The Two Types of Outlines You Will Create
Academic outlines can take many forms. We will mainly be working with two: basic/skeletal outlines and descriptive outlines.
Basic/Skeletal Outlines
This type of outline is the most traditional. It’s main purpose is to present the framework you will use. It is skeletal because it does not require much information. The less meat on the bones the better since it’s only purpose is to establish how you intend to map for your ideas.
*Your first outline should be of this type. Your goal simply being to provide an overview of how you intend to organize your ideas, methodologies, and research materials.
Descriptive Outlines
This much more rhetorical approach to mapping out your ideas involves highlighting both content and rhetorical function. That is, this type of outline places special focus on how a text is constructed– both what each paragraph says and what each paragraph does.
- To establish what the paragraph says
- Provide a brief summary or paraphrase of the main idea(s).
- To establish what the paragraphs does
- Use the list of verbs attached below to establish the rhetorical function of each paragraph for the essay as a whole.
Putting it into Practice
Each of the verbs included below should prove useful in helping you map out the rhetorical function of each of your paragraphs. They express the most common or popular functions of paragraphs. You job is simply to fill the blank with one of these verbs in the chart for each paragraph: “This paragraph ______”
Sample using paragraphs 1-2 from “All Over but the Shoutin'” by Rick Bragg
- Paragraph 1 says: the father was living in a mill town and received his house as a form of pension. The son knocked at the door, heard an old, decrepit voice, entered the room and recognized his father’s belongings, but not “the ghost” he sees in front of him.
- Paragraph 1 does: the paragraphs describes the setting, introduces the main characters, and presents some sort of conflict between the father and son.
Professor Gomez 