Creating an Outline for an Essay Most analytical, interpretive, or persuasive essays tend to follow the same basic pattern. This page should help you formulate effective outlines for most of the essays that you will write Aug 14, · How to write an essay outline Organizing your material. At the stage where you’re writing an essay outline, your ideas are probably still not fully Presentation of the outline. Within each paragraph, you’ll discuss a single idea related to your overall topic or Examples of essay outlines. Reviews: 4 Think about what you want to say in each of the body paragraphs. Then put them into the outline. The first paragraph of the essay is your introduction
How to Outline an Essay | Examples
Natalie is a teacher and holds an MA in English Education and is in progress on her PhD in psychology. Writing an essay can feel overwhelming. How do you know what to write? How do you make sure all the most important information is included?
And how do you organize your essay to be effective? An essay outline can help you with that. It's kind of like a road map for your essay, taking you from the beginning all the way to the end. You've already chosen a topic for the Expository Essay Assignmentand gotten started on your thesis statement.
Now, let's go through the steps to create an essay outline for that assignment. The first step to writing an essay outline is to choose the structure. Three major structures for an outline are:. In the practical applications Choosing an Essay Topic and Beginning Research and Writing a Thesis Statement for an Essaywe practiced choosing a topic, doing some research, and writing a thesis statement for our essay on the causes of World War I. Now, we need to choose a structure.
A full sentence outline will take more time to write, but make the essay writing process shorter because you'll be able to edit and reuse your complete sentences from the outline. In contrast, creating an outline for an essay, the alphanumeric outline will take the least amount of time but will make the essay writing process longer. Let's say that we want some details, but we don't want to spend too much time on our outline. In that case, we should choose the decimal outline.
Now, take a moment to think about your essay for Expository Essay Assignment. Take a moment to choose one of the three outline structures. Once we know our structure, it's time to start writing our outline. The first thing is to fill in the major points. Think about what you want to say in each of the body paragraphs.
Then put them into the outline. The first paragraph of the essay is your introduction and the most important part of this paragraph is your thesis sentence, so let's put it into the outline first. Remember that we wrote our thesis statement in the thesis practical applicationand after revising it, came up with the following thesis on World War I: ''While changing sociopolitical views of the world indirectly led to World War I, specific international incidents directly started the war.
Since we're using the decimal structure for our outline on World War I, we'll mainly use shorthand notes, rather than complete sentences. But since our thesis sentence is already written in a complete sentence, we can start our outline with it. While changing sociopolitical views of the world indirectly led to World War I, specific international incidents directly started the war. Next, we'll want to jot down a brief phrase for the main point for each of the body paragraphs. In a classic five paragraph essay, there are three body paragraphs.
So we'll have three numbers with a point for each. Here's where you'll begin incorporating what you know about the topic, and what you found during your research, creating an outline for an essay. For example, we might write out:. Now that you have the idea, take some time to begin outlining the main points for your Expository Essay Assignment.
If you're using the alphanumeric or decimal structure, you'll write out your thesis statement but use phrases for all the other major points. But if you're using the full sentence structure, creating an outline for an essay, you'll want to write out complete sentences for each major point.
For example, for our second point:. In the full sentence structure, instead of that short phrase, we'd write out, ''Changing sociopolitical views of the world in Europe and beyond served as an indirect cause of World War I. Using this outline structure, we have a good foundation for our topic sentence for that paragraph.
Now it's time to add in all the supporting evidence for the main points. Each number in our outline should include several pieces of supporting evidence. In the decimal structure, these are noted by adding a decimal and an additional number. For example, we might fill in supporting details like this:. For an alphanumeric structure, that level of detail is probably sufficient. However, creating an outline for an essay decimal and full sentence structures require more detail. We can add more supporting evidence with additional decimal places, creating an outline for an essay.
For example, we might write out even more about the rise of militarism in the years before World War I. It would look like this:. We could then do the same thing for the influence of imperialism and intensifying nationalism, adding as many decimals as we need to flesh out and support our ideas. By outlining our essay with this structure, we'll know what information to include when actually writing the essay. Follow along with your expository essay and fill in all of your supporting evidence in your outline.
For the alphanumeric structure, you might just add a few key details, but if you're using the decimal structure, you'll want to add a few decimal points to map out all your key evidence. Finally, in creating an outline for an essay full sentence outline, you'll need to flesh out all your supporting details in complete sentences. Take a few minutes to look back through and make any changes you need to.
Do you have enough supporting evidence or do you need to add in some details? Are the main points and supporting details in the right order, or should they be reorganized? Revise your outline until you're satisfied that it's organized logically and that it will make a great essay. Now put it to use, creating an outline for an essay. Print out your outline and keep it beside you as you write your essay.
If you've chosen the full sentence structure, your job is to put the sentences that you've written together into paragraphs, adding transitions and connecting sentences, and smoothing out the language. If you've used the decimal or the alphanumeric outline, you'll now need to put your phrases into complete sentences. Either way, use your outline to guide you as you write the essay.
You can check off each main point and each detail as you add it to your essay. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study. com Member. Create your account. Already a member? Log In. Already registered? Log in here for access. for Teachers for Schools for Working Scholars® for College Credit. Log in. Sign Up. for Working Scholars® for College Credit. Find Courses by Subject Science Math Business Psychology History English Social Science Humanities Spanish Professional Development.
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Transfer Credit All Transfer Credit Find Your School College Courses for Credit Transferring Credit How It Works. Instructor: Natalie Boyd Show bio Natalie is a teacher and holds creating an outline for an essay MA in English Education and is in progress on her PhD in psychology.
Writing an outline for an essay helps you plan and keeps you organized. It can also make writing the essay feel more manageable. Here, we'll work together to create an essay outline and use it to write an expository essay.
Outline Structure The first step to writing an essay outline is to choose the structure. Three major structures for an outline are: Alphanumeric outline: uses a series of numbers and letters to organize the information into different major points and some details, but is the least detailed of the three outline structures, creating an outline for an essay. Decimal outline: uses a series of numbers and decimal points to organize information into main points and details.
It has more detail than the alphanumeric structure, creating an outline for an essay, but is still pretty general. Full sentence outline: the creating an outline for an essay detailed type of outline. It involves filling in lots of details with complete sentences.
Because it is so detailed, it requires the most time to write. Choose a Structure In the practical applications Choosing an Essay Topic and Beginning Research and Writing a Thesis Statement for an Essaywe practiced choosing a topic, doing some research, and writing a thesis statement for our essay on the causes of World War I.
Major Points Once we know our structure, it's time to start writing our outline. For example, we might write out: 2, creating an outline for an essay. Indirect causes: sociopolitical views of the world 3.
Creating an Outline for an Essay or Research Paper in MS Word
, time: 11:48How to Write an Essay Outline | Tips & Examples | HandMadeWriting
Think about what you want to say in each of the body paragraphs. Then put them into the outline. The first paragraph of the essay is your introduction Aug 14, · How to write an essay outline Organizing your material. At the stage where you’re writing an essay outline, your ideas are probably still not fully Presentation of the outline. Within each paragraph, you’ll discuss a single idea related to your overall topic or Examples of essay outlines. Reviews: 4 Organize: Group related ideas together. Order: Arrange material in subsections from general to specific or from abstract to concrete. Label: Create main and sub headings. Remember: creating an outline before writing your paper will
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