4.3 Outlining
Your prewriting activities and readings have helped you gather information for your assignment. The more you sort through the pieces of information you find, the more you will begin to see the connections between them. Patterns and gaps may begin to stand out. But only when you start to organize your ideas will you be able to translate your raw insights into a form that will communicate meaning to your audience.
Idea Mapping
Idea Mapping allows you to visualize your ideas on paper using circles, lines, and arrows. This technique is also known as clustering because ideas are broken down and clustered, or grouped. Many writers like this method because the shapes show how the ideas relate or connect, and writers can find a focused subject from the connections mapped. Using idea mapping, you might discover interesting connections between subjects that you had not thought of before.
To create an idea map, start with your general subject in a circle in the center of a blank sheet of paper. Then write specific ideas around it and use lines or arrows to connect them. Add and cluster as many ideas as you can think of.
Organizing Ideas
When you write, you need to organize your ideas in an order that makes sense. The writing you complete in all your courses exposes how analytically and critically your mind works. In some courses, the only direct contact you may have with your instructor is through the assignments you write for the course. You can make a good impression by spending time ordering your ideas.
Order refers to your choice of what to present first, second, third, and so on in your writing. You will of course let the subject of your essay guide the order you use (ex: a historical subject is likely to benefit from chronological order), but you will also want to let your purpose and audience guide your decisions.
The three common methods of organizing writing are chronological order, spatial order, and order of importance.
There are two types of formal outlines: the topic outline and the sentence outline. You format both types of formal outlines in the same way.
- Place your introduction and thesis statement at the beginning, under the Roman numeral I.
- Use Roman numerals (II, III, IV, V, etc.) to identify the main points that develop the thesis statement.
- Use capital letters (A, B, C, D, etc.) to divide your main points into parts.
- Use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) if you need to subdivide any As, Bs, or Cs into smaller parts.
- End with the final Roman numeral expressing your idea for your conclusion.
Example Outline
- Introduction
- Thesis statement
- Main point 1 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 1
- Supporting detail → becomes a support sentence of body paragraph 1
- Supporting detail
- Supporting detail
- Main point 2 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 2
- Main point 3 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 3
- Conclusion
Here is what the skeleton of a traditional formal outline looks like. The indention helps clarify how the ideas are related.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is similar to list-making. You can make a list on your own or in a group with your classmates. Start with a blank sheet of paper (or a blank computer document) and write your general subject across the top. Underneath your subject, make a list of more specific ideas. Think of your general subject as a broad category and the list items as things that fit in that category. Often you will find that one item can lead to the next, creating a flow of ideas that can help you narrow your focus to a more specific paper subject.
Attributions
The Writing Textbook by Josh Woods, editor, and contributor, as well as an unnamed author (by request from the original publisher), and other authors named separately is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
This chapter has additions, edits, and organization by James Charles Devlin.
