Sometimes, we can feel unsure of our own argument even though we’ve already written a draft. It is fairly common to complete a draft of something without articulating an argument, or to be unsure of whether we actually addressed the topics we wanted to. In cases like this, we recommend an exercise called “inventorying,” which asks you to list your goals for an essay or project in order to assess how to achieve them.

In his book “On Revision,” William Germano describes inventorying as a way to organize your thoughts and materials when you are doing research. It serves as a summary of what you want to talk about in the final version of your essay. Germano divides inventorying into topics, ambitions, and arguments.

The advantage of inventorying over a post-draft revision strategy like reverse outlining is that it is less focused on structure. While structure is important, sometimes you don’t have a strong enough idea of your argument, even when you have a full draft. In this case, inventorying helps you return to what you know you want to address, information that can help you to assess the writing you already have. In this exercise, we adapt inventorying into a chart so that you can better see what your goals are for a piece when it is only partially done.

Step 1: On Excel or on a sheet of paper, make three columns. Label the first column “Topics”, the second “Ambitions”, and the third “Arguments.

Step 2: In the “Topics” column, list all of the subjects you want to include in your piece. Let’s use a made-up essay about restaurants in a Brooklyn neighborhood as an example. Subjects could include:

– list of restaurants in the area,

-history of “Joe’s Pizza”, my central example

– essay on loss of “third spaces”

– history of gentrification in the neighborhood

-interview with the owners

You’ll notice these topics are not arguments or points you want to make; they are subjects or pieces of information you want to address.

Step 3: In the “Ambitions” column, list your goals for the piece. Unlike “Topics”, “Ambitions” are goals you have for the paper itself, for example:

• • Give a clear picture of the neighborhood and why it’s become less prosperous
  • I’m writing a history of X neighborhood in Brooklyn through its restaurants. Tell the story of “Joe’s” and situate it as an example of the central problem (small businesses going out of business)
  • Connect that example to the larger problem (city disinvestment/local populations getting priced out) and offer solutions to the problem
  • Finish by March 25

Here you are beginning to organize the information you have into arguments you want to make. You can also include deadlines or other practical barriers.

Step 4: Now it’s time to fill in your third section, “Arguments.” You may want to re-read your paper at this point, writing down the arguments you are already making. To these you can add the arguments you want to make: what do you want to say that’s not yet being said? Another way of thinking about this section is “what am I doing?”

Where ambitions are general goals you have for your project, your arguments are the specific claims you’re making which fulfill those goals.

For example:

• • I am using “Joe’s Pizza” as an example to demonstrate that gentrification has destabilized small businesses in the area through economic and cultural changes
  • Arguing:
    • Groups of residents can’t afford basic needs and so businesses lose $$
    • We should address this through policy changes like…
    • Ways individuals can address the problem

Notice we say “Arguments”, plural; you can include your overall thesis, but you can and should address other arguments you’re making or arguments that you need to make to support your thesis.

The example we’ve been using would now have a chart that looks like this:

Step 5:  Now you have an inventory, to be used as a specific reminder of what you are arguing and what phrases and sub-arguments you are using to do so. It represents a scaled-down version of all the information you’ve collected for this project (what Germano calls an “archive”).

One application for this inventory is as a way to refine your current draft into a more succinct argument. Having distilled the most important information and arguments here, re-read your draft. For each body paragraph, assess whether it is contributing to 1) one of your ambitions or 2) one of your arguments. I.e., does it lay out your goals for the project? Does it provide evidence that supports one of your arguments? If you have many unmarked paragraphs that do neither, those are potential places to cut in order to better focus your argument on its main points.

If you’ve created an inventory and now have insights you want to incorporate into the structure of your draft, consider using the reverse outlining strategy in “Is Your First Draft Disorganized? Reverse Outlining as a Method to Discover Structure.”