An outline is a method of structuring, planning, and organizing an essay. It gives a brief description of every point and argument that an academic writer wants to incorporate into the essay. An outline sets a direction for writing an essay. Experts suggest formulating an outline before actually writing an essay or any academic writing. An outline serves as a mind map of all arguments to be written in the essay by providing a clear picture. An essay written following a prior outline is written better than an essay without any outline. Therefore, an outline is an important element of writing any kind of essay including a personal essay. As an essay writer suggests, a logical and coherent written outline leads an academic writer to write a perfect essay.

 

As an outline provides a framework for arranging and writing a logical as well as an impressive essay, hence, it is mandatory to write a powerful and effective outline. A weak and badly written outline adversely affects the quality of writing an essay. However, for writing a perfect outline, one needs to follow certain guidelines and steps that help to formulate a good outline. There are certain steps to write an effective outline, a few of them involve identifying the topic, choosing a thesis statement/argument, selecting major ideas, logical organization of the points, and review. These steps are further explained below.

 

First of all, an essay writer needs to identify the topic on which he/she wants to make an outline to write an essay. For writing a personal essay, one needs to choose the aspect on which one wants to write. This is the most crucial part because a proper selection of the topic makes a writer formulate a good outline, whereas the wrong choice of topic can make an essay writer write a weak outline that results in writing an ineffective essay. 

 

For selecting a topic, an essay writer must make sure that he/she has developed a proper understanding of the topic on which he/she wants to write. For this purpose, one should question him/herself about what he/she can work on. One should select a topic that he/she can better handle and find him/herself competent enough to have a proper understanding of the topic. One should not select a topic about which he/she is unaware because lack of knowledge hinders the way of formulating an effective outline and writing an essay further. Picking the topic according to one’s interest can help to formulate an outline easily. Therefore, the proper selection of the topic is a fundamental step in formulating a proper outline for writing a personal essay. If you are facing a difficulty in writing a proper thesis statement you may ask for help from an essay writing service to write for you. A whole outline is formulated based on a thesis statement, therefore, while writing an essay, one must consider writing a proper thesis statement.

 

The next important step for writing an outline for a personal essay is forming of a thesis statement. This is the most important part of formulating an outline and writing an essay. A thesis statement is a short statement that explains to the reader what an academic writer in the essay is going to investigate. This is the main argument of the essay and is an integral part of the outline. The whole outline is based on the thesis statement. However, one must write a thesis statement while framing an outline because no essay is complete without a thesis statement. However, if you are finding difficulty in writing and maintaining proper order in the outline you can ask someone, “could you write my essay?” to get an effective outline and a piece of writing. Therefore, to convey the best sense of the outline to the reader, a certain organizational structure must be maintained while writing an outline.

 

After selecting a topic and developing a thesis statement or argument, the next step involved in writing an effective outline is the filtering out of major ideas for supporting the argument or thesis statement. One must identify what points are to be included in the essay following the thesis statement. This step involves a writer making a list of ideas that he/she considers as an answer to the thesis statement. Supporting arguments to the main argument of the essay must be included; all other ideas coming to mind must be excluded. While writing an outline, one must only write those points that are coherent and directly related to support the thesis statement. Also, sub points to the major points can also be written in the outline. All major points supporting the main argument and sub-points of those main points are written in phrases or short sentences while writing an outline. Explanation of all major points is avoided in an outline as the explanation of points is to be written in the essay, whereas an outline requires only giving a signal about what a writer is going to discuss in the essay.

 

Another major step of writing a proper outline for a personal essay is the organization of the main ideas in the outline. After filtering out major ideas, a writer must follow some organizational order, either logical, numerical, chronological order, etc. while listing points in the outline. Lack of organization of the points in the outline do not deliver the actual sense of the essay. The logical and chronological order of ideas in the outline delivers a clear picture of the essay. Also, an outline with the best-maintained order can help to write an essay effectively and easily.

 

After the organization of the main ideas in the outline, one must review and check the outline. An outline is like a road map for writing an essay, so proper revision must be made after writing an outline. If any change or revision is required, one can make revisions in the outline so that a proper essay can be written. Thus, revising and editing an outline is an important step for formulating an outline.

 

To conclude, an outline is a fundamental step for writing an essay as it provides a layout for writing an essay. However, formulating a proper outline requires certain steps such as identifying the topic, choosing a thesis statement/argument, selecting major ideas, logical organization of the points, and review. Following these steps, one can write an effective outline for writing a personal essay.