Body Paragraphs Outline

Body Paragraphs Outline

An outline is a useful chart of your conversation with other texts.

In this activity you will construct a rough outline of you paper to answer some basic questions about organization:

• How many body paragraphs will your paper need?
• What points need to be proved?
• In what parts will you be responding to what "They Say"?
• Body Paragraphs Outline Example - PDF Document (256 KB)

Try to put all of your quotes somewhere in your outline. Note where you might need to summarize. Or, at least, put the name of the article you will need to respond to in the outline.

In the example above, the author figured out that she needed four body paragraphs to cover the main points of the debate. Your paper may have a greater number of paragraphs or fewer, but think about each element of your argument and where each source will go. Questions to consider:

• What have you realized from making the outline?
• Have you realized that some of your body paragraphs need more quotes or to interact with the texts more?
• Have you realized that you have left out necessary sources?