How to Draft an Essay Outline that Will Work for Every Paper you Write
Outlines for papers and essays often don’t get enough credit than they should. An outline is basically the skeleton of your essay that makes it easier for you to write the final thing.
The main purpose of an outline is to collect all your thoughts and ideas and then lay them out in an organized way. This not only prevents you from missing out on some important ideas, but it also gives you a solid idea of what the essay will be looking like in the end.
And if you are one of the people who have the habit of completely ditching the outline, and then going straight for the actual thing; you are about to be convinced of doing otherwise.
This article will allow you to understand two main important things:
- How to construct the perfect outline that will work for most papers
- How to use that outline effectively
Once you figure out these key purposes of using an outline, you will realize how vital the outline actually is.
The perfect outline
The next time you are constructing an outline, here are all the things you will need to put in it:
- The introduction, which should have your main topic and also the thesis statement.
- The body paragraphs. There should be a total of three body paragraphs, and each of them will include your arguments and also any examples, statistics and evidence you will use to back these arguments.
- The conclusion. This will be a summary of what you have talked about in your essay, and ideally should include a call to action for your readers.
Now you might be thinking, “isn’t this what the actual essay will look like as well?” That is very much true. However, the outline will give you a chance to prepare material for each section
Once you have these things ready, you will be able to write the essay in one go. But if you don’t have the outline prepared on hand, then you will need to figure out each section as you go which can not only make things messy, but also be very time consuming.
In the outline, you only need to jot down the material in bullets, because the structuring will come in the final essay. So if you think you will be writing the essay twice by having an outline, it really won’t be the case. You can also find templates on websites like write my papers if you want to have a ready made outline.
How to use the outline
Now that you have your outline ready and in front of you, you can begin writing the essay away.
You know exactly what each paragraph will be about, you simply need to elaborate on the points that you have written in the outline.
This will not only make things easier, but you will also not lose time by thinking of what to write next.