Storyline: A Guide to Writing an Essential Summary of Your Paper's Argument
You are planning to write a long text like a paper or research proposal?
Start by writing down its "Storyline" (or "Roter Faden" in German).
It captures the key argumentative flow of your planned text.
It takes the reader by the hand and guides them through your argument.
It's a very short text, around 300 words for a full paper.
Each sentence is also as short as possible.
Usually, it's just a main clause (Hauptsatz).
Avoid relative clauses with lots of commas.
This helps you keep your thinking and writing clear.
But write full sentences, not just bullet points.
Also, tie each sentence to the one before with "argumentative glue code" where possible.
Examples are "Therefore", "However", "Furthermore", "For example", and "But".
Each sentence should follow logically from the one before.
Some sentences will be claims that need a reference to back them up.
Just mark such sentences with "[]" at the end.
That indicates that you have a reference.
Put each sentence on a line by itself.
This lets you rearrange your argument easily.
A Storyline will help you express your argumentative flow as clearly as possible.
It also helps you remember your core argumentative flow when writing your paper or video script later.
And it's a great document to introduce coauthors or advisors to your paper plan.
Plus, it works like an early paper prototype:
It encourages high-level structural feedback instead of detailed comments.
Add it to your Overleaf project as "storyline.txt" at the root level.
This helps everyone find it again.
This guide itself is an example of a Storyline.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” ―