How to Create an Outline
The outline is an organized blueprint of the material presented in your paper.
Writing an Outline:
- Begin by listing the main ideas you want to get across, or main points you wish to make. These will become your Roman numeral headings.
- Divide each of these into sub-ideas or subsections, labeled with a capital letter. Make sure that you have at least two subsections under each main heading; it is illogical to “divide” a section into one subdivision.
- For each sub-idea, list various examples, bits of evidence, and information, numbering them with Arabic numerals.
- If necessary, these can be divided still further into details, preceded by lower case letters. Use either whole sentences or phrases, but be consistent throughout your outline: stick with one or the other. For a ten-page paper, a good comprehensive outline would normally be between one to two pages long, typewritten and double-spaced.
Formal outlines usually employ Roman numerals, Roman letters, and Arabic numerals, like this example:
- Main Idea
- Sub-idea
- Sub-idea
- Example of a sub-idea
- Example of a sub-idea
- Detail
- Detail
- Main Idea
- Sub-idea
- Example of a sub-idea
- Detail
- Detail
- Example of a sub-idea
- Sub-idea
- Example of a sub-idea
- Example of a sub-idea
- Sub-idea
and so on . . . till your conclusion.
Outline Example
Here is an example of an outline for a HST paper.