An essay outline, How to Write an Outline for an Essay

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Here is an example outline argumentative essay : An essay outline

How to Write an Essay Outline with Examples

These clear, simple, and useful outlines provide easy-to-follow instructions and essay outline templates on how to organize and outline your ideas before writing a college essay or doing any kind of academic writing. Each sample outline includes explanations of paragraph and sentence elements like thesis statements, topic and detail sentences, and a conclusion. You can adapt outlines to an alphanumeric structure or a decimal outline and use them for a variety of essay types, including argumentative essays, and a sample outline for a research paper is included as an added bonus.

Why Write an Essay Outline?

An essay outline will help you organize your main ideas and determine the order in which you are going to write about them. In some cases, a decimal outline may allow you to organize your details better. Writing an outline with an alphanumeric structure is another very effective way to think through how you will organize and present the information in your essay. It also helps you develop a strong argumentative essay.

Looking for a printable list of essay outline examples?

Our printable PDF features essay outline examples and templates that your students can use as examples when writing research papers, or as a supplement for an essay-writing unit.

Sample Outline - Persuasive Essay

Competitive Swimming, an Ideal Sport for Kids

Introduction

Start your argumentative essay outline by stating your point of view and/or present your persuasive argument.

Thesis: Competitive swimming is a great alternative to other youth sports.

Body Paragraph 1

Introduce your primary persuasive argument and provide supporting details in your argumentative essay outline.

Topic Sentence: Competitive swimming provides the same benefits as other sports.

Detail Sentence 1: It is good exercise and builds muscular strength.

Detail Sentence 2: It promotes cooperation among team members, especially in relays.

Body Paragraph 2

Introduce a secondary argument and provide supporting details.

Topic Sentence: Competitive swimming provides some unique additional benefits.

Detail Sentence 1: Swimming is an important skill that can be used forever.

Detail Sentence 2: Swimming poses a reduced risk of injury.

Detail Sentence 3: Each swimmer can easily chart his or her own progress.

Conclusion

Conclude your essay writing with a summary of the thesis and persuasive arguments. Brainstorming details that support your point-of-view is a great way to start before creating your outline and first draft.

Concluding Sentence: There are many reasons why competitive swimming is a great alternative to other youth sports, including.

Sample Outline - Narrative Essay

How Losing a Swim Meet Made Me a Better Swimmer

Introduction

Introduce the subject of your narrative essay using a thesis statement and a plan of development (POD).

Thesis: The first time I participated in a competitive swim meet, I finished in last place. With more focused training and coaching, I was able to finish 2nd in the State Championship meet.

Plan of development: I was very disappointed in my results from the first meet, so I improved my training and fitness. This helped me swim better and faster, which helped me to greatly improve my results.

Body Paragraph 1

Set the scene and provide supporting details. Again, start by brainstorming different ways to begin; then go ahead and craft an outline and a first draft.

Topic Sentence: I was embarrassed at finishing last in my first competitive swim meet, so I began working on ways to improve my performance.

Detail Sentence 1: I spent extra time with my coach and the team captains learning how to improve my technique.

Detail Sentence 2: I started running and lifting weights to increase my overall fitness level.

Body Paragraph 2

Provide additional supporting details, descriptions, and experiences to develop your general idea in your essay writing.

Topic Sentence: Over time, my results began to improve and I was able to qualify for the state championship meet.

Detail Sentence 1: My technique and fitness level made me faster and able to swim longer distances.

Detail Sentence 2: I steadily got better, and I began winning or placing in the top 3 at most of my meets.

Detail Sentence 3: My results improved to the point that I was able to qualify for the state championship meet.

Body Paragraph 3

The next step in the writing process is to provide additional supporting details, descriptions, and experiences. You can then divide them up under different headings.

Topic Sentence: With my new confidence, techniques, and fitness level, I was able to finish 2nd at the state championship meet.

Detail Sentence 1: I was able to swim well against a higher level of competition due to my training and technique.

Detail Sentence 2: I was no longer embarrassed about my last-place finish, and was able to use it as motivation!

Conclusion

Conclude the narrative essay with a recap of the events described or a reflection on the lesson learned in the story. Briefly summarize the details you included under each heading.

Concluding Sentence: I used my last-place finish in my first competitive swim meet as motivation to improve my performance.

Sample Outline - Descriptive Essay

Visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame

Introduction

Introduce the subject of your descriptive essay with a thesis statement covering the person, place, object, etc. you are writing about.

Thesis: The Hockey Hall of Fame is full of sights, sounds, and experiences that will delight hockey fans of all ages.

Body Paragraph 1

Set the scene and provide factual details.

Topic Sentence: The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Canada and features exhibits from amateur and professional hockey.

Detail Sentence 1: The Hall is located in downtown Toronto and is visited by 1 million people every year.

