Content

• Steps
• Advice
• Warning

Outline is a great way to organize ideas and content if you're going to write a speech, essay, novel, or study guide. Start from step 1 to build your outline!

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Building Outline

1. 

   Choose a theme. Outline helps you organize your ideas before you start writing. But what is the topic of the article? At the time of planning your outline, you can choose a broad and overarching topic. The writing process will help you narrow down the topic to reach a certain point.
   • For example, your history essay could be the life of the French when it was occupied by Germany during World War II. As you outline your topic, your topic may be narrowed down, about the duel French stimulus for example.
   • When planning a project that requires creativity, for example in a novel, you don't really need a topic. Instead, the outline will help you to re-direct the structure of the article.

2. 

   
   
   Identify your main goal. Articles can be aimed at convincing readers of your argument, reinforcing information on a topic, or reflecting your personal experience. Choose one of those goals and make more points, just keep on writing. If you're writing an analytical and persuasive essay, write down your topic sentence to frame the whole article. The following are examples of three approaches:
   • Compare two books, facts or people. This style of writing requires good critical analysis.
   • Describe the cause and effect of a polite event. Describe how a polite event plays out based on available information or by making your own argument. With this style of writing, you need to invest a lot of time researching on the topic you want to write about.
   • Describing how an event or experience changed you, this style is mainly used to practice your existing skills.

3. 

   
   
   Collecting references. Most of these documents are mentioned in your essay, not in your outline.However, reviewing the references can help you to come up with an outline easier. Write down subtopics that contain quotes, statistics or related ideas that will be an important part of your outline. If you are not familiar with certain subtopics, make a separate section for the sub-topics.
   • Skip this step if you're planning a creative project. Research can come in handy when you need to include reliable details, but the research process should not be outlined.
   • Bookmark pages in documents where you find some piece of valuable information.

4. 

   
   
   Choose an outline format. You are almost ready to write. Now choose one of the two outline types:
   • A thematic outline uses short phrases, each consisting of several keywords. If you are unsure what to expect, start with this type of outline.
   • Sentence-based outlines of complete sentences. Choose this outline type if your article is based on many details to list in separate bullet points.
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Part 2 of 2: Outline

1. 

   Sort of sub-topics. If you are writing a story or presenting a historical thesis, a chronological arrangement makes the writing more plausible. Alternatively, take a sub-topic with the most references and start with it. From this topic you will arrange important sub-topics so that there is natural linkage between them. Highlight sub topics with Latin numerals. Here's an example for a short post:
   • Subject: Car history
   • I. The early years: Before the 20th century
   • II. Classic car: From 1900 to World War II
   • III. Modern car: After World War II

2. 

   Think of at least two subtopics for each section. Choose these sub topics based on the two criteria of the article's goal and the list of references you collect. These documents form the second layer of the outline, which usually consists of bullet points and is marked with letters (A, B, C, D, etc.).
   • I. The early years: Before the 20th century
   • A. Early steam engines
   • B. The internal combustion engine
   • II. Classic car: From 1900 to World War II
   • A. T-shaped model
   • B. Standardization of technology
   • (Continue to do so with other items)

3. 

   Expand the main topic by introducing subtopics. If one of the highlighted subtopics is still a major topic or needs more clarification, add bullet points below the subject. Include these bullet points in the third layer of your outline and mark them with consecutive numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).
   • I. The early years: Before the 20th century
   • A. Early steam engines
   • 1. The introduction of the steam engine
   • 2. Steps in the 19th century
   • B. The internal combustion engine
   • 1. Benz car early stage
   • 2. Car - a luxury item
   • (etc.)

4. 

   Add new classes to your outline if needed. If you need to add new layers, use lower case Latin numerals (i, ii, iii, iv, etc.) followed by lower case letters (a, b, c, d, etc.) and finally the digits (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). In most cases, a three- to four-layer outline makes sense. Try to merge the items before you add more than four layers.

5. 

   Think about the conclusion. You don't need to close your essay yet, but take a look at your outline and think if it fits your original purpose. If you don't have enough evidence to come to a conclusion, cover additional topics. If one of the sub-topics is irrelevant to your conclusion, remove that topic from the outline. advertisement

Advice

• Write a concise outline and get to the point. The outline does not have to be a clean and polished product, the purpose of the outline is to lay out the points that you need to mention.
• Do not be bothered if you have to remove irrelevant information as you delve deeper and narrow down the topic you want to focus on in the article.
• Use an outline as a memory tool. Choose the correct words to trigger a problem.
• You can use specialized software or the help of a sample outline to build your outline structure. For example, Microsoft Word lets you create an outline, or come up with your own format.
• For each subclass in your outline, indent 1.3 to 2.5 cm from the big idea before it.
• If you have evidence that contradicts your point, instead of skipping it, put it in your outline and use other bases to summarize your opinion.

Warning

• In general, you should limit yourself to only one argument or argument per class. If there is a problem A, continue to problem B or further evidence for A.
• Don't let your outline be just another form of the essay. Just rewrite the claims and avoid going into the details.