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After you have done all or most of your reading, your teacher may require you to construct a more finalized outline than the working outline that helped you take notes and focus your research. The final outline takes the broad categories of ideas you had in the working outline and expands on them with more detail.
The better your outline the easier it is to write the paper.
The headings in your outline will become the TRANSITIONS in your paper. Transitions are VERY important in longer papers. Remember, it is your IDEAS that govern the paper not the details from the research.
There are two types of outlines: the topic outline (which uses only short phrases throughout) and the sentence outline (which uses complete sentences throughout). At CHS, we use encourage use of the sentence outline as it is more comprehensive and thorough.
Labeling parts of an outline:
The MLA handbook encourages the following labels for the descending parts of an outline:
I. [roman numerals]
A. [capital letters]
1. [numbers]
a. [lower case letters]
(1) [numbers in parentheses]
(a) [lower case letters in parentheses]
A proper final outline should:
- be typed
- be double spaced
- use proper Roman numerals and proper numbers/ letters throughout
- align everything properly (each part should look uniform)
- include breakdowns which exhibit that each point is thoroughly proven
- start with the thesis statement
- use complete sentences throughout
- include citations as needed
Below you will see a sample of how a final outline might be organized-- I prefer to think of each roman numeral as a paragraph of the research paper.
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