Organization and Paragraphing Help

Organization and Paragraphing Help

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How to Outline Your Paper

Once you have gathered information about your topic through research, the use of textbooks, your professor, or personal experiences, organize this information in order to make it useful to you. This can be done with an outline. Outlines not only can help you organize your information, but also see if the points you wish to make support and develop your thesis. To begin an outline, brainstorm about all of the ideas that you wish to cover in your paper. After you have made a list of them, group them together based on relevance and importance. Once you have done this you are ready to put your ideas into an outline format. There are three basic forms of outlines:

A Scratch Outline
A Topic Outline
A Sentence Outline

1. A Scratch Outline is one that consists of a series of notes that are used to refresh your memory about points that you wish to make as your write. This type of outline is particularly useful while taking an essay test or an in-class writing assignment. This type of outline is a way of brainstorming without taking up too much of your time. There is no format necessary for a scratch outline since it is simply a collection of your thoughts to be expanded later.

2. A Topic Outline is an outline of brief phrases or single words that are numbered or lettered to show the order and relative importance of your ideas. This type of outline is used as a plan for arranging your ideas in a way that groups similar ideas or themes together. A Topic Outline begins with the Thesis statement followed by a series of numbers and letters which outline the important points of the paper. The basic structure of a Topic Outline should look like this:

Thesis Statement: ____________________
I.Heading ___________________________
   A. Subheading ______________________
     1. Second Subheading ______________
     2. Second Subheading _______________
       a. Third Subheading _________________
       b. Third Subheading _________________
   B. Subheading ________________________
II. Heading____________________________

A Topic Outline is a more formal outline, and if it is to be turned into your professor there are certain formatting rules that you should keep in mind.

In a Topic Outline, the Main headings that are indicated by the use of roman numerals and should be aligned along the left hand margin.
The subheads of your outline should be indented as far in as the first word of the preceding line.
In a topic outline, only the first letter of the word which begins the heading should be capitalized, and there should not be any punctuation because you are writing phrases, not complete sentences.

Here are some other things to remember about topic outlines:

Main headings should be the most important information about a group of related points that ties all of the following points together.
The subheads are the related topics that expand on the idea presented in the main heading.
It is usually better if your outlines do not get more detailed than the third subhead, because this causes them to be harder to read and more confusing

3. A Sentence Outline is one in which the ideas presented are stated more fully. Each heading is expressed as a complete single sentence. These sentences should be made in the form of statements rather than questions, and should all be in the same tense. Sentence Outlines follow the same format as a Topic Outline, and use the same indentation, numbering and lettering that a Topic Outline does. The headings in a Sentence Outline however, should all be punctuated as you would punctuate any other sentence in your paper - capitalize the first letter and all proper nouns, and end the sentence with the proper punctuation. This type of outline is supposed to be composed of complete sentences rather than of ideas and phrases.

Another good use for outlining is to construct an outline after you have written your rough draft. By numbering your paragraphs and then writing down the main points in that paragraph, you can see if you are really expressing what you intended.