph, with a thesis, three points, three sentences for each point and a final closing sentence.
• In the example about svadhyaya, she uses the structure to show how a single paragraph can defend a point about the eight limbs of yoga.
• In longer essays, she expands the thesis into an opening paragraph, follows with paragraphs about each point and closes with a conclusion.
• She states that, in technical texts, the structure helps think about the main points before writing more.
• In tutorials, the thesis describes the final result and each section develops a step of the process, including what was used and what needed to be figured out to complete the stage.
• In walkthroughs, she writes the process more loosely, almost like a record, because code rarely follows a straight line.
• When the text gets long, she suggests turning the introduction into a summary with links to the sections and treating headings as summarized theses.