How to Write an Outline (from http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Outline)

An outline is a list of topics, of sentences, or of questions you intend to answer in your essay. The outline is the over-all plan of your essay. It determines what central points your paper is going to make and how they will be organized, to support your thesis.

Steps

  1. All parts of the outline should be constructed and organized to support your thesis or central point. Therefore, before you begin the outline you have to have a sense of what you will argue in the paper: you have to be clear about your thesis statement.
  2. Main Categories. Arrange your general ideas in main categories. These are the main topics of your essay. Arrange your main categories in the order you discuss them.
    To help you arrange your categories: look at your main categories, with your thesis in mind, try to find a way that the labels might be arranged in a sentence or two that supports your argument.
  3. Sub-categories (Paragraphs). Within each general category list and arrange the paragraphs that support the category.
  4. Sentences. Within each sub-category list and arrange your specific notes to support the argument made on that paragraph. This is the order of sentences in the paragraph.
  5. The arrangement of caregories, sub-categories and sentences should present a clear, logical argument to support your thesis.
  6. Also, the different sections should relate logically to each other.
  7. Organize the outline according to your purposes: Are you attempting to show the chronology of some historical development, the cause-and-effect relationship between one phenomenon and another, the process by which something is accomplished, or the logic of some position? Are you defining or analyzing something? Comparing or contrasting one thing to another? Presenting an argument (one side or both)?
  8. Some methods of organizing:

    Climactic arrangement: one that works up to your strongest point, which is delivered as a kind of grand finale.
    The inductive argument: in which you build up the evidence first, and then draw conclusions.
    A problem-solution format: involves presenting the problem first and then outlining the solution.

 

Tips

  • A sample of a topic outline.
  • An outline can be written as a topic outline, in which you use only short phrases to suggest ideas, or as a sentence outline, in which you use full sentences (even very brief paragraphs) to show the development of ideas more fully.