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Making an Outline
Need a structure to organize your thoughts?
Scroll below for some good strategies for outlining your argument and evidence for your academic paper in History
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questions you need answers to before you build an outline
How many parts does your argument have? what are the 2-3 main ideas of your thesis?
how long is your paper?how many paragraphs do you need?
How many questions are you asked to answer?
do you have enough evidence to defend each part of your thesis?
for university-level history papers, it is often a good idea to keep each paragraph about one main idea. if your argument has various parts, you want to make sure to outline your paper with room for a paragraph for each of your thesis' main points.
you want to know if you've collected enough information to defend your argument before you start writing. it is not a bad idea to group your evidence in the paragraphs you intend to put them in an outline. this way, you will have a clear picture of your paper's structure, and the clarity of your argument.
remember that a double spaced page is about 250 words. you only have so much room to make your argument. you need to know how much room you have, and how many main ideas you can include.
not every prompt is the same. if your professor is asking you more than one question in your prompt, you need to adjust the structure of your paper to address each question.
visualize how your thesis translates in essay structure
thesis
the online history tutors are the best tutors at fiu because of thesis point a, b, and c.
parts of thesis
thesis
point a
thesis
point B
thesis
point c
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section 1
thesis
point a
thesis
point a
thesis
point B
example #1 to support point a
thesis
point c
another sentence to explain connection of example # 1 to main idea of section
example #2 to support point a
another sentence to explain connection of example # 2 to main idea of section
example #3 to support point a
another sentence to explain connection of example # 3 to main idea of section
recap argument of section and transition to next thesis point in section 2
section 2
thesis
point b
example #1 to support point B
thesis
point a
thesis
point B
thesis
point a
thesis
point c
another sentence to explain connection of example # 1 to main idea of section
example #2 to support point B
another sentence to explain connection of example # 2 to main idea of section
example #3 to support point B
another sentence to explain connection of example # 3 to main idea of section
recap argument of section and transition to next thesis point in section 3
section 3
thesis
point c
example #1 to support point c
thesis
point a
thesis
point B
thesis
point c
another sentence to explain connection of example # 1 to main idea of section
example #2 to support point c
another sentence to explain connection of example # 2 to main idea of section
example #3 to support point c
another sentence to explain connection of example # 3 to main idea of section
recap argument of section and transition to conclusion
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