Just as a constructor would hesitate to erect a home without a cautiously worked-out plan, so a author ought be loath to begin an report earlier he has outlined it fully. In planning a building, an architect thinks about how oversized a home his guest desires, how numerous rooms he must provide, how the space useable might best be apportioned one of the rooms, & what relation the rooms are to bear to one another. In outlining an article, likewise, a author wants to decide how long it must be, what material it ought include, how practically space ought be devoted to every part, & how the parts ought be arranged. Time spent in thus planning an report is time well spent.

Outlining the subject fully involves believing out the report from opening to end. The value of every detail of the material gathered must be cautiously weighed; its relation to the whole subject & to every section must be considered. The arrangement of the parts is of even bigger importance, since practically of the effectuality of the introduction will reckon upon a logical ontogenesis of the thought. In the last analysis, good composeing means understandable thinking, & at no stage in the preparation of an report is understandable believing more required than in the planning of it.

Amateurs sometimes insist that it is easier to compose without an outline than with one. It undoubtedly does take less time to dash off a special boast tale than it does to conveive out all of the items & then compose it. In nine cases out of ten, however, when a author tries to labor out an report as he goes along, trusting that his ideas will set up themselves, the result is distant from a clear, logical, well-organized introduction of his subject. The public disinclination to make an outline is normally based on the misfortune that most individuals undergo in deliberately believing about a subject in all its several aspects, & in becoming down in logical order the results of such thought. Unwillingness to outline a subject normally means unwillingness to think.

The length of an report is determined by 2 considerations: the aim of the subject, & the insurance of the publication for which it is intended. A oversized subject can’t be adequately treated in a concise space, nor might an significant theme be disposed of satisfactorily in a couple of hundred words. The length of an article, in general, ought be proportional to the sized & the importance of the subject.

The decisive factor, however, in fixing the length of an report is the insurance of the periodical for which it is designed. One favorite publication might publish reports from 4000 to 6000 words, although another repairs the limit at 1000 words. It would be rather as bad judgment to cook a 1000-word report for the former, as it would be to send one of 5000 words to the latter. Periodicals as well fix certain limits for reports to be written in fastidious departments. One monthly magazine, for instance, has a section of personality sketches which rate from 800 to 1200 words in length, although the else reports in this periodical incorporate from 2000 to 4000 words.

The practise of printing a column or 2 of studying subject on most of the advertising pages influences the length of reports in numerous magazines. To obtain an attractive make-up, the editors allow only a page or 2 of every special article, brief story, or serial to seem in the premier section of the magazine, relegating the remainder to the advertising pages. Articles must, therefore, be long plenty to fill a page or 2 in the premier section of the periodical & several columns on the pages of advertising. Some magazines use brief articles, or “fillers,” to furnish the required studying subject on these advertising pages.

Newspapers of the usual size, with from 1000 to 1200 words in a column, have bigger flexibility than magazines in the subject of make-up, & can, therefore, use special boast reports of several lengths. The arrangement of advertisements, even in the magazine sections, does not impact the length of articles. The only path to decide precisely the stipulations of another newspapers & magazines is to calculate the words in typical reports in several departments.

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