Working on your final papers? A well-constructed outline can help you avoid common paper-writing pitfalls.
Hello! I’m Cole. I have 5 years of tutoring experience and I’m a writing consultant at the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (CWSC), which provides academic writing support for all students at UBC. I often find myself helping students who, with an outline, could have avoided grade-impacting problems that are time-consuming to fix. Whether you don’t know what an outline is or you’ve written 100, I think this post will provide some useful tips.
I’ve written the steps below assuming that you understand the basic structural components of an essay like the thesis statement. If you don’t, I suggest having a look at the Student Toolkit on Writing or visiting the CWSC.
1. Read instructions carefully and brainstorm
This step is simple: let the topic bounce around in your head for a few days, then come up with a topic. Most importantly, make sure your topic can answer the questions presented in the assignment instructions. An outline that doesn’t follow the professor’s instructions might produce gold, but it’ll get a bad grade.
2. Visually map out your outline
The introduction and conclusion usually go at the beginning and end of any essay, so the organization of body paragraphs is where creativity is needed when it comes to structure.
The simplest way to split your argument into body paragraphs is to find a piece of your argument that each paragraph can have in common while still being unique. For example, in a literature paper on a novel, each paragraph could be about a different literary device in the novel. This way, the paper will be easy to follow, yet each paragraph will focus on something new.
However, planning the structure of your essay won’t always be this simple. For example, perhaps you’ll need a background information paragraph that provides context for your argument. Don’t worry about making the structure flawless; your structure will probably change a bit as you write.
After these decisions are made, the fun part comes -- visually representing the outline! There are many ways to do this, but I’m boring and impatient, so I choose this way:
I. Intro
II. Body Paragraph 1—Literary Device 1
III. Body Paragraph 2—Literary Device 2
IV. Body Paragraph 3—Literary Device 3
V. Conclusion
3. Write a tentative thesis statement and topic sentences
You can’t write a clear paper without first preparing the main argument or, in other words, a thesis statement. When you have your main argument boiled down to a single sentence, it’s easy to keep it in mind while writing. The thesis will change as you work on the paper, so don’t spend hours trying to make it perfect before writing the first draft. Preparing full topic sentences while outlining isn’t so necessary, but it helps. At least choose an argument for each paragraph and understand how this argument supports the thesis.
Again, it’s up to you to decide how these are added to the outline.
4. Plot sub-arguments and evidence (if it strengthens your argument!)
Many people take their outlines a step further and add sub-arguments and evidence.
After the topic sentence, each body paragraph consists of sub-arguments that support the topic sentence’s argument.
It’s up to you how detailed you are here. Some prefer to come up with sub-arguments while writing. In contrast, visual learners often like to write their whole paper as an outline, then delete the parts that resemble an outline later. This way, it’s like a big puzzle where you write words to fill the gaps! Here’s how I outline sub-arguments and evidence:
II. Body paragraph 1
a. Point A
1. Evidence 1
2. Evidence 2
b. Point B
1. Evidence 1
2. Evidence 2
5. Look back: Has your paper stayed on track?
Your paper will likely go off track if you miss this often overlooked step! Ask yourself this: can this paper convincingly answer the questions or complete the tasks given by the assignment instructions? More specifically: does the thesis statement follow the assignment instructions? Do the topic sentences clearly support the thesis? Does each sub-argument clearly support the topic sentence of its paragraph?
I hope this post gives you some good outlining ideas. If you’d like help with outlining or anything writing related, visit us at the Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication.
The CWSC offers one-on-one writing consultations to support UBC students with all their writing needs. Each consultation is 25 minutes long for undergraduates and 50 minutes for graduate students.
You get to work with peer writing consultants to improve your writing, shape your writing process, and meet your goals. Book your appointment today!
The CWSC also provides workshops on specific topics and online writing resources.
