2-1 The Outline

2-1 The Outline

You have a total of 45 minutes to complete your essay, and you should spend about 15 minutes to create a detailed outline before you start writing. An outline will help you organize the ideas in your essay so that they flow logically and are easy for the reader to follow. It will also help you avoid repeating ideas or having to re-work parts of your essay after you have started writing it. Having a clear outline to follow will also make your essay writing experience less stressful. Once you have decided on the overall structure of your essay, you will not have to constantly worry about what to write next. Instead, you will be able to concentrate on sentence-level accuracy, thus improving the overall quality of your writing.

Organize your outline into three main parts: introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. You can make some notes about your thesis statement, and then assign one main idea to each of your body paragraphs. You can also list the supporting details and examples from the reading and listening texts that you will use to support your main ideas in each paragraph. You can then think about how you will synthesize those ideas in the conclusion.

Below are some examples of outlines used to plan mid and high-scoring essays. Although many factors go into writing a good essay, a good outline is an important starting point.

Example 1

1. Introduction:
   • zebra mussel threatens Canada
2. reasons for controlling mussels (R 1)
   1. no predators or parasites (R1, Lecture)
   2. growing fast (R1)
   3. threat to other aquatic species (R1)
3. biological control is better
   1. well controlled (permanent) (R2)
   2. no harm (Lecture, R2)
   3. good for environment (R2)
4. Conclusion
   1. long-term solution, less harmful to other living things

Example 2