Adjusting the direction and mapping it out

An outline is the organizational plan for your paper. You know your starting point: your introduction and thesis/research question. You know your destination: some sort of summative and thoughtful conclusion. But how are you going to get from one to the other?  An outline doesn't just help you articulate what you plan to say, but also how you're going to move from supporting paragraph to supporting paragraph.

The importance of outlines:

·         if you can't articulate your paper even in point form, you won't be able to do it effectively in prose and it will take you much longer to write an inferior draft

·         if you do find structural problems or gaps as you outline, it's easier to fix them now than to try and totally revamp a 3^rd draft

·         any teacher will tell you that you will lose more points for lack of substance than for lack of writing style

·         should things click into place, an outline gives you confidence

·         stream-of-consciousness writing can be published and fascinating as creative writing, but not as a research paper

·         outlines make drafting less stressful not only by describing the relationship of your ideas to each other and to the thesis or question, but because you now have small manageable chunks to tackle

·         many professors will be delighted to make an appointment with you to go over an outline but not a draft

How to construct your own

The first step to constructing an outline is to carefully read the notes you took. Try to find classifications for your findings that relate to your thesis or research question. Look for common trends. They're going to be separated from each other but gather them together. It doesn't really matter how you classify. For a 5,000 word paper, you may find two huge headings. Great, now see what could fall under each. And don't forget to look back at the original assignment for clues about sub-groups your professor might be looking for.

You can classify using a variety of techniques. If you like putting notes on index cards, then paper-clip ones that go together and shuffle them around to achieve the best order of ideas. You can also do this on paper: use different-colored symbols or highlighters or cut your sheets into strips (if you wrote on only one side of the page).

With several piles of related concepts before you, think of other ways of grouping that might make equal sense.

Once you're happy with what you've got, you may find that some sections are strong and fleshed-out whereas others are weaker. Do some more research where needed or see if two "weak" sections just couldn't fit under one stronger heading. Perhaps as hard as you try, your points fit together but not with the overarching argument you're making. In that case, don't be afraid to re-evaluate your thesis; it may just need a qualification. Your evidence may be great but if it supports a different thesis, your readers won't see how great it is because they'll be expecting something else.

What should an outline look like?

It doesn't really matter. Unless you have to hand it in for marks or you really do like the process, don't feel you have to get bogged down in the formal, "roman-numeral" structure. If webbing or point form does it for you, then that's what you should use.