One of the best kept secrets of writing an interesting essay is to develop an outline. Think of the outline as a plan or blueprint for the paper. It is very important as it helps organize the arguments and thoughts in to logical flow. Good outline will make researching and writing the paper easy.
The contents of the outline:

The outline must include the following

  • Title of the paper:this is basically the topic of the paper.
  • Thesis statement: this is basically a statement of what the paper intends to prove. In other words, it is a finding or discovery that you want to support with facts and research work in the paper.
  • Major arguments or points. These may be indicated by the roman numerals i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, etc. These are the main ideas that you want to sell to the reader.
  • Support for the major points. These may be indicated by Arabic numerals a, b, c, d, etc, and must be facts from research work, experiment, interviews or other source. They should support the major points or arguments.
  • Introduction: in the introduction, you should tell the readers what the paper is all about. Also tell them what the paper intends to prove. Put in other words, the introduction gives the reader an overview of the topic and also an overview of the thesis statement.
  • Conclusion: the conclusion, as the name suggests, concludes the paper and thus it summarizes all that you have told the reader.

What is the length of the outline?

There are many other guides on how to write an essay outline and you will realize that some are more detailed and others are less detailed. It all depends on the type of paper that you are writing. If for example you are writing dissertation or a PhD paper, the outline has to be more detailed as you will have many sub topics and sub chapters in the paper.

Is there accepted format?

The outline may be structured, or scribbled in paper, provided it serves its intended purpose of making researching and writing the paper easy.

Planning Your Work

Writing Steps

Saving Your Time