An outline is crucial in writing as it helps you organize your ideas in the most logical manner to prove your thesis, therefore making the writing process easier. Without an outline, your thoughts are unstructured and scattered.

To create your outline, you must first determine the purpose/subject of your paper, as well as develop your thesis. Then, using the information found in your research (refer to note cards or print outs), you need to:

• identify the information most important to proving your thesis.
• organize your information by grouping similar ideas.
• place ideas in order from general to specific.
• label the ideas with main and subtopic headings.

The structure of your outline must follow the MLA format. Some important requirements to remember about the structure include the following:

• Outlines use Roman Numerals, letters, and numbers.
• If you have a subtopic A, you must have a subtopic B.
• The outline is double spaced throughout.
• Parallelism—if your first main heading is a noun, your second main heading must also be a noun. If your first heading is a verb, your second must be a verb, the third must be a verb, etc. (EX. “Develop” and “Determine” are both verbs).

Visit Roman Numerals if you don't know how to write in Roman Numerals.

To see an example of an outline, click on Outline Format