Writing planner: from ideas to a first draft

How to use it

1. On 1. Choose, pick what you are writing: a paragraph, a short essay, an email or message, a report, a story, a letter, instructions or something else. Add a title, who it is for and a length goal if you want to. All of these are optional.
2. On 2. Plan, answer the questions in your own words. Short and rough answers are fine. Use Skip for now on any question, add more points if you need them, or use Speak if your browser has speech recognition. You can also print a blank planning sheet and write by hand.
3. On 3. Order, your notes are cards. Move a card up or down, pick a linking word such as First or For example, choose where a new paragraph starts, join two cards, or split one at your cursor.
4. On 4. Draft, your words are joined into a draft you can edit. Read it aloud, copy it, download it as text or print it. If you edit the draft by hand, the tool does not overwrite your edits unless you choose Rebuild, and it keeps your edited version so you can bring it back.
5. The Before you finish list is a set of things to check. It has no score, and you can skip it.

Good to know

• This tool does not write anything for you. It asks questions, keeps your notes and puts them in the order you choose. The words it adds are the linking word you pick and a comma after it, a period at the end of a note that has no ending mark, and, for an email or a letter, a greeting and a closing (and a date for a letter). After a linking word it also makes the first letter of your note a small letter, unless the word is I, has a capital inside it (such as NASA), or you tick the box that says it is a name. Your cards are never changed.
• The tool does not check spelling or grammar. The boxes ask your browser to underline spelling mistakes, but browsers decide for themselves whether they do. MDN, a web standards reference, says the setting is only a hint, and that when a browser checks spelling the text may be sent to a third party. You can turn the underlines off in step 1.
• The linking words come from published lists of transitions. Each word in the menu appears in at least one of the lists linked under Sources. A comma after a linking word is the usual way to punctuate a word that opens a sentence. A writing center page says the comma is optional after a short opening phrase, so you may remove it in your draft.
• Greetings and closings follow a university guide to professional email and a Purdue page on business letters. A professional note starts Dear and a name, and a casual note starts Hi and a name. A professional email ends Best regards, a professional letter ends Sincerely, and a casual note ends Best wishes. If you leave the name empty in a professional note, the greeting is To Whom It May Concern:. A business letter has a colon after the greeting and an email has a comma. These are conventions, not rules. You can change any of them in the draft.
• The questions for each kind of writing are plain prompts written for this tool. The letter questions follow the order of the body of a business letter on the Purdue page: the main point, why it matters, the details, then what you want the reader to do. We make no claim that using this planner improves writing. It is a way to get started and keep your ideas in order.
• Word counts: a word is a group of characters between spaces that has at least one letter or number in it. For languages written without spaces between words, the count is not meaningful. A paragraph is a block of text with a blank line between it and the next block, so a title, a greeting or a sign-off also counts as one.
• If your browser has speech recognition, each question has a Speak button. By default, speech recognition on a web page sends your voice over the internet to an online service, so it does not work offline. Your browser chooses the service. Neuro-Common does not receive your voice or your words. If you would rather not, type your answers. Punctuation words such as period are typed as words here. The Dictation pad tool can turn them into marks.
• Everything stays on this device. Each kind of writing keeps its own plan, saved in this browser only. Clearing the site data removes them, so use Copy, Download or Print to keep a draft.
• The planning sheet and the draft print through the print window of your browser, where you can choose Save as PDF. The sheet has a box for each question and ruled lines to write on.
• Limits: a note holds up to 2,000 characters, a kind of writing holds up to 80 cards, a list of points holds up to 12, and a draft holds up to 40,000 characters.

Where this comes from

• Purdue Online Writing Lab lists transitional words and phrases by purpose, including First, Next, Then, Later, Finally, Meanwhile, In addition, Besides, For example, For instance, However, On the other hand, In contrast, As a result, Therefore, Lastly and In conclusion: Purdue OWL: Transitional Devices
• A University of Victoria handout lists transitions by purpose, including After that, Also, What's more, Most importantly, In particular, Even so, For this reason, In summary and To sum up: University of Victoria: Transitions (handout)
• A writing center page says to use a comma after introductory words such as however, nonetheless or furthermore, and says a comma after a short introductory phrase is optional: Use Commas After Introductions, from the writing center at phsc.edu
• A university fellowships page on professional emails names the greetings Dear and Hi, the closings Best regards, Sincerely and Thank you, says Best wishes is for casual personal emails, suggests To Whom It May Concern: for a company, and says to end with your name: Grand Valley State University: How to Write Professional Emails
• Purdue Online Writing Lab explains the parts of a basic business letter: the date, a salutation with a personal title and last name followed by a colon, a closing followed by a comma, and a body that opens in a friendly way with the main point, explains why it matters, gives details, and ends by restating the purpose and asking for action: Purdue OWL: Writing the Basic Business Letter
• MDN explains that the spellcheck attribute is only a hint to the browser, and that spellchecking may send the content of the element to a third party: MDN Web Docs: the spellcheck global attribute
• MDN explains that by default speech recognition on a web page sends audio to a web service, so it does not work offline: MDN Web Docs: Using the Web Speech API
• The dysgraphia guide
• The dyslexia guide
• The ADHD guide
• The dyspraxia guide

More tools

General support only. These tools are not medical, legal or diagnostic advice, and they do not replace professional help. If you are in crisis, go to Crisis help.