Words in Transition

Organize your material so as to present a logical sequence or flow of ideas and to provide the strongest support for your thesis statement. Begin by making an informal outline. State your title, purpose, and thesis at the top. List the three parts of your essay-introduction, body, conclusion. Select those ideas from your brainstorming or clustering activities that are essential to your thesis; these will form the body of your essay.

Informal Outline

Title: Signs of the times: Bumper Stickers
Purpose: Informative: to explain the purpose of bumper stickers.
Thesis: Bumper stickers express people’s beliefs, interests, and attitudes.

1. Introduction
2. Body - types of bumper stickers arranged in order of increasing social and cultural significance
   • Advertising on bumper stickers - examples
   • Humorous bumper stickers - examples
   • Ethnic and religious statements on bumper stickers - examples
   • Environmental, political, and social issues on bumper stickers - examples
3. Conclusion

Following is the formal outline for the Annotated Student Essay in COMP 6. Andy Pellett, a university student, prepared this outline to submit with his essay.

Title; The Perils of AstroTurf
Purpose; Persuasive; to argue for banning artificial turf and returning to natural turf as a playing surface for football and baseball.
Thesis; Artificial turf is a change for the worse.

1. Arguments for artificial turf
   • AstroTurf saves money
     • Counterargument: installation costs are high
     • Counterargument; artificial turf needs to be replaced more frequently, which further increases costs.
   • AstroTurf increases traction, especially during inclement weather.
     • Counterargument; Football and baseball are meant to be played in all kinds of weather.
     • Counterargument: Fans’ satisfaction is increased by seeing their teams playing in inclement weather.
2. Arguments against artificial turf
   • Artificial turf causes the ball to hop unnaturally, affecting player statistics and game strategy.
   • Artificial turf causes player injuries.
3. Conclusion: If we stick with real grass we cannot go wrong.

In writing a formal outline, follow these rules:

1. Include the title, a statement of purpose, and the thesis statement.
2. Write in complete sentences unless your meaning is immediately clear from a phrase.
3. Divide each category into at least two sub-categories. The reason for this is simple: you cannot logically divide something into fewer than two parts.
4. Observe the traditional formal outline pattern. Notice how each new level of specificity is given a new letter or number designation.

WPTips

Outlining

Develop a master outline file that can be copied for use with each writing project. Fill it in on the screen. Having a master file assures correct outline form (roman numerals, letters, and numerals), and using a word processor makes it easy to revise your outline during the writing process-adding, deleting, and rearranging ideas as you develop your composition.