Section 4: Creating an Outline
Writing a textbook—whether you’re using AI or not—always starts with a strong outline. It’s like building a house: you need the blueprint before you start putting up walls. ChatGPT is an incredible tool for generating ideas and drafting sections, but it thrives on structure. While it’s great at creating short chunks of text, it struggles with producing long, coherent sections like a 1,000-word chapter all at once. Without a clear outline, you’re likely to end up with a jumbled mess of text that lacks focus or consistency. By breaking your textbook into smaller, structured pieces, you can give ChatGPT the guidance it needs to deliver useful content.
Think of ChatGPT as your overenthusiastic assistant: it’s great at giving quick answers or definitions, but it needs direction to stay on task. A detailed outline ensures that everything fits together seamlessly, chapter by chapter, while also helping you avoid unnecessary repetition. A well-organized roadmap not only keeps the big picture in focus but also sets you—and ChatGPT—up for success in creating a polished and coherent textbook.
Step 1: Start Big—Define the Book’s Purpose, Title, and Learning Outcomes
Before diving into the details, start with the big picture. Ask yourself: What is the purpose of your textbook? Who is your audience? These foundational questions will help shape the tone, content, and structure of your book.
For example:
- Title: Foundations of International Relations: Theory, Practice, and Pop Culture Analogies
- Purpose: A textbook designed for introductory IR courses that explains key concepts and theories in a simple, accessible way, with examples from pop culture to keep students engaged.
Once you’ve clarified the purpose and title, take it a step further by defining learning outcomes for the textbook as a whole. These outcomes articulate what students should know or be able to do by the end of the course and keep your writing focused. Examples of textbook-wide learning outcomes might include:
- By the end of this textbook, students will be able to identify and compare major theories of international relations.
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of how globalization impacts state sovereignty and international cooperation.
After establishing the book-wide outcomes, create chapter-specific outcomes for each major topic. For example, if you’re writing a chapter on realism, your learning outcomes might look like this:
- Define realism and its core principles, such as power, anarchy, and national interest.
- Analyze examples of realism in historical and contemporary international politics.
- Compare realism to other IR theories, like liberalism and constructivism.
These learning outcomes will act as guideposts, ensuring that each chapter and subsection directly supports your goals. They’ll also help you keep the content relevant and purposeful as you (and ChatGPT) write. By starting with a clear title, purpose, and learning outcomes, you’ll create a strong foundation for a well-structured and engaging textbook.
Step 2: Outline Major Chapters
Next, sketch out the big sections of your textbook. These are your chapters. If you’re unsure what topics to include, ChatGPT can help! For instance, ask:
- “What are the major topics covered in an introductory International Relations textbook?”
- “Suggest chapter ideas for a social sciences textbook on global politics.”
Use these suggestions as a jumping-off point. You can also look at existing OER textbooks, like those from OpenStax or LibreTexts, to get inspiration.
For example, here’s how I outlined a few of the major chapters for my IR textbook:
- Defining International Relations Through Global Disasters and Film
- Theories of International Relations & Zombies
- The State in International Relations: Nationalism and State Power in Dystopian Futures
Each chapter should tackle one broad topic, which you’ll break down further in the next step.
Step 3: Break Chapters into Sections and Subsections
Now that you have your chapters, it’s time to zoom in. Social sciences, for example, are often structured around concepts, so I broke down each chapter into smaller subsections.
Example: Chapter on Key Theories of IR
- Broad Chapter Topic: Key Theories of International Relations
- Subsections:
- Realism
- Liberalism
- Constructivism
- Marxism
- Feminism
For each subsection, I added a short list of key terms or ideas to explore further.
Example Subsection: Realism
- Key Terms to Define: Power, National Interest, Anarchy, Balance of Power, Security Dilemma
- Use ChatGPT to help with definitions:
- Prompt: “Define ‘security dilemma’ in simple terms suitable for first-year students.”
- Result: “The security dilemma is when one state increases its military strength to feel more secure, which makes other states feel threatened and do the same, creating a cycle of tension.”
- Review and revise these AI-generated definitions to fit your personal teaching style or preferred academic perspective.
Step 4: Use ChatGPT to Refine and Add Detail
Once you have a detailed outline, you can use ChatGPT to help flesh it out further. For instance:
- Ask for a draft section: “Write a brief introduction to realism in international relations for a textbook aimed at college freshmen.”
- Brainstorm examples: “Give examples of realism in pop culture or movies that students might recognize.”
- Create consistency across chapters: Use the outline to ensure key terms are defined once, then referenced or built upon later without unnecessary repetition.
Step 5: Keep a Birds-Eye View
One of the major benefits of creating a full outline upfront is that it helps you see the “big picture” of your textbook. ChatGPT is great for writing smaller pieces (like a subsection on Realism), but it doesn’t always think holistically. With a detailed outline, you can:
- Avoid repeating key terms or concepts across multiple chapters.
- Maintain a logical flow of ideas from one chapter to the next.
- Ensure the tone and level of detail are consistent throughout the book.
Step 6: Finalize the Chapter-by-Chapter Outline
Once you’ve created detailed subsections and added key terms, you should have a fully fleshed-out outline for your textbook. For example:
Chapter 2: Key Theories of International Relations
- Subsections & Key Terms
- 1: Case Study- Zombie Apocalypses and “World War Z” – A global zombie pandemic sparks resource competition, state collapse, and military conflicts, testing the capacity of international institutions to manage existential threats.
- 2: Realism
- Realism – An IR theory emphasizing the competitive and conflictual side of international relations, focusing on power, national interest, and state survival in an anarchic system.
- Hard Power – The use of military force, economic sanctions, or coercion to influence the behavior of other states.
- Security Dilemma – A situation where one state’s actions to increase its security leads to other states feeling less secure, potentially causing an arms race.
- Zero Sum- When one state’s gain directly results in another state’s loss, with no net benefit for both parties.
- Balance of Power – A concept where power is distributed among states to prevent any single state from dominating the international system. Can be unipolar (one state), bipolar (two), or multipolar (many).
- Unitary Actor– Assumption that a state behaves as a single, cohesive entity in international relations, making decisions based on national interest without internal divisions or competing interests.
Conclusion
A strong outline is the backbone of your textbook. It helps you and ChatGPT stay organized, ensures consistency across chapters, and keeps the big picture in focus. Plus, by breaking the project into manageable chunks, you’ll find it much easier to guide ChatGPT toward creating content that’s clear, relevant, and engaging. And remember, you don’t have to create the outline entirely on your own—ChatGPT can brainstorm ideas, define terms, and even suggest chapter structures to help you get started. With a solid roadmap in place, you’re ready to dive into the fun part: creating the text of each chapter!
