Module 3 Instructor Guidance
Outlining
Once your topic has been chosen, your ideas have been generated through brainstorming techniques, and you’ve developed a working thesis, the next step in the prewriting stage is to create an outline. Sometimes called a “blueprint,” or “plan” for your paper, an outline helps writers organize their thoughts and categorize the main points they wish to make in an order that makes sense.
Creating an outline is an important step in the writing process!
A well-developed outline will show the essential elements of an essay:
- thesis of essay
- main idea of each body paragraph
- evidence/support offered in each paragraph to substantiate the main points
A well-developed outline breaks down the parts of your thesis in a clear, hierarchical manner. Writing an outline before beginning an essay helps the writer organize ideas generated through brainstorming and/or research. In short, a well-developed outline makes your paper easier to write.
What Is a Topic Sentence?
The topic sentence contains the central idea around which a paragraph is developed. A good one has the following six characteristics:
- It introduces the topic of a paragraph without announcing it.
- It hooks the reader. Links to an external site.
- It plants questions in the readers' mind.
- It uses thought-provoking words. Links to an external site.
- It is the first sentence.
- It may provide a transition from the previous paragraph.
Adapted from: Successful College Composition (2016), a text adapted by The Saylor
Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
License.