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Collin College ENGL 1301 Outlines Lecture Notes
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- ENGL 1301
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- Collin College
Collin College ENGL 1301 Outlines Lecture Notes
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OUTLINES LECTUREMany of you have written outlines for your papers. However, if you are like I was in
high school, you fail to see the helpfulness of writing an outline.
I am going to present outlining to you in a way that might make more sense.
Here we go.
(1) Use Reverse Outlines
First, let me introduce this idea: You should make an outline of your essay AFTER
you have written the essay.
Making a “reverse outline” can be extremely helpful. Sometimes, writers get very
involved in their word choices, and their sentences, and other things, and they don’t
notice how jumbled their argument is.
To me, an outline is like an x-ray of a body. The x-ray lets you see the bones. If
you’ve been concerned with the clothing, and the skin, and the hair of a body, you
might not notice you have hands that come directly out of the shoulders, and only
one leg. The x-ray helps you see that.
An outline helps you see whether your paper has the most essential things that
make a paper good or bad, understandable or confusing.
Please read what Purdue University’s website, the Purdue Owl, says about Reverse
Outlines: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/689/1/
If you find the Purdue explanation a bit confusing, that’s okay. It might make more
sense when you’ve tried to do some more focused outlines yourself.
(2) Make Your Topic a Claim
One of the problems I see in books that try to explain how to outline is that the
instructions tell you to write down the topic of each paragraph. I think simply
writing something like, “Birthday party” is very vague, and doesn’t help a writer see
his or her own argument.
Let’s take a look at a “traditional” high-school-y outline for a paragraph:
1. Birthday party
A. Great decorations like icebergs and icicles
, B. Professional D.J.
C. Some people snuck in alcohol
What is this paragraph proving? What is its argument? How does it support a
thesis?
(Answer: Uh, who knows? It’s impossible to tell.)
If a student filled in this outline, the paragraph would leave a reader asking, “Okay,
but what’s your point?”
Now consider this outline:
1. Jeremy spent big bucks on his party
A. Great decorations like icebergs and icicles
B. Professional D.J.
C. Some people snuck in alcohol
If I outline the paragraph by making sure I state the claim, then I can see that part C.
does NOT back up the claim. What does people sneaking in alcohol have to do with
the expense of the party? Nothing. Now I can see that my paragraph would be going
off topic if I included that alcohol information. I can decide I’ll use that information
in a different paragraph, or just leave it out.
See? An outline helps you see the bones of your paragraph and of your paper.
Consider this paragraph outline:
1. Jeremy’s party got pretty wild.
A. Great decorations like icebergs and icicles
B. Professional D.J.
C. Some people snuck in alcohol
Now I can see that part C. belongs, but I’m not sure parts A. and B. do. Maybe part B.
belongs, but I need to clarify by writing, “Professional D.J. pumped up the party
goers” and plan to explain that he brought a foam machine and got the dancers
involved in contests. Then the relationship to the party getting “wild” to the
professional D.J. would be clear.
The upshot of all this is that if you want outlines to start making sense, MAKE SURE
YOUR TOPICS ARE CLAIMS.
(3) Study Good Outlines
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