Radiation protection, Personal protection equipment

Instructions for Writing the Sentence Outline

Write out your thesis and/or research question/s.
Make a list of points/questions you must prove/answer in your thesis. What would someone have to agree with or need to know, in order to agree with or gain new knowledge about the thesis/idea?

○ These will be the main sections of your paper. Like the thesis, these should be complete, declarative sentences—something you can either prove/answer or disprove.

Write your first main point. This is the thesis/idea/question for that section of the paper.
Make a list of the points you have to prove/answer to prove/answer that point. Just as with the main points, these should be complete, declarative sentences—statements you can prove or disprove.
These are your sub-points for that section.
Repeat the process for each of your main points.

EXAMPLE 1:

I. This is the first main point

A. This is the first sub-point under I

B. This is the second sub-point under I

1. Sub-point B has its own sub-points

2. But you’d only list them if there were more than one

II. Here’s the second main point

A. It has two sub-points

B. But this one has no sub-sub points

EXAMPLE 2.

I. Man-made pollution is the primary cause of global warming.

A. Greenhouse gas emissions are widely identified by the scientific community to be harmful.

1. The burning of coal and fossil fuels are the primary releasers of hazardous greenhouse gases.

Once you have the main points and supporting points written down, it’s time to start organizing. First make sure which are main and which are supporting points. For example, you may find that what you thought was a main point is really part of proving another main point. Or, what you first listed under a main point may need its own section. This may change as you continue to work on the outline and draft the paper.

Now you can decide what order you want to present your ideas in. Again, label them with letters or numbers to indicate the sequence.

Tip: Don’t just settle for one organization. Try out at least two different sequences. You’ll be surprised at the connections that emerge, the possibilities that open up, when you rearrange your ideas. You may find that your thesis suddenly snaps into focus, or that points that seemed unrelated in fact belong together, or that what you thought was a main idea is actually a supporting idea for another point. Good writing is all about re-vision, which literally means “seeing again”—seeing your work from a fresh perspective. You can do this at every stage of the writing process, and especially at the organization stage.

Finally, write up the outline in the order you’ve chosen.

In addition to the elements of a formal outline, please also:

● Include a thesis statement at the start.

● Cite your sources: list all authors used in each section in parentheses at the end of that section.

● Attach a list of sources that includes all the sources used for the outline and no others. This list may differ from the one you submitted for the Annotated Bibliography, if you have added new sources or eliminated old ones.

In text citations and the reference page need to follow APA rules.

*** (If you’re using Microsoft Word, you might find yourself getting frustrated by its “helpful” approach to formatting lists. My advice is, don’t sweat the formatting too much. I’d prefer that you follow this or a similar format, but the main thing is that the relations among ideas should be clear. The reader should be able to see at a glance which are the main points, which are the secondary points, which are at the third level of importance, and so on. It should also be obvious which secondary points belong under which main points. Usually this is accomplished by using different numbering for different levels, and indenting the less important levels. But if you can’t make that work, do whatever you have to so that the relationships are clear.)