No matter how much you’ve heard teachers state the importance of creating an outline for an essay before starting the writing process, you probably still wish you could skip the activity altogether. But the simple fact of the matter is that outlines really do make the writing process much easier and improve the overall quality of the work. This short article provides you with a simple method on how to write a college essay outline without any of the fuss. Here’s what you need to know:
Consider the purpose of your assignment, and then select a manageable topic in which you are interested. It shouldn’t be too broad or too narrow, but fall somewhere in the middle so that you have little to know trouble finding relevant resources but still challenging appropriately challenging yourself by learning something new. If you have any doubts, run your ideas by your instructor for approval.
Next, come up with some solid central or main ideas worth bringing up in your assignment. Usually, students will have done some level of research – even background – on their topic. Consider the central ideas and ask yourself questions about those ideas to help develop them into something more concrete.
This third step is probably the most straightforward of the bunch, asking you to simply think of the main ideas you have developed in the prior step and arranging them in an order that makes logical sense to you and your reader. The structure will be determined largely by your audience and topic, but don’t forget about the need to tie the entire assignment together.
Each discussion point will be supplemented with sub-points, evidence, examples, and original ideas. Identify the best pieces and incorporate them into your outline. Each body paragraph should follow a simple and logical pattern that moves from the main idea to a transitional sentence in the end.
Finally, the last thing you need to know about how to write a college essay outline, involves a thorough review of your content and identifying the parts that need to be rearranged or revised in any way. You should try to do as much of this before you start the writing process. It’s much easier to make corrections now than it will be later on.