Consider your working outline a preliminary vision of your paper.   As you continue reading on your topic, you may find it necessary to revise this outline to fit your new ideas on the subject. This is perfectly acceptable. Your working outline is a guide, and when any guide no longer is able to effectively lead you towards your goal (the clear defense of your thesis), it should be substituted for another guide that can.

Whereas your working outline should be brief enough to provide some direction to your research, your final outline should be somewhat more detailed and precise, since you will be using this outline as the basis for writing your paper. Every major point that you will be making in your paper should be included in this outline.

Before creating your outline, go through your stack of note cards. Put aside any cards that now seem irrelevant to the major focus of your paper; divide the rest of the cards into piles corresponding to the major subdivisions of your general outline (e.g., I-V in the above sample). Within each subdivision, order your note cards according to the specific points that you would like to make in your paper. Numbering each card with a red pen in the top, right-hand corner is a good way to avoid confusion later on: use Roman numerals for section numbers and Arabic numerals for specific points within your subdivisions (e.g., "I 2")

You are now ready to expand your general outline into a working outline by briefly stating the specific points that you would like to make within each subdivision. Each subdivision (1-4 in the sample below) should roughly correspond to a specific paragraph in your finished paper. Pretending that you are going to write the Kierkegaard paper described above, your working outline just for section IV might look something like this

IV. Sin-as-Ignorance vs Sin as Defiance in the Sickness Unto Death

 

1. Introduction

    a) Religiousness A and B applied to problem of sin

    b) treatment of sin in SUD

2. Socrates is not a "Christian dogmatician" (SUD 84)

    a) sin as ignorance is not really sin (SUD 89)

    b) no sin w/o consciousness

3. no sin without defiance

    a) sin must be connected with "willed wrong" (Burns 72)

    b) image of thread being pulled through needle (SUD 93)

4. Components of sin

    a) = a position (willed)

    b) = a paradox (incomprehensible) (SUD 98)

5. Rejection of Socratic Ignorance

    a) too rationalistic (Lowrie 47)

    b) inferior to Sin-as-Defiance

6. Conclusion

Remember, the more detailed your working outline is, the greater the direction you will receive when you actually start writing your paper.

    More Information about Outlines