Outlines

Doc Searls wrote the other day that "[b]logs are outlines, and blogging is a form of outlining."

My question is, are blogs any different from so many other forms of writing in this respect? At least in the non-fiction world, content organization is a hallmark of good, clear writing. Fiction writing forms may have different rules, but I'd guess they also depend on some kind of organization. The practice of organizing ideas into writing can itself contribute to analytical thinking. Some of my best thinking has been done while my fingers have been working a keyboard -- usually while drafting revisions, since the first paragraphs on the page are almost always crap.

Prof. Lawley's son Alex (6) asked her, "Mom, why does everything have to have an outline?" While we can't really tell if he was talking about the kinds of things that people in the weblog world are talking about, Alex's and Doc's remarks do make me wonder. Perhaps everything does have an outline, if outlining is just one of the ways that we engage in abstract thinking about the world we're in. We make the outlines, and we revise them as we learn and experience more.

Yes, this is a rather Deweyan or Kuhnian notion, but that won't come as a surprise to those who know me.