Maybe you’re in the middle of your semester finals, or maybe you’re just starting to work on those final papers for the semester. Either way, it’s that time of year when all of the information that you’ve been jamming in your head for months needs to get organized and come out as a beautifully crafted and sometimes terribly long paper. So where to begin…

For me, outlining is one of the most underrated steps in writing. An outline is like a skeleton of your essay. Before you go to write full sentences, you can plan the general ideas and what evidence you will use in each paragraph. Then when you sit down to write your first draft, all you will need to do is fill in the extra words that connect your thoughts and make your essay more fluent than a list. In high school, I NEVER made outlines and I was ok. Then, I got to university and did terribly on my first paper. My teacher told me to go back, make an outline and pay attention to whether everything was connected to my thesis. My grades went WAY UP and I was sold as an outliner forevermore.

It’s easy to jump ahead to the first draft writing stage based on the following arguments:

• I’ve already thought about what I want to say
• I’ve been organizing my notes already all semester long
• I don’t have time

If you are thinking any of these things right now, take a moment to reconsider. Making an outline is a great way to organize your thoughts on paper and make the actual writing process WAY easier later on.

Outlines can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be. Also, there are many different formats you can use. Really, it doesn’t matter as long as you are feeling organized. Each line in your outline typically stands for a sentence or source used in your paragraph. You can have as many supporting detail sentences or “evidence” as you need to support your topic sentence and ultimately your thesis!  Here are some different options for your body paragraphs (Notice the Paragraph Sandwiches 🙂 ):

The numbers and letters format:

Or you can use the Roman numerals format:

Or if that’s really just too fancy, you can always just use bullet points/dashes:

The more you write in your outline, the less you will have to write when you go to write your final draft. So, if you actually write out your thesis and topic sentences in your outline, all you have to do is plug them in and then expand on them when you write your essay. Even if you don’t do this though, just jotting down the notes you will use in each paragraph will make your thoughts come across clearer when you actually go to write out your paper. Here’s an outlined paragraph of the example we looked at of a Paragraph Sandwich in the previous post!

Here’s a final skeleton you can use when you go to write your paper. Just copy, plug in your information, organize and then start drafting. Happy writing!

P1: Introduction

• Hook/Opening Sentence
  • Support/Evidence
  • Support
  • Support
• Thesis!!

P2: Body Paragraph Topic 1*

• Topic Sentence
  • Support**
  • Support
  • Support
• Concluding Sentence

P3: Body Paragraph Topic 2

• Topic Sentence
  • Support
  • Support
  • Support
• Concluding Sentence

P4: Conclusion

• Restatement of Thesis
  • Support
  • Support
  • Support
• General concluding sentence

*You can have as many body paragraphs as you would like.

**You can have as much support or amounts of evidence as you need.