Formal Outline

Assignment Objective: Create an clear organizational pattern to present the argument, support, counterclaims, and rebuttals which will develop a stronger argument to persuade readers.��Student Example: Formal Outline Example�Template Documents: Formal Outline Template

At this point you have your ideas flushed out and you have your support information gathered – now it’s time to get it all organized. 

The essay outline, an essential portion of the drafting process, assists writers to organize their material before beginning the rough draft.  Before you start your outline complete the assigned readings and read the details offered here to ensure you meet all the requirements of the formal outline.  In this class you are required to write a formal outline - one that is much more developed and detailed than you may have completed before. 

The formal outline incorporates the ideas formulated in the roadmap and the information gathered and analyzed in the annotated bibliography.  Setting out ideas in the order anticipated alerts writers to gaps in the development of their ideas and can show them where key ideas lack sufficient support (or have too much material for the shape of the full paper). 

The outline assists you to organize your ideas and support in a way that directly supports your thesis statement.  Add transitions sentences in-between sections to lead readers to new ideas, include further analysis of source information, and incorporate your own analysis to round out your argument – all of which will force you to think through your plans for the paper.

If you find the outline confining, remember this one fact – you will have a good majority of your paper written after completing your outline.  Let that be your motivation!  Whether this comes naturally or not, you have two previous assignments to assist you – the roadmap and the annotated bibliography – use the outline discovery draft to begin your basic outline (the Roman Numerals for each section), your basic ideas of support (capital letters A, B, etc), your support information from the sources (1, 2, etc), and finally your analysis of the support information (a, b, etc).  

Notes:

Put your thesis statement in bold lettering.

Complete sentences & transitional sentences

Include parenthetical citations

Reference page

Important:  I will grade this assignment based on the organizational pattern, not on the quality of the sources, which was assessed in the annotated bibliography assignment.  If you are still using inappropriate sources at this stage in the writing process, I will not address that here.  If you are concerned about a source, review the feedback you received from the annotated bibliography.  If you have a new source and are unsure about it, email the link and we can discuss it.