Prewriting: OUTLINES

Outlining Your Essay

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FOCUSING YOUR TOPIC So you’ve narrowed your broad SUBJECT

Down to a focused TOPIC

And you’ve established your MAIN IDEA

And you’ve drafted a THESIS STATEMENT

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GENERATING IDEAS Now you’ll need material to support that Thesis. This will be the raw material for your OUTLINE. To generate ideas:

BRAINSTORM FREEWRITE

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ELIMINATING & SELECTING Now that you have ideas on paper, you can ◦ “trim the fat” or “separate the wheat from the chaff” or “find

the diamonds in the rough.”

Your goal in selecting is to choose the best ideas that support your thesis.◦ If they don’t back up◦Then you must leave out

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ELIMINATING & SELECTING Eliminate, cross out, delete◦ the poor ideas◦ the irrelevant ideas ◦ those that don’t support your Thesis

Keep, circle, select◦ the quality, excellent ideas◦ the unique, interesting, fresh ideas◦ those relevant and supportive of your Thesis

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SELECTING & ORDERING From the remaining list of quality ideas chose the best 3-5 ideas

Then narrow that list down again to the best 3.

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ORDERING Lastly, arrange these premium ideas in the

“EMPHATIC ORDER”◦putting last the “most important” or “most significant”

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OUTLINING Now it’s time to draft your OUTLINE.

OUTLINE

THESIS:

I. POINT #1

A. SUPPORT

B. SUPPORT

II. POINT #2A. SUPPORTB. SUPPORT

III. POINT #3A. SUPPORTB. SUPPORT

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OUTLINING THESIS STATEMENT:◦At the top of the Outline page write your Thesis

in a complete sentence

NUMBERED LIST:◦Then take the numbered ideas from the previous

Brainstorming Exercise and list them here in Emphatic Order use Roman numerals

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OUTLINING MAIN IDEAS:◦The Roman Numerals indicate your Main Ideas◦ each main idea = single paragraph

MAIN IDEA =◦Reason◦Type or Role ◦ Similarity or Difference ◦Cause or Effect

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OUTLINING SUPPORT:◦Beneath each Main Point◦List your means of Support

use capital letters for each

TYPES of SUPPORT◦Examples, instances◦Stats, Anecdotes◦Quotes from experts

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OUTLINING OUTLINE:◦An Outline for a ◦5-paragraph essay ◦ should look something ◦ like this:◦Each point =◦a Body paragraph

OUTLINE

THESIS:

I. POINT #1

A. SUPPORT

B. SUPPORT

II. POINT #2A. SUPPORTB. SUPPORT

III. POINT #3A. SUPPORTB. SUPPORT