Essential of Outlining

 

No matter what you’re writing, outlining is a crucial early step in the writing process. An outline provides the framework upon which your finished piece of writing is built; it provides the template to fill in with your unique insights and ideas.

Of the five steps of the writing process, outlining is part of the second: preparing. Whether you’re writing a lengthy research paper, a short essay, a blog post, or a presentation, outlining is a crucial practice that can save you lots of time later. It’s also a roadmap you can refer back to at later writing stages, particularly if you find your writing cruising off course or feel stuck in the mud and unsure of how to get rolling again.

Why is outlining important?

Outlining is a way to organize your thoughts in a coherent, logical way. There’s a reason why it’s the next step after brainstorming: Imagine a brainstorm as a wild tornado of ideas whirling around in your head. You observe the storm, grab onto the most valuable ideas, then corral and organize them into a logical sequence that expresses your position and fits your assignment.

That logical sequence is your outline. It helps give your ideas structure and shape. Without a structure, your paragraphs would read more like a brainstorm than a polished draft—resembling more of a jumbled tornado than a coherent sequence that readers can follow.

In some cases, outlining is also a required part of your assignment. If you’re a professional writer creating a blog post or website content, your client might ask for an outline before you start writing so they can approve it or make changes. Similarly, a professor might require students to submit outlines before beginning research papers in order to confirm the students’ topics are appropriate for the course. Outlines show the professor that students are using credible sources, choosing appropriate topics, and aren’t trying to cram too much information into the allotted assignment length. Here, outlines help determine if a student needs to change direction before doing unnecessary work.

Remember, in any instance, you’re creating an outline for your own benefit. It’s an easy way to organize your writing plan before you actually start and a handy reference for if you get stuck.

What to include in your outline

Your outline should map out each section of your writing and include:

• Your thesis statement
• The topics you’re covering
• Each piece of supporting evidence for each topic
• Your conclusion

Under each section heading, jot down a few of the key points you plan to discuss there. You might also want to drop in links to the sources you plan on citing. 

Types of outlines

There are a few different ways to label your outline. Two of the most widely used are topic outlines and sentence outlines. Both of these kinds of outlines are organized like bullet lists, which makes it easy to visualize a lot of information in just a few lines.

Topic outline

In a topic outline, you sketch out your writing using keywords and phrases. These keywords and phrases condense each section’s main idea into a quick, at-a-glance header. They don’t have to be your final headers, but they can be.

Here’s an example:

• Thesis: Adopting a mindfulness practice is one of the best ways to alleviate daily stress.
• Topic: Mindfulness reduces depression relapse risk

• Studies on depression relapse and mindfulness
• Topic: Mindfulness reduces chronic pain
• Studies on mindfulness reducing pain
• Studies on mindfulness and immune system

• Topic: Mindfulness therapy reduces stress and anxiety
• Studies on supporting mindfulness therapy reduces stress and anxiety

• Conclusion: Mindfulness is good for you—here’s why

See how the ideas are clearly organized here, but they’re each boiled down to a fragment?