Essay Outline Practicality and Why Write it at All?

Composing an essay outline might not be obligatory but it is helpful in academic writing. This is like creating a plan you can stick to later. It’s the basis of your essay, and it is its best visualization. 

Well, the answer to “how to create an essay outline” wasn’t hard to find. But the actual outlining is more complex, as well as the purpose of it. So, we’ll take a look at: 

• concrete help of essay visualization;
• how your essay outline can be convenient for potential readers;
• parts you have to mention in an outline; 
• fast steps to take to write a perfect outline; 
• where to find templates. 

Concrete Help of Essay Visualization

In brief, you mark the pillars that you will connect with logical bridges. In essence, you condense the meaning of what you want to say and write down key thoughts. They might look too different, even contrasting. Yet, you will know that you need to connect it all.

You can alter this scheme as you wish or compose multiple essay outlines and then choose the best one. You don’t have to do that right before actual writing! Vice versa, it will work better if you create an essay outline in advance. 

How Your Essay Outline Can Be Convenient for Potential Readers

An essay isn’t that significant of material to create a presentation for. Yet, outlines can still be helpful for potential readers. The readers can see the plan and understand what they will read about in each paragraph. If you write coursework or a dissertation, you can use the outline as an affirmation of your plan.

Systematization like that will also help others navigate. Some essays are long, and they might contain many thoughts or points. An outline will be the best navigation tool in that case. 

Parts You Have to Mention in an Outline

Essays on any topic have the same structure anyways. So, you will have to write about: 

• introduction; 
• body-text (paragraphs 1-5 and more if your essay requires it); 
• conclusion. 

That’s mostly it. Of course, it looks easy theoretically. But remember that you have to write a thesis for each part. It’s especially difficult for the intro and the conclusion. Even though the thesis might sound similar, it goes through a transformation when you build the essay with factual material. 

4 Fast Steps how to write a good essay outline 

Step 1: decide the first form of your thesis 

Its formulation decides which facts you will need to elucidate fully. 

If you have an opportunity, reduce generality. The more concrete your thesis is, the easier it is to support it. For instance, you have to write an essay about sports and you are the one who decides the formulation of the topic. So, you can choose: 

• “Swimming is helpful”. This is too general. Well, it’s not a lie either. But this topic doesn’t give anything particular to lean on in argumentation. 
• “Swimming can be fun and additionally salubrious even for those people who don’t do sports systematically”. This thesis clearly shows that we have to include information about how this activity helps people improve their health. Also, it is about how people can combine healthfulness with amusement. And on top of that, it narrows our thoughts because here we see that swimming can be good for non-professional sportspeople too. 

Step 2: gain factual material and add notes to each point of the essay 

You don’t have to gather a whole library. Yet, 1-2 sources will be nice to have in the very beginning. You can mark what you need to mention in every paragraph of your essay. 

Step 3: mark what you will discuss in each part of the essay 

You need only one sentence per point to make it all clear. There is no need to come up with examples and instances right after you decide on the subtopics for your paragraphs. 

Step 4: decide your answer to the essay question 

Your thesis will get overgrown with facts that will alter it. So, your final answer — or conclusion — will be different from the first form of your main idea. The modification won’t be too drastic but it’s inevitable. So, decide what you will say at the very end. At least, approximately. 

After this all, you know how to outline an essay and start the essay writing process! Remember that you can alter your plan a bit. And that you can create multiple versions if you don’t find it superfluous. 

Where to Find Templates

If you need exemplary material to create a good essay outline, just use the power of the Global Net. The Internet can provide you with billions of examples of how to do an outline for an essay. 

The hubs of essay outline examples are essay writing services. Also, you can find some on websites of free editing tools, like Grammarly. Of course, some educational institutions’ websites have articles about that too. So, we can list the best options: 

• official websites of colleges and universities; 
• websites and blogs of the internet writing tools;
• websites and blogs of essay writing services. 

Before Saying Goodbye 

Creating an essay outline is helpful in many ways. It won’t be easy for the first time. But when you get used to it, you won’t write an essay without a prepared outline. And it will be convenient not only for you but for your potential readers too!