Write a Good Essay by Preparing an Essay Outline
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010If you want to write a good essay, you must have it pre-planned before writing it. Essay outline helps you write essay that is organized, compressed and effective. If you craft your essay by carefully planning and organizing your thoughts, you have the reins of the essay in your hand, which lets you produce the desired effect on the reader.
Irrespective of the form of essay you are writing, preparing an essay outline helps you make productive use of your research and save time in writing subsequent drafts. If you want your essay to be effective and compelling, you must know how to make an essay outline.
Making an Essay Outline: Structure
An essay outline can take many forms. It can be in the form of note making, or a diagrammatic representation of ideas. You may even try flow chart if are writing a descriptive or a personal essay that has a circular narration.
The writing phase is often the most difficult for some essay writers. They find it difficult to get their thoughts and research ideas into writing. Making a rough Diagrammatic essay outline can be very helpful in triggering thoughts and organizing ideas, which are the basic components of a good essay. The rough outline can be later evolved into a essay template or a more formal essay outline with important components marked.
A Diagrammatic essay outline can be made in the following steps
1. Write your essay topic in the middle of the page. Circle or inbox it.
2. Write the main ideas you have about the topic. Make circles connecting the points to the main topic, or simply segregate them by placing an arrow. If you are writing a persuasive essay, you may choose to make for and against column as main divisions.
3. Write supporting ideas below each main idea.
4. Write facts or information under the relevant sub ideas, that support the main idea.
Making the above outline will expose weak points in the essay, highlight dub topics that need more research. This may even help you discover a newer perspective your essay.
A Final Essay Outline
A final essay outline should be structured in accordance to the essay format. Whether you are writing a basic five paragraph essay or a non chronological descriptive essay, your essay outline must reflect your essay structure.
1. Introduction: Figure out how you are going to introduce your topic and thesis statement. If you plan to take up a narrow to general approach, mention incident or data to incorporate into the introduction. If you want to provide signposts, brief your readers about the essay.
2. Body: Write the sub points that support your thesis. Below the sub points, mention sub-sub points to strengthen your argument. The number of sub ideas decide the paragraph break and numbers.
3. Conclusion: Briefly write points that support your thesis statement. Provide a relevant and contemporary context to the conclusion and the essay topic.
4. Citations: If you have written a research based essay, make sure you mention the sources your referred while writing the essay.
Writing an essay with an outline assures a good essay which has the required length, tight structure and compelling presentation of research ideas.
