The Purpose of the Outline

Now that you have chosen your thesis statement and researched evidence to support your various claims, you need to organize it all into a coherent, logical structure.

An outline is a great way to troubleshoot and firm up your argument before you commit to it in a draft. It's like planning out a route before you take your trip: it will save you a great deal of time and will help you foresee roadblocks before you get to them. You'll be able to see whether you have enough evidence to support a given claim, whether your claims support your larger thesis, how to link your arguments and counter-arguments, and what order of presented evidence feels most powerful.

Putting the pieces together

Once you have the elements of your argument, you need to connect them together in an outline, forming the skeleton of an argument that makes sense.

Getting Started

1. Write your first claim/point on an index card, and then write each piece of supporting evidence on half an index card. (You can use shorthand for the research—as long as you know what it is.) Put all of your ideas on these cards, so you can get the full picture.

For example:

• Claim: Public-service campaigns designed to change consumer habits regarding electrical use, while successful, have had only minimal impact on factors contributing to climate change.
• Evidence: Study 1: Household electrical use falls by __% after consolidated ad campaign by environmental lobby.
• Evidence: Study 2: Scientists report that much more must be done to stem climate change. Lowered power usage by consumers is not sufficient.
• Evidence: Study 3: Pie graph showing reasons for climate change.
• Backing: Mention recent weather disasters?

2. Do the same with the other claims and pieces of evidence.

3. Now you can rearrange the pieces of evidence as necessary to go with the most appropriate claim. For example, the third piece of evidence, above, might not be necessary for that particular claim, because the other evidence is strong enough. The pie graph might make more of an impact if you wait and include it with the claim about the agricultural environmental footprint. You might also decide that the additional backing about recent weather disasters makes your argument weaker, rather than stronger, because it isn’t evidence-based and has little to do with the claim.

4. Once you’re fairly sure of your order, put tape on the back of the index cards and tape them, in outline form, onto a piece of poster board with the thesis written at the top. Leave this somewhere prominent in your work space, so you can make changes as they come to you.

Questions to Ask Yourself

There is no easy-to-follow formula for creating the perfect argument structure. The way you organize your paper will vary depending on what your goal is and what elements of the argument you want to emphasize. In general, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the thesis introduce and give context for the discussion that follows?
• Do any ideas lack a foundation that needs to be addressed earlier in the paper?
• Does every claim have the evidence necessary to support it?
• Have you weeded out extraneous evidence?
• Do you want to lead with your strongest claim, or do you want to save it for the end of your paper so you can finish on a strong note?
• Where do you need to make claims explicit, and where will your audience understand them even if they are only implied?
• Where do you want to address your opposition? Does it make more sense to do it early on to preempt audience objections, or would you be better off building up your argument before addressing any counter-arguments?

The outline stage allows you to experiment with different ways of organizing. You can (and probably will) change the structure of your argument when you draft your paper, and perhaps again when you revise. If you plan your structure but realize that it isn’t working once you sit down and write, feel free to move elements around. 

Using the Outline as a Tool

Here are some ways to use the outline to make a better argument.

• Read your thesis, claims, and evidence out loud to a friend. Ask your friend if the argument makes sense and what he or she would change to make it stronger. Ask what was the strongest part of the argument and why (so you can decide both where to put the strongest punch and how to shore up the other claims).
• Leave enough time after creating your outline to get at least a night’s sleep before writing your first draft. Often, some time away will allow your mind to reveal problems with the argument and may even provide the solutions!
• If you find that your argument doesn’t feel very strong, don’t hesitate to go back to the research phase to find additional evidence. Most successful writers go back and forth from stage to stage often as they write. As you learn more about both the topic and the argument you want to make, you’ll have a clearer idea of the kinds of studies to look for. As you find additional evidence, you may decide to create a new claim or even to tweak your thesis.
• Play devil’s advocate. Looking at your outline board, come up with counter-arguments and questions for each claim. You can even put these on the board on different color index cards. Make it your goal to address these questions and counter-arguments sufficiently in your essay.
• Think about transitions. Does one topic lead naturally to another? How is the subject of each paragraph related to the subject of the next paragraph? After each claim, ask, “What does the reader need to know next?” You may need to rearrange the order based on the ease of transition from one topic to the next.
• For each index card (each claim, piece of evidence, each backing concept), ask yourself, “How is this important to the thesis?” If you can’t answer, consider that you may be using evidence simply because you collected it, not because it supports the overall idea of the essay.