How to Write an Essay Outline

An imperative prewriting skill is to write an outline for an essay prior to directly beginning the essay. It is a nice way to give your thoughts an order after you have brainstormed them. An unstructured essay gives a bad impact of the writer therefore it is desirable to write an outline for an essay in an orderly manner to let your essay flow systematically.

Purpose n Definition of an Essay Outline

An outline for an essay provides a constructed overview of what your essay shall comprise. An outline for an essay helps you present your ideas in a logical form defining the groups and boundaries. This builds up relationship along with ideas in your writing. A well-structured essay outline assists you in moving thoroughly from one point to another which creates a natural flow for the reader. This would make your essay writing stronger and will prevent you from making mistakes.

How to Write an Outline for an Essay

To be able to write an outline for an essay, it is ideal to primarily determine the purpose of your essay which will narrow down the topic for further research. This helps in preparing your thesis statement which is an essential element of the outline as it does not let you off track. It is also important to predetermine the audience that you are going to write for as this sole aspect molds the entire essay into a different shape.

An ideal way to write an outline for an essay is to brainstorm all the ideas that you want to include in your essay. After this, you ought to organize the group related ideas together. Write a point for each idea that you wish to include in every paragraph of your essay. Create subheadings under every point that you have already written down. This will assist you while writing the essay and will reduce the chances of forgetting a point.

Format for a General Essay Outline

Introduction

The introduction is composed of your thesis statement along with the reason why you have chosen this particular topic. To write a good thesis statement, you should carefully illustrate in words as short as possible the objective, nature and process of your essay.

Body

The body gives a paragraphical flow of your arguments and analysis on the select topic. With every step you progress towards proving your thesis statement with supporting facts and argument.

Conclusion

The conclusion sums up up the information and analysis that you have shared and tells them how you have reached to your particular result. Conclusion writing should be handled carefully and should include only the key points.

Citation

The citation section lists outside resources which you have used in your paper. You can quote resources based on the type of citation that is required in your paper e.g. MLA, Harvard or APA text citation.