What is an Outline?

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, an outline is a description of the main facts or points involved in something. But when we write an outline for a text we are also making a summary of its contents, we show its structure and organization.

There might be several reasons to write an outline. Maybe you need to organize your ideas before writing a long essay, you might need to divide the contents in order to present them clearly, or you may just want to have an overview of your own writings or other types of texts.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (Prude OWL), which you can check out by clicking here, offers us some tips to write effective outlines. These are the following:

1. Preserve a parallel structure

2. Headings and subheadings must be coordinated

3. Write from general to specific (subordination)

4. Divide each heading at least into 2 parts when possible

You'll find an example of an outline here. My classmate Bettiana Storino and I wrote it together and I hope you find it useful for your future productions. 

You'll never know how useful an outline is unless you write one

References:

Proude Online Writing Lab.   (n.d)  Four main components for effective outlines  In Developing an outline.  Retrived from https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/developing_an_outline/index.html