At this point in the project you are probably wondering when you actually can start to write your presentation. You should feel at ease with your topic and confident that you not only have enough research, but that you understand it and will be able to present it, analyze it, and draw conclusions from it. There is just one more step before you actually begin to write and that is the outline.
In an outline for any paper the idea is the same, take what you have and organize it into a piece of writing that includes a thesis sentence, topic and concluding sentences for each body paragraph, and an introduction and conclusion for the piece. These are the components of a formal essay that are most often forgotten, yet very important to the flow of the paper.
A student once explained the outline of the paper to me as the skeleton that needs the muscles and skin put on it in the rough draft. This analogy is quite correct. The outline will include very few complete sentences (the first and last of each paragraph), but mostly notes and general ideas for each section of each paragraph.
Created by Gayle Taylor
Last Updated August 8, 2007