As a writer I’m frequently asked to work my “magic” — usually under deadlines that would confound even the greatest masters of the black arts. What many people lose sight of is that any well-written piece of content, whether blog post, e-mail or web copy requires a significant amount of advance thinking and subsequent editing. A recent historical discovery in Philadelphia underscores the importance of these steps in creating a well thought out document of any type.

While conducting research, a doctoral candidate stumbled upon an early draft of the U.S. Constitution at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Thirty-year old Lorianne Updike Toler noticed the familiar phrase “We The People. . . .” written upside down on the back of one of two known drafts of the historic document.

One of the framers of the Constitution, James Wilson, penned the words in 1787, but historical experts always considered the writing to be nothing more than a fragment. That all changed when Toler found the remainder of Wilson’s draft in the society vaults.

Wilson was one of five Constitutional Convention members selected to serve on a smaller group known as the Committee of Detail. For roughly two weeks these men sought guidance from the Articles of Confederation, the Virginia Plan and each state’s constitution before fleshing out 28 resolutions established by the convention.

They returned to the larger group with a report of their findings. Lore’s discovery, titled “The Continuation of the Scheme,” may very well be the first draft of that report. Much of the thinking and hard work that went into that report was preserved in the final version of the Constitution.

What was “especially thrilling” to Toler was seeing the framers’ thought processes in these early drafts. They are testament to the fact that creating any masterpiece of original content begins with the hard work of identifying what you want to communicate. The same principle holds true whether designing a web site, developing a story board or writing a feature story.

It’s also worth noting that when the time came to write the first draft of this very important (major understatement) document, the 55 men who were members of the Continental Congress looked to a much smaller group of five. When your goal is clarity your chances of success increase as the number of contributors decrease.

Image by Nic’s events