Prewriting: OUTLINES Outlining Your Essay

2 FOCUSING YOUR TOPIC  So you’ve narrowed your broad SUBJECT  Down to a focused TOPIC  And you’ve established your MAIN IDEA  And you’ve drafted a THESIS STATEMENT

3 GENERATING IDEAS  Now you’ll need material to support that Thesis.  This will be the raw material for your OUTLINE.  To generate ideas: BRAINSTORM FREEWRITE

4 ELIMINATING & SELECTING  Now that you have ideas on paper, you can ◦ “trim the fat” or “separate the wheat from the chaff” or “find the diamonds in the rough.”  Your goal in selecting is to choose the best ideas that support your thesis. ◦ If they don’t back up ◦ Then you must leave out

5 ELIMINATING & SELECTING  Eliminate, cross out, delete ◦ the poor ideas ◦ the irrelevant ideas ◦ those that don’t support your Thesis  Keep, circle, select ◦ the quality, excellent ideas ◦ the unique, interesting, fresh ideas ◦ those relevant and supportive of your Thesis

6 SELECTING & ORDERING  From the remaining list of quality ideas  chose the best 3-5 ideas  Then narrow that list down again to the best 3.

7 ORDERING  Lastly, arrange these premium ideas in the “EMPHATIC ORDER” ◦ putting last the “most important” or “most significant”

8 OUTLINING  Now it’s time to  draft your OUTLINE. OUTLINE THESIS: I. POINT #1 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT II. POINT #2 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT III. POINT #3 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT

9 OUTLINING  THESIS STATEMENT: ◦ At the top of the Outline page write your Thesis  in a complete sentence  NUMBERED LIST: ◦ Then take the numbered ideas from the previous Brainstorming Exercise and list them here  in Emphatic Order  use Roman numerals

10 OUTLINING  MAIN IDEAS: ◦ The Roman Numerals indicate your Main Ideas ◦ each main idea = single paragraph  MAIN IDEA = ◦ Reason ◦ Type or Role ◦ Similarity or Difference ◦ Cause or Effect

11 OUTLINING  SUPPORT: ◦ Beneath each Main Point ◦ List your means of Support  use capital letters for each  TYPES of SUPPORT ◦ Examples, instances ◦ Stats, Anecdotes ◦ Quotes from experts

12 OUTLINING  OUTLINE: ◦ An Outline for a ◦ 5-paragraph essay ◦ should look something ◦ like this: ◦ Each point = ◦ a Body paragraph OUTLINE THESIS: I. POINT #1 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT II. POINT #2 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT III. POINT #3 A. SUPPORT B. SUPPORT