How to Outline College Essays Fast (Step-by-Step for Working Students)

Posted on by Stephