Everyone from students to professional writers stands to benefit from learning how to write an essay outline. What is your thesis statement? How do you support it? What order should you introduce new ideas in? All of these questions and more can be solved by taking the time to organize the answers ahead of time.
No matter what type of essay you’re writing, an outline is an excellent aid. You can start with the seven examples listed in this article, and if you need more support, writing tutors are available right now on Wyzant to get you started.
Table of Contents
What is an essay outline?
An essay outline is a tool for writers to organize their essay before writing. Among other things, it shows:
- Clear-cut sections
- Main points to cover
- Your objective
Every outline will look different depending on what you’re writing, but all are structured to give you a roadmap to follow. Creating an outline is also a great way to improve your writing skills because it teaches you to identify the different components of your essay and what makes them important.
Why do I need an essay outline?
While not always required, essay outlines give you self-tailored guidelines to build your paper instead of writing from scratch. Knowing in what order you’re presenting your thoughts to the reader will ensure your essay is coherent, which is essential to an effective essay.
It’s important to remember that outlines are guidelines and not rules. If you have a new idea in the middle of your essay that you think would work better than the outline you wrote beforehand, don’t be afraid to change it!
What are the components of an essay?
Essays are broken down into three general components: the introduction, body, and conclusion. In a five-paragraph essay format, this typically means the introduction and conclusion will each get one paragraph and the body will include three paragraphs total.
- Introduction: Presents the topic of the paper and, most importantly, your thesis statement
- Body: The longest part of your essay that includes the content to back up your thesis, such as background information, arguments, and evidence
- Conclusion: Summarizes your paper and leaves the reader with a strong impression of the entire essay
Identifying where your thoughts fit into these components will not only help you write your essay but will also be critical to forming a strong essay outline.
How to write the outline of an essay
When learning how to write an essay outline, start with the three main components. From there, you can fill in the information relevant to the essay type.
To create an effective outline, you’ll need to consider the structure of your essay in detail. This is where bulleted or numbered lists come in handy. Whether you’re handwriting or typing your outline, the example outline below is the same:
- Introduction
- Hook
- Introduce the main point
- Thesis statement
- Body
- Paragraph 1
- Paragraph 2
- Paragraph 3
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points
- Final thoughts
Now you’ve broken down your entire essay into more manageable chunks. A 2,000-word essay is a lot to contend with if you start without guidelines. While the body of an essay includes multiple paragraphs—or even sections—a paragraph is only a handful of sentences, which is a much easier portion to handle at one time.
Steps to structure your essay outline
To write an easy-to-follow essay outline, you’ll need to think ahead. As you write your outline, ask yourself the following questions.
What type of essay are you writing?
Understanding whether you’re making an argument or telling a story will alter your outline. Check your given prompt or look at one of the examples in this article to determine what kind of outline you’re creating.
Who is your audience?
Are you writing an essay during your language arts class to practice for the ACT writing test? Are you turning in a research paper after a science project? Understanding your audience will give you an idea of the voice you should use, the structure of the paper, and how much time you have to construct your outline.
How long is your essay?
Arguably the most important part of putting together an effective essay outline is knowing how long the essay will be. A short outline that takes up half a page may work for a three-page book report, but a longer, more comprehensive outline proportional to the length of your paper will help you more in the long run.
7 examples of essay outlines
Depending on what kind of essay you’re writing, your outline will change. When determining how to write an essay outline, certain elements retain more or less the same structure—such as the introduction and conclusion—but the goal of each essay will be different and therefore requires different focuses.
These example outlines include three paragraphs in the body, but those “paragraphs” could also be larger sections, each with their own paragraphs, depending on the length of the essay. As for how to write an outline for an essay regardless of topic or length, these examples will get you started!
1. Narrative
A narrative essay tells a story. This might be a plot of your own invention or a book report. Regardless of whose narrative it is, there’s a lot of information your reader will need to know, such as characters, environment, and plot. An outline helps you expose everything in a clear order to avoid confusion.
- Introduction
- Hook: Make the reader curious by revealing something about the narrative.
- Introduce the main point: Who are the characters and/or what is the story?
- Thesis statement: Introduce the main point (e.g., the narrative’s conflict)
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Build the plot
- Paragraph 2: Climax of the narrative
- Paragraph 3: Resolution
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: What was the outcome of the narrative?