Detail Sentence 2: You can see exhibits ranging from the early beginnings of the sport to the modern NHL and Olympics.

Body Paragraph 2

Provide additional sensory details, descriptions, and experiences.

Topic Sentence: There are many types of exhibits and shows, including activities you can participate in.

Detail Sentence 1: Player statues, plaques, and jerseys decorate the walls in every room of the Hall.

Detail Sentence 2: Many of the exhibits have movies and multimedia activities that make you feel like you're part of the game.

Detail Sentence 3: You can even practice shooting pucks on virtual versions of some of the game's greatest goalies!

Conclusion

Conclude the essay with a paragraph that restates the thesis and essay buy online recaps the descriptive and sensory details.

Concluding Sentence: The Hockey Hall of Fame is an experience that combines the best sights, sounds and history of the game in Toronto.

Sample Outline - Expository Essay

Why The School Year Should be Shorter

Introduction

Introduce the primary argument or main point of an expository essay, or other types of academic writing, using a thesis statement and context.

Thesis: The school year is too long, and should be shortened to benefit students and teachers, save districts money, and improve test scores and academic results. Other countries have shorter school years, and achieve better results.

Body Paragraph 1

Describe the primary argument and provide supporting details and evidence.

Topic Sentence: A shorter school year would benefit students and teachers by giving them more time off.

Detail Sentence 1: Students and teachers would be able to spend more time with their families.

Detail Sentence 2: Teachers would be refreshed and rejuvenated and able to teach more effectively.

Body Paragraph 2

Provide additional supporting details and evidence, as in this essay outline example.

Topic Sentence: A shorter school year would save school districts millions of dollars per year.

Detail Sentence 1: Districts could save money on energy costs by keeping schools closed longer.

Detail Sentence 2: A shorter school year means much lower supply and transportation costs.

Detail Sentence 3: Well-rested and happy students would help improve test scores.

Body Paragraph 3

Provide additional or supplemental supporting details, evidence, and analysis, as in the essay outline example.

Topic Sentence: Shortening the school year would also provide many benefits for parents and caregivers.

Detail Sentence 1: A shorter school year would mean less stress and running around for parents.

Detail Sentence 2: Caregivers would have more balance in their lives with fewer days in the school year.

Conclusion

Conclude the essay with an overview of the main argument, and highlight the importance of your evidence and conclusion.

Concluding Sentence: Shortening the school year would be a great way to improve the quality of life for students, teachers, and parents while saving money for districts and improving academic results.

Sample Research Paper Outline

The Conquest of Mt. Everest

Background Information

Location of Mt. Everest

Geography of the Surrounding Area

Facts about Mt. Everest

Height of the mountain

How the mountain was named

Peak XV

Jomolungma (Tibetan name)

Sagarmatha (Nepalese name)

Sir Edmund Hillary

First to reach the summit (1953)

Led a team of experienced mountain climbers who worked together

Norgay was an experienced climber and guide who accompanied Hillary

Sherpas still used to guide expeditions

Leader of the failed 1996 expedition

Led group of (mainly) tourists with little mountain climbing experience

Ecological Effects

Loss of trees due to high demand for wood for cooking and heating for tourists.

Piles of trash left by climbing expeditions

Expedition fees provide income for the country

Expeditions provide work for the Sherpas, contributing to the local economy.

Introduction of motor vehicles

Introduction of electricity

The Everest essay outline template is based on a research paper submitted by Alexandra Ferber, grade 9.

How to Write an Outline for an Essay

Essays are used to express ideas or opinions about a particular subject matter. It’s among the first tasks introduced to students at the primary levels of education. It’s also one of the widely accepted forms of assessing students that cut across most academic disciplines, especially in college. Schools and even places of employment might also require an essay from an applicant before considering them.

The silver lining is that many students have a working knowledge of how to write an essay and its structure composition, which usually includes an introduction, body, and a concluding paragraph. Still, the average student spends more than the necessary number of hours on a single task because they run out of ideas or lose their train of thought. Even the overall content of the paper suffers. That can be avoided by penning down a detailed outline before writing the first draft. Did you know even seasoned bestsellers writers do this? So what’s an outline, how does it improve your essays, and how do you write it? We are answering all these questions in our guide.

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Outline Format and Definition

An essay outline is a road map, a blueprint, or an essay diagram that helps writers organize their papers. Research papers and dissertations often have a table of contents — it’s something similar. On some level, most students create it without even realizing it, and that’s why it’s easy to learn how to write one. For instance, everyone researches and brainstorms for ideas before writing. Except that most students don’t put their thoughts in order before proceeding, and even if they do, it’s not enough to be an outline.

If writing an outline isn’t a task that you must submit for a grade, then it’s up to you how you format it. However, you should follow four main principles when creating a plan for your academic writing:

Ranking — as you go from your main headings to subheadings, you move from general to more specific.

