Writing an effective outline

Chapter six of Envision talks about Organizing and writing your research arguments. One of the beginning steps of writing a research argument paper is to make an outline. One thing that stood out to me in this chapter is the way that Envision decided to describe how to write an effective outline.

Its first states that an outline is important for a longer and more complex paper. It helps you figure out how to organize and place your main points you are trying to prove. It then goes on to compare an outline to a movie, Avatar. Personally I though Avatar was an okay movie, but the book uses the trailer to show how an outline is like a movie trailer. A movie trailer shows key scenes, the main conflict, the crucial characters, and the main message. Whereas an outline contains the main points, the topic area, the crucial evidence, and the thesis to your argument.

Envision goes on to show how the filmmakers use the trailer to get people to want to see the details of the outline, which is like wanting to see the rest of a paper. It shows that a good outline makes a good paper and a bad outline can make a bad paper.

This is important to me because I always use outlines for projects and activities. In debate I always try to outline the round the way I want it to go before we even start. It is important way to become prepared for many school related activities.