MAKING AN OUTLINE

Brought to you by powerpointpros.com

What is an outline?

An outline is a great way to organize and categorize the information you want to put into your paper by using letters, numbers, and Roman Numerals.

How do I make an outline?

You first must divide your content into sections. For example, if you are writing a report on a country, you could do a section on the physical and human geography, one on the history, etc.

Dividing content into sectionsWhen dividing your content into sections, it’s okay if they are fairly general topics. This stage is just for categorizing your content that you want to put in your paper.

The Next Step

Then you must divide the sections that you previously created into subsections, or topics. For example, if I am writing about the geography of a country, I might name my subsections: location, climate, resources, and population. Then I can organize my content to fit into my subsections that I created.

Dividing content into subsections

When dividing your content into subsections, they can still be slightly general topics, but they should be more specific than the original sections that they are placed in.

Going Even Further

After dividing your content into subsections, you can go even further with your outline by putting even more detailed categories under your subsection. For example, I could put the ideas mineral resources and land resources under my original subsection named resources.

Details Matter

Once you start putting ideas underneath your subsections, they should be fairly specific. Of course, you can still add on underneath those ideas if you think that your ideas are too general and that there are some specific points that you would like to cover within that idea.

What should my outline look like?

Here is an example of a good outline:The United StatesI. IntroductionII. Geography

A. Location1. North America2. Between Mexico and Canada3. Between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

B. Climate1. Different Regions

C. Resources1. Land Resources2. Mineral Resources

D. Population1. 50 States

III. HistoryA. European Colonization

1. 13 Colonies

B. IndependenceC. …

Notice that the paper is clearly broken up into different sections, subsections, and

even ideas underneath those subsections.

Making an outline

Title of your paperI. Put in your sections as top-level points

A. Put in your subsections underneath your sections, as second-level points.

1. Put in some ideas underneath your subsections.

i. Add specific points underneath ideas as necessary

II. Continue until all of the information that you want to put in your paper is in your outline in some way, shape or form.

Is my outline my final paper?No, not at all. Your outline is merely a guide as you write your final paper. As you write, you may find yourself straying from the details in your outline, or adding more in. Your outline helps you to make sure that you’re not getting too off-topic when you write your paper (and can help you see if you’re missing something that you want to add into your paper as well!)

The importance of an outline An outline guides your paper-writing

process. It helps you to stay focused and organize your information.

An outline keeps your paper moving forward. If you write a good outline, you shouldn’t worry about “being stuck” when writing your paper, since you already know the basis of what you are going to write about.

Now start writing!

You now know how to make an outline, so do it! It may seem tedious at first, but the extra planning will really help guide you and focus your paper. You’ll thank yourself for it later!