Parallelism — every heading on the same hierarchy level should start with the same word type (verb, adjective, noun, etc.).

Parity — all headings of the same hierarchy should be equally important and less important than the ones higher in rank.

Fragmentation — each main heading should be divided into at least two subheadings.

The image below illustrates all four principles.

As for the format, the most common one is a standard alphanumeric outline template. Headlines are labeled in the following order (from the first to the most nested one):

I. Roman numerals

A. Capitalized letters

1. Arabic numerals

a. Lowercase letters

(1) Arabic numerals in round brackets

(a) Lowercase letters in round brackets

For what you write in each point, you can either use brief phrases or full sentences that summarize the idea.

The decimal outline structure is another format you can apply, and it looks like this:

Why is Outlining Essential?

Reasons vary, but usually, we use it to order logically all the data you collected during the brainstorming and researching stages. For research papers, a good outline helps a lot as you can easily keep track of all the information. Even for oral presentations, it’s a great way to identify the strength and weaknesses of their speech and make it more effective. To sum up, an outline’s core functions are:

Guiding you during the writing phrase

Helping you organize your thoughts and ideas

Presenting material in a logical order

Showing how your ideas link to one another

Serving as an abstract of your paper

Enhances thinking flow

Consider planning every next day before going to bed. You will realize that you undertake your daily activities without overthinking or second-guessing yourself because you know what to do every time. That is one of the proven life principles for most successful people. The same applies to paper writing. Your essays will feel like a walk in the park if you outline every point beforehand.

Saves time

Time is a commodity that none of us have in abundance, especially considering the responsibilities students have to undertake daily. So why spend hours on essays when you have mounting academic work to deal with? You’d rather waste less time and still get good grades. That’s what essay outlines are for: to both save time and improve your performance. Once you’ve planned out your essay, it takes less time to develop each idea.

Improves grades

From the perspective of students, the whole point of sweating over an essay is to get the best grades, and an outline can help you do that. If you take time to brainstorm and jot down every point you can raise in your essay, you will make fewer errors. If you arrange your ideas in an order that makes sense, your tutor will notice it and evaluate the paper accordingly.

How to Outline an Essay

Building an outline is an excellent way to make sure that every paragraph in your essay has a purpose. While outlining, you can see if a paragraph is essential or can be dropped with no harm to your paper. It also serves to check how your argument or main idea is advancing, which will help you speed up the proofreading stage. Now that you learned how significant outlining is let’s see how you can create one.

Before writing an outline, you should:

Define the goal of your essay

Determine the target audience

Create the thesis statement

The outlining process itself usually involves:

Brainstorming the ideas you want to cover

Separating those ideas into groups

Arranging your data from general to specific

Creating main headings and subheadings for paragraphs

Step 1: Research

The quality of your research determines the quality of your outline and your essay at large. That includes things like finding quotes from reputable sources or indicating the main supporting details to bolster your argument. Depending on your educational background, you might have to use different sources to expedite your research.

Any websites found on Google are not suitable as sources for papers written at a college or university level. Since there’s the Internet is full of unverified information, it’s vital to ascertain your source’s credibility before referring to it. Examples of trusted sites include Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Science.gov, Refseek, and Oxford Academic.

Step 2: Organize

After choosing a topic and researching, it’s time to write the outline, using all the gathered information. It should match the layout of the essay: an introduction, a body section, and a conclusion. Have you ever written down something but couldn’t read from your handwriting later on? This usually happens if you have bad handwriting or if the information is too clustered to read. You don’t want to rely on such an outline, especially when pressed for time. So, you must organize your plan to match the essay structure.

Introduction

Some ways to start your introduction paragraph are anecdotes, proverbs or idioms, definitions, statistics, quotes, or facts. You can begin your English essay outline by jotting down the main ideas for the introduction, which should also include a thesis statement. The point is to equip yourself with a road map, so short sentences should suffice.

Body paragraphs

Each body paragraph provides one idea that supports your thesis statement and is backed by facts, details, and examples. Depending on the volume of the essay, there will be more or fewer paragraphs here. But, when writing a standard essay, you would usually need three or four body sections, and each of them should be in your outline. Bear in mind that every paragraph must contain a topic sentence supported by two or three independent ideas with a link sentence at the end.

Conclusion

This paragraph is a sum-up every main point raised throughout the essay with some broader context. For a short paper, three to five sentences should do for the concluding section of your paper.

Below is a template of a standard five-paragraph essay outline structure template that you can download by clicking on the button under the image.

Once you’re done, remember to proofread and edit to ensure you haven’t missed something important.

Essay outline examples

Now that you know how to write an outline, analyze the samples below to get a better idea of how to apply this theory in practice. Each sample outline was hand-picked to make sure it corresponds to all key principles of creating one.

An essay outline, An essay outline