Essay Planning Guide

See your whole essay at a glance and keep from losing your thread as you write.

A detailed outline provides a way of seeing your whole essay at a glance and can keep you from losing your thread as you write. You might add ideas as you carry out your research and rearrange points as necessary.

Once you have the key ideas, themes or topic areas that relate to your essay title, you may find it helpful to transfer and expand them into a detailed outline, to roughly resemble the example below.

Essay Title

Introduction

What you are examining.
How you are going to do it (which theories/studies you will discuss and in what order).

Section 1

Heading/area of discussion.

Section 2

Heading/area of discussion.

Section 3

Heading/area of discussion.

Conclusion

A summary of your findings.

What remains unanswered.

Possible solutions/further areas of investigation.