What is an outline?
Outlines are the underlying structure of a text, showing its skeleton underneath the writing. They can be produced as part of the writing process, but they can also be a note-taking tool as in the process of reverse-outlining, where you create an outline of a text that already exists in order to understand it differently.
Outlines should clearly indicate the essential elements of a text, and they often mirror its paragraph structure. They can also change the structure to reflect the actual progression of an argument, as arguments may come “out of order” or be completely implicit in the text at hand.
Outlines typically make use of multiple levels. For example:
- At the top level is the most essential feature of what is outlined.
- * Lower levels elaborate on the top level point.
- * * There is no limit to how many levels your outline can have.
- Each indent indicates the level, and starting back at the first line indent indicates you are on another point of the outline.