Step Four: “The Outline”

For the SAT, you must create an outline that has enough information so that you can remember what you want to write.

You do not want to be confused in the middle of writing. You want to be able to concentrate on each word, each sentence, and each paragraph, one at a time.

The outline is your guide, your plan for your essay! If you create a good enough outline, writing the essay will be easier!

Perhaps one of the scariest and most confusing skills for many people is outlining. If you were to draw an outline of a leaf, typically you would draw the outside edges and perhaps some of the structure of the leaf, for example:

This outline shows the borders and the basic structure. There are only major details, there are not any minor details, or other information about what might be within the borders. This is similar to the meaning of ‘outline’ used here.

Essentially, a written outline is a symbolic representation of the structure of what you are writing (or reading). It is a guide for what you will write.

For example, if we you writing about baking a cake, perhaps your outline would look like this:

Baking a Cake

I. Recipe

II. Ingredients

A. Flour

B. Sugar

C. Water

III. The preparation process

A. tools

1. mixing bowls

2. baking pans

3. baking utensils

IV. The baking process

V. Preparing the cake for eating

VI. Serving the cake

With this outline, couldn't you certainly write an essay about the process of baking a cake?

A lot of thinking goes into outlining. We will learn and practice outlining skills later. [Don’t worry!]

For now, you need to know that an outline has Major Headings (e.g., ‘recipe’, ‘ingredients’), Sub-Headings (such as ‘flour’, ‘sugar’ and ‘water’) and Minor Headings (for example, ‘round baking pans’). These headings need not be full sentences (they can be words, phrases or clauses).

These headings should communicate to you what it is that you want to say about them (they should remind you to look at your notes about something, for example). You will create sentences out of these headings and references when you write. Hence, you want to include a sufficient amount of detail in the outline because this will make the actual writing easier.

REMEMBER:

For the SAT, you must create an outline that has enough information so that you can remember what you want to write.

You do not want to be confused in the middle of writing. You want to be able to concentrate on each word, each sentence, and each paragraph, one at a time.

The outline is your guide, your plan for your essay! If you create a good enough outline, writing the essay will be easier!

Sample outlines and THE OUTLINE TO USE FOR THE SAT are in the outlining section. (Trick # 5)

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