An essay outline is a roadmap for a prose essay. It provides a structure for what you will articulate in every section and every paragraph of your essay. Making outlines is a very important step for writing cogent persuasive essays, argumentative essays, expository essays, compare-and-contrast essays, and research papers.
Writing an outline is a big step when it comes to essay writing as it helps to get your thoughts well-organized and makes the writing process simpler. An outline anchors an essay’s main idea, called the thesis statement, which guides the essay writing process. It also lays out the body paragraphs that form the bulk of your essay and brackets those body paragraphs with an introduction and a conclusion that guide your reader into and out of the essay. An outline helps the writer to write an essay in a complete manner. Include all the main points and create a well-written essay.
Why Should You Use An Outline For Everything You Write?
Have you ever heard the phrase “great ideas take time”? No amazing writer in the history of the universe just started typing one day and then had his or her writing magically turned into a book. Great writing requires great planning. Even if a writer didn’t physically write down her timeline, she had a general idea of what she was going to write about before she started typing. Of course, there is such a thing as being inspired and acting on that inspiration (but let’s be honest, your history essay isn’t probably going to spark that kind of creativity in you).
Thus, because we are writing a very structured piece with a somewhat predictable layout, it’s always best to use an outline. After you undertake the necessary research on your topic, an outline will help you keep all of the points you want to make organized. This will ensure that you don’t skip any important pieces of information so you can stay on track.
How Do You Write An Outline?
The good thing about having an outline is that no one will be seeing it unless your teacher is making you turn it in beforehand so that he or she can review it before you turn in your paper. In case your teacher is reviewing the outline before you turn in your essay, it’s doubtful that he or she will grade too harshly on how you organize your thoughts. The main idea is that your teacher wants to see that you’re putting in some thought before you start writing your essay.
There is not much pressure on you to make an outline sound “nice” and be grammatically correct and thus you can get out your thoughts quicker and easier. You can use a piece of scratch paper for an outline and just jot down a few points or you can get intricate by creating a writing outline on the computer. Whatever way you want to write your outline is fine just make sure you’re doing it. When creating an outline, you must have an idea of what your thesis statement will be, how your body paragraphs will support your thesis statement, and how you are going to wrap everything up in a conclusion at the end
3 Benefits Of Outlining An Essay
An essay outline or research paper outline keeps you organized and focused on your main topic as you push ahead in your writing process. Here are the three main benefits of writing an outline before you start writing your essay.
- It keeps your research organized. By crafting an effective outline, you can sort through your research or reasoned points and find the perfect place to insert them in an essay. Organizing your information this way allows you to test the strength of your thesis statement. If you find yourself packing your outline with supporting evidence for your main point, you have probably picked a strong thesis. If not, you may need to reconsider.
- It maps a logical flow from points to sub-points. Most outlines have an alphanumeric structure. This means that they alternate between Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals, and lowercase letters to make points and sub-points. Other essay outline templates include decimal outlines and staggered bullet points.
- It allows you to be flexible. You can write full sentences in your formal outline, or you can write shorthand. The outline is not the final product as it acts as a tool for developing the content of your essay and finding a logical order. Thus, it only has to make sense to you.
Basic Guidance for Creating an Outline Quickly
There are many approaches on how to outline an essay. We will share some tips to give you an idea about the essay writing process. The process of writing an essay outline required by any university involves several simple steps which are as follows:
- Conduct Research on the Topic
You have to understand your topic well to write the best essay. Some preliminary research and consideration of this topic are necessary. Google search by keywords may help find articles and other publications on this topic. If you’re writing a research paper, create a list of recommended literature as well. This will help form your own opinion regarding this matter.
- Identify Essay Objective
Once you have developed your opinion about the topic, write down the main research objective. This can be a thesis statement or a question that can help you start a conversation with the readers. Your discussion should support your main objective with detailed evidence. The objective helps you stay focused and stick to the main point.
- List Main Research Points
At this stage, you are expected to make a sketch of your future paper. List all the points you intend to discuss in your paper, but don’t go into much detail. A quick brainstorming will help find several main points of your essay to further use these points as an essay frame. You can polish your ideas in the writing process. You don’t have to disclose all points that were outlined in the beginning as new information may help expand or shrink the topic or change some points.
- Organize Ideas
By organizing all the points you want to discuss in your paper, you will polish the structure of your essay outline. Just put them into order and summarize each point to ensure you don’t forget what you wanted to dwell on in each section.
- Revise and Remove Redundant Paragraphs
Revise all points and check each for relevance to the objectives of your essay. This will help to disclose the main ideas of your essay and stick to the main points. When revising remove all redundant paragraphs that don’t help disclose your idea and paraphrase those which seem to be irrelevant. If this task is complicated for you, then you can use our help when it comes to editing and proofreading your work. Contact Assignment Essay for any help with your outline and essay.
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