Writing a paper is a skill every student wishes to master. Although good writing takes experience and practice, you can ease your struggle by other means. Learning how to make a good outline for an essay can definitely be one of the major assets in your writing journey. Learn how to master this task, and your experience with writing papers will never be the same. In this guide, we will answer the most common question students have and explain how to structure your papers.
What Is an Essay Outline?
An outline is a layout of your future paper. It is the map that shows you the way. Hence, this project creates certain guidelines on the text you are about to write. It should reflect the number of sections and paragraphs you will have. Also, it is responsible for the organization of your whole work, starting with the aforementioned sections and ending with your main idea, topic sentences, and transitional sentences. Overall, at this stage of work, you should focus on structure and main arguments.
You should also learn the differences in various types of paper and their structure in order to create an appropriate structure for each assignment. For example, a college application essay outline will differ from any other writing assignment. The purpose of the paper will determine its structure and format. Hence, you have to consider many factors when learning how to outline an essay for college. Let’s see how to apply those factors in practice.
How to Write an Essay Outline for College?
Once you understand the purpose of this task, you won’t neglect writing it before each of your essays. However, where should you start? What must it have? Sometimes, students may feel more confused by this task than by an actual assignment. Well, that’s easy to fix. Learn how to make an essay outline with these easy steps.
How to Start?
There is no one way of how to make an essay outline. However, there is a single way you can start it. You should always do your research first. You start by picking a topic, defining the scope of your work and researching materials. There is no way around it. You have to know what you are writing about before you actually start writing, right?
After all, you are making a layout of the work that you must already have in your mind. All you are left to do is to put it on paper and organize it. By this time, you already must know what your thesis statement and main arguments are. Also, you must have your evidence prepared and waiting for you to place them in the right spot. So always start by preparing everything you need first.
What to Include?
Each essay must have an introduction, main body, and conclusion. These must be the core elements of your structure. Each of these parts carries huge importance for your work. Each of the elements has its role, purpose, and place. You have to treat them with respect and insert each one of them into your layout.
To know what elements each section must have, you need to understand their roles. For instance, your introduction must explain what your work is about. Thus it must have a thesis statement. Next, break down your main body into paragraphs and define the main ideas in each of them. Those ideas become your topic sentences. Be brief and mention only the most important information here.
College Outline Format
Once you already know the type and purpose of your work as well as what elements you want to have there, you can structure your future layout. Here is an example of a perfect layout:
- Introduction
- Background information
- Thesis statement
- Main body
- First paragraph
- Topic sentence
- Main arguments
- Evidence
- Second paragraph
- Topic sentence
- Main arguments
- Evidence
- Third paragraph
- Topic sentence
- Main arguments
- Evidence
- Conclusion
As you can see, there is nothing difficult here. You just need to recognize each element for what they are and not confuse them. For instance, your topic sentence is different from the arguments you provide to support it. This stage of work helps you to categorize everything and put them in the right place. Also, keep in mind that this example is rather broad. Hence, you can change it to your needs. For instance, don’t be shy to add more paragraphs to your structure.
The Bottom Line
Students should be afraid to write their outlines. After all, these are the main helpers you can have while working on large projects, like essays or research papers. The goal to master this task is to understand its meaning and structure. Once you know what you should do here, you will never struggle with composing it. On the contrary, you will greatly improve your writing skills and your structuring game once you learn how to do a layout for any paper.