Developing Outlining Skills

    Outlining can help you see the author's plan, and his organization. It will also help you to read with better understanding. Outlining always helps--sometimes a little, sometimes a lot--but it always helps.

    1. What Is An Outline?

      1. An outline is a system of note-taking that shows how somebody has organized a group of ideas.

        1. It shows how these ideas are related to one another

    2. Steps To Follow When Outlining

      1. Try to discover the most important idea or the main idea.

        1. You should write this as a title or thesis statement.

        2. Think in exact terms when outlining.

      2. Major ways the author develops or subdivides his main point. (This will provide you with the major headings of your outline.) Review Signal (Transition) Words.

        1. Chronological order

        2. Enumeration

        3. Cause-effect relationships

        4. General to specific/easy to difficult

        5. Comparison-contrast

      3. Try to discover the author's details.

        1. These are ordinarily clues to what the author thinks is important or complicated and in need of more detailed explanation.

        2. Always try to connect these details to the major points which they explain or develop.

    3. Notation In Outlining

      1. The size of the indentation and the notation used are determined by the importance of the idea.

        1. The most important ideas are placed farthest to the left and are noted I, II, III.

        2. The next most important ideas, (the major details), should be placed below the major ideas and noted with capital letters (A, B, C, etc.).

        3. You should place the minor details to the right below the major details and you should note them with Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3).

      2. All ideas of the same importance should have equal indentation.

        1. You should begin all major or main ideas farthest to the left (ideas having roman numerals assigned to them).

      3. You may write items in an outline as either phrases or sentences, but the entire outline should be one or the other. In other words, don't mix phrases and sentences in the same outline. This outline applies only to formal outlines not those you are using as a means of study.

      4. Always capitalize the first word of each item in an outline.

      5. Always place a period after each notation symbol (numbers and letters) in an outline.

    Learning the skill of outlining can be difficult. You must have patience, you must put forth effort, and above all, YOU MUST PRACTICE. It is worth the effort.