Name
World History 10-Minchillo/Schriver
Date
How to Write a Paragraph Using a Formal Outline
What is a paragraph?
You have written paragraphs before. However, you are now at the stage in your learning were expectations
for your writing have increased. Teachers in high school expect more precise ideas, more details in
explaining your ideas, and more concise and clear analysis.
When high school teachers ask you to “write a paragraph for homework on…”, the expectation is that the
paragraph will be between 12-16 sentences. It is also assumed that your paragraph will be a structured
thought process that provides evidence for a central idea. This means that a paragraph will have the
following:
topic sentence:
the central idea or argument of the paragraph
- a narrow idea stated broadly
- concise language
- 1 complete sentence
subtopic sentence:
expansion on one aspect of the topic sentence
- a specific idea stated precisely
- concise language
- 1 complete sentence
*There must be TWO ideas present in the paragraph that
directly connect to and expand upon the topic sentence.
proof:
in history this is called factual evidence
(in the form of artifact, document, or factual references)
in English this is called textual evidence
(in the form of quotes and descriptions)
in science this is called empirical evidence
(in the form of scientific observations)
- proof must be relevant to the subtopic sentence
- multiple examples may be provided
analysis:
critical examination of how the proof “proves” the idea stated in your
subtopic sentence
- not a restating of proof
- not a restating of the idea
- statement(s) that clearly and obviously explain how the
proof and the idea are connected
- concise language
- multiple sentences may be used if necessary
Exercise: The following sentences have been taken from a complete formal paragraph.
Read each sentence. Determine if it is a topic sentence, a subtopic sentence, proof, or analysis.
Explain your answers.
1. After this, the Japanese government formed committees to investigate potential threats and
solutions to this problem.
2. Japan’s nuclear crisis is entirely the result of the country’s lack of natural resources and geographic
location.
3. Japan is the world’s largest imported of coal and liquefied natural gas, and the third largest importer
of oil after the United States and China.
4. But even though the Japanese government’s intentions were justified, the nuclear reactors can
pose a very real threat to people and the environment if their stability is threatened in any way.
5. Japan is located on the border of four different tectonic plates, which makes it extremely vulnerable
to earthquakes and tsunamis.
6. Both earthquakes and tsunamis can cause massive destruction of property and death if they are of a
large scale and hit a densely populated area.
7. A perfect example of this destruction was the March 2011 tsunami, which severely damaged four of
six nuclear reactors.
8. This wasn’t the only time earthquakes and tsunami’s threatened or damaged nuclear reactors in
Japan and forced the Japanese government to pay closer attention to potential threats to nuclear
plants.
9. Earthquakes are a sudden and violent shaking of the ground caused by the sudden movement of
large sections (tectonic plates) of the earth’s rocky outermost crust, while tsunamis are a series of
great sea waves caused by an underwater earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption.
10. Between 2005 and 2007, three Japanese nuclear power plants were shaken by earthquakes
threatened the stability of the reactors.
11. Such reliance on foreign imports encouraged the Japanese government to build nuclear reactors
that would fuel a national nuclear power program.
12. Clearly, these geographic threats will continue to pose a problem for Japan and cannot be
eliminated.
13. As a nation of several small mountainous islands with limited natural resources, Japan does not
produce any resources needed to fuel its industrial society.
14. Designing a plan to phase out nuclear power is probably a more realistic goal, as long as the country
can find new forms of renewable energy to replace its nuclear reactors.
What is an outline?
An outline is a formal system used to organize your ideas, proof and analysis. It helps provide focus and
organization in your writing. Think of outlines as the skeleton of the paragraph. The more “muscle” that is
on the skeleton, the easier it will be to formalize and polish your paragraph.
The sentence outline is done in full sentences and follows a rigid format, using Roman and Arabic numerals
along with capital and small letters of the alphabet. This helps both you and anyone who reads your outline
to identify the main ideas of your paragraph and follow the flow of these ideas.
Format:
TOPIC SENTENCE: One sentence that identifies the central idea or argument of the paragraph and provides
a clear path for two specific subtopic sentences.
a. One sentence that expands specifically on one aspect of the topic sentence.
.
1. specific factual evidence that proves the subtopic
2. specific factual evidence that proves the subtopic
3. if documents are provided, specific document evidence that proves the subtopic
b. One sentence that expands specifically on one aspect of the topic sentence.
.
1. specific factual evidence that proves the subtopic
2. specific factual evidence that proves the subtopic
3. if documents are provided, specific document evidence that proves the subtopic
Exercise: The following blank outline is based on the format provided above. Using the sentences from the
previous section, place them in the correct order in the blank outline below.
TOPIC SENTENCE:
a.
1.
2.
3.
b.
1.
2.
3.
Follow up:
Look at the remaining sentences that you did not use in the above blank outline.
1. Why were these sentences not used?
2. Why do you think these types of sentences are not included in an outline?
Independent Practice: Why does Jared Diamond argue that the development of agriculture was the worst
mistake in the history of the human race?
1. Write an outline that answers the above question. Use the selected Jared Diamond quotes to provide
factual and document evidence in your outline.
2. Write a formal paragraph that develops your outline and included appropriately placed analysis.
TOPIC SENTENCE:
a.
1.
2.
3.
b.
1.
2.
3.
“Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunter-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages
was a generous 5'9" for men, 5'5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B.C. had
reached a low of 5'3" for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but
modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.” (Diamond 63)
“…the study of [ancient] skeletons from burial mounds in the lllinois and Ohio river valleys… show these early farmers
paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had
a nearly fifty percent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency
anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting
infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard
physical labor. ‘Life expectancy at birth in the preagricultural community was about twenty-six years," says
Armelagos, "but in the postagricultural community it was nineteen years. So these episodes of nutritional stress and
infectious disease were seriously affecting their ability to survive.’ ” (Diamond 64)
“…There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, huntergatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The
farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (Today just three high-carbohydrate plants--wheat, rice,
and corn--provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain
vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran
the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in
crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites
and infectious disease… Epidemics couldn't take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that
constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic
plague the appearance of large cities.” (Diamond 65)
“Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep
class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a
herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no
class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy,
nonproducing elite set itself above the disease-ridden masses. Skeletons from Greek tombs at Mycenae c.1500 B.C.
suggest that royals enjoyed a better diet than commoners, since the royal skeletons were two or three inches taller
and had better teeth (on average, one instead of six cavities or missing teeth). Among Chilean mummies from c. A.D.
1000, the elite were distinguished not only by ornaments and gold hair clips but also by a fourfold lower rate of bone
lesions caused by disease.” (Diamond 66)