- Final thoughts
2. Expository
Expository essays are a broad category that can include providing an example of the prompt, comparing and contrasting, forming an argument, and more. Because it’s so versatile, this type of essay is often used for language arts assessments. Transferring your thoughts to paper in a coherent order is central to successfully executing an expository essay.
- Introduction
- Hook: Engage the reader with a fact about the topic.
- Introduce the main point: What is being discussed?
- Thesis statement: What is your stance on the topic?
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Background information
- Paragraph 2: Evidence
- Paragraph 3: How the evidence supports your stance
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: Why is your stance valid?
- Final thoughts
3. Persuasive
In a persuasive essay, your goal is to convince the reader to agree with you. Counterarguments have a role to play in persuasive essays and you’ll need to introduce them, but be sure to leave sufficient space to refute them.
- Introduction
- Hook: Ask a curious or rhetorical question to get the reader thinking about the topic.
- Introduce the main point: What is the situation?
- Thesis statement: What are you trying to convince the reader of?
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Background information
- Paragraph 2: Counterarguments and other opinions
- Paragraph 3: Your argument and evidence supporting it
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: Why is your opinion the correct one?
- Final thoughts
4. Argumentative
As the name implies, argumentative essays involve you explaining and defending your stance on an argument. It has several of the same aspects as an expository essay, but while expository essays may include little to no research, an argumentative essay often requires it. Final papers like those written for capstone projects are often included in this category. Although this outline example lists three paragraphs, this is a prime example of a case where sections would be preferable.
- Introduction
- Hook: Begin with a researched fact related to your argument.
- Introduce the main point: What is being argued?
- Thesis statement: Where do you stand on the argument?
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Background information
- Paragraph 2: Evidence
- Paragraph 3: Possible counterarguments and how the evidence supports your argument
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: Why is your thesis solid in face of the evidence?
- Final thoughts
5. Descriptive
Descriptive essays are for painting a picture of a topic and offer you a great opportunity to be artistic. Whether you’re writing about a past experience or your favorite vacation spot, now is the time to use vivid vocabulary. As exciting as the topic might be, putting together an outline for your essay will keep you from rambling.
- Introduction
- Hook: Provide a quick anecdotal description of a scene to draw in the reader.
- Introduce the main point: What are you describing?
- Thesis statement: What is the most important aspect of the description?
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Background information
- Paragraph 2: Vivid imagery or anecdote
- Paragraph 3: Highlights of the description
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: What about the description do you want the reader to remember?
- Final thoughts
6. Compare/contrast
A compare/contrast essay has at least two elements that you are expected to write about, and then identify the relevant points between them. This may mean you need to expand the body to accommodate information for each one. Because you’re dealing with more than one idea, using an outline will help you to make sure they remain distinct in your writing.
- Introduction
- Hook: Introduce the two elements by giving a short, representative comparison.
- Introduce the main point: What is being compared and/or contrasted and why?
- Thesis statement: Point(s) being highlighted between the two
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Provide background information for the first element.
- Paragraph 2: Provide background information for the second element.
- Paragraph 3: Compare and/or contrast the two elements by pulling relevant information from the first two paragraphs to support thesis statement.
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: Why was the comparison important?
- Final thoughts
7. Cause/effect
In a cause/effect essay, your goal is to analyze the relationship between a situation and its result, or vice versa. Like the compare/contrast essay, If there are multiple causes and effects, it may be beneficial to give them their own paragraphs, expanding the body section below.
- Introduction
- Hook: Provide a strong statement about the cause and/or effect.
- Introduce the main point: What happened?
- Thesis statement: What is the importance of the relationship between the situation and the cause(s) and effect(s)?
- Body
- Paragraph 1: Describe cause(s) of the situation.
- Paragraph 2: Describe the corresponding effect(s) of the situation.
- Paragraph 3: Explain the resulting cause/effect relationship.
- Conclusion
- Restate thesis
- Summarize the main points: What made the cause(s) and effect(s) important?
- Final thoughts
Expert tutors help you write expert outlines
Whether you’re a graduate student writing your thesis or you want to give your elementary school student the tools they need to build strong writing skills, understanding how to write an essay outline is important. Don’t be afraid to let the outline be a little messy at first—the writer is the only one who needs to see it! Having an outline that works for you and your unique creative process is what matters most.
If you’ve never made an essay outline before, or if you have but want to polish your outline writing skills, a writing tutor may be just what you need. They can help you talk through your prompt and organize your thoughts before you take the next step to develop a blueprint for a powerful essay.
