The NewView Keyhole Outline

By Bill Drew - Jul 14 , 2008

In the 1970′s, a school teacher by the name of Sheridan Baker used a form he called The Keyhole to teach how to write essays. I’ve taken that keyhole form and I’ve done several Additions plus Reorganizations and Substitutions to make The NewView Keyhole Outline, shown just to the right, here (about 100 years ago, many keyholes had this outline –trust me on this). I’ll explain it to you, and you’ll be able to use it as a set of “practical rules” to help organize your articles and essays.

Like many writing instructors, Baker didn’t give a compelling reason for beginning the introductory paragraph with a generalization, but here’s the NewView rationale—

Since you’re going to be giving a NewView, you need to clearly identify the OldView that the NewView is related to, so there is no mistake–no false assumptions–and both you and your readers are clear about what you already share.

And, of course, in your Thesis and the rest of the paper you’re going to do a NewView Option on that OldView: You’re going to Reverse or Add or Subtract or Substitute or Reorganize that OldView in some way. So it’s best to be clear right up front about just what that OldView is that you’re using as your starting point.

For instance, your NewView might be, “But I hate fruit diets, particularly diets involving apples, bananas, and pears.”

So your beginning OldView generalization could be, “Diets are great, and I’ve used more than one diet to lose weight.”

Because probably 70-80% of all adults have probably dieted at one time or another, most people will relate positively to that OldView statement and will probably be interested in hearing more about your experience with diets. That’s a great tie-in to an OldView shared by lots of people, and it’s a natural, generalized point at which to begin working down to your specific NewView Thesis.

The Thesis example, here, “But I hate fruit diets, particularly diets involving apples, bananas, and pears,” is both a Reverse NewView and a Subtraction NewView. The sense of the OldView is that the writer likes diets, but the writer’s NewView Thesis Reverses that by saying he hates a particular diet. Narrowing, lessening, reducing that hate to just a fruit diet is a NewView Subtraction.

Now, I realize I haven’t shown you, yet, how to actually pick an OldView and make a NewView out of it. I’ll do that next week. For now, I just wanted to share the big picture of there being a repeatable, reusable form—the NewView Keyhole Outline—that helps you take any new idea and put it in a flexible, content-friendly form.

Next post, I’ll finish discussing how to use the rest of the NewView Keyhole Outline.

Copyright ( C ) 2008 by William R. Drew Jr. All Rights Reserved.