Standard Outline Format

SAT ESSAY WRITING TRICK #5

Essentially, there are three parts to a college essay:

The Introduction

The Body

The Conclusion

I tell my students that the following outline can be the basic outline for every essay they will write:

I. Introduction: what you are going to say

A. Focus the reader

B. Define your terms

II. Paragraph 1 (topic sentence)

A. Statement/question

B. Define terms

C. Explain why this is important

D. Examples

III. Paragraph 2 (topic sentence)

        A. Statement/question

        B. Define terms

        C. Explain why this is important

        D. Examples

IV. Paragraph 3 (topic sentence)

        A. Statement/question

        B. Define terms

        C. Explain why this is important

        D. Examples

V. Conclusion: what you said/summary

Please note that each statement or example could be more than one sentence.

Let us look at each of these components (parts, aspects) of the outline in some detail:

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