Outline and Write

The Outlining Stage

Make a copy of this outlining template and use it to fill in all the parts of your essay before you begin writing your rough draft. Place this document in your 0099 Writing folder in Google Drive and name it this way: ""LastName.FirstName.WhichEssay.Outline.Semester""

A few points to remember:

• When you bring an outline to class for a revision workshop, it must be typed in your Google Drive document.
• This template is a shortened form of the structure for your paper. But You might have THREE stages; if you so choose, you will need THREE middle paragraphs.
• When you fill in this outline template, abbreviate the CONTENT of what you actually plan to write in your paragraphs; each part of this outline should eventually be in your paper, in the same order. Whatever ideas you include on the outline should eventually be in the sentences of your essay.

The Writing Stage

For some, writing the paper is the easiest stage of all, but for others it is the most intimidating.

Here are some pointers to help you compose your paper with less stress:

• Write in your natural voice instead of forcing yourself into "essay" mode and trying to sound smart. If your natural voice leads to grammatical errors, you can deal with them during the editing stage.
• Use your outline as a guide for writing your paragraphs. Free yourself from holding all of your ideas in your head at once by referring to the ideas you have already laid out in your outline. If you feel more comfortable writing your draft before you compose your outline, you should write your draft first. But then come back and write an outline afterward and make adjustments to your draft if you discover gaps or find that your ideas need to be in a different order.
• Try not to overwhelm yourself with grammatical concerns at this stage. Over-monitoring yourself can lead to a robotic style of writing, which will be more harmful to your paper in the long run than grammar errors, which you can fix later on anyway.
• Focus on writing complete paragraphs and making your paragraphs connect to each other logically.