Essay outline
An outline is the organizational plan for your paper. You know your
starting point: your introduction and thesis/research question. You
know your destination: some sort of summative and thoughtful
conclusion. But how are you going to get from one to the other?
What's your vehicle? See, an outline doesn't just help you articulate
what you plan to say, but also how you're going to move from
supporting paragraph to supporting paragraph, how you're going to
get where you want to go.
The importance of outlines:
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if you can't articulate your paper even in point form, you won't
be able to do it effectively in prose and it will take you much
longer to write an inferior draft
if you do find structural problems or gaps as you outline, it's
easier to fix them now than to try and totally revamp a 3rd draft.
Face it, it's always easier (translation: less intellectually painful)
to scrap a note than a paragraph or whole essay
any teacher will tell you that you will lose more points for lack of
substance than for lack of writing style; outlines are all about the
crux and direction of substance
should things click into place, an outline gives you confidence. It
helps you to realize that, yes, you really do know what you're
talking about!
stream-of-consciousness writing can be published and
fascinating as creative writing, but not as a research paper.
Markers don't appreciate mental diarrhea or what Kevin B.
Bucknall from Griffith University calls The Shotgun Technique:
"This is putting down everything you know about the subject,
and is a common fault. It is like firing a shotgun and hoping that
some of the many pellets hit home." So have some respect for
your readers
outlines make drafting less stressful not only by describing the
relationship of your ideas to each other and to the thesis or
question, but because you now have small manageable chunks
to tackle
OWL – Perdue Online Writing Lab
Sample Outline
Introduction
What do I need to say to set up my thesis?
Thesis statement – likely will bring up your research question but phrased in a
sentence not a question. For example: The racism portrayed in Harper Lee’s To
Kill a Mockingbird is an accurate reflection of the society that the story is set in.
A. Examine the racism in To Kill a Mockingbird
a) First example of racism
1. Discussion of first example
2. Quotation proving the first example
3. Analysis of the first example
b) Second example of racism
c) Third example of racism
B. Examination of Racism in 1930s United States
a) Point number one – institutional racism
1. Discussion of point
2. Proof of research
3. Analysis of research
b) Point number two - segregation
C. Synthesis of research and novel
a) Institutional racism
1. Discuss how institutional racism affects the novel and existed in society
2. Explain how both novel and society impact the story
b) Segregation
1. Discuss
2. Explain
Conclusion