Terry Critchley
Jul 28, 2017 · 1 min read

Hemingway and the article make good points but in science, and scientific type work, you need a structure to fit your wild thoughts into. This means pen and paper, writing a draft Table of Contents (ToC) to fit them in afterwards. You might even tag your thoughts with a pointer as you write them as to where it might fit, e.g. ‘risk analysis’ or ‘user friendliness’. My Latin master told us this many summers ago and it is a boon. You can revise the ToC but unless you have an idea of what major areas you want to cover, fitting them in afterwards is like trying to piece together a statue you have dropped or buying a load of quality spare parts and wondering how you might fit them together to make something useful.

    Terry Critchley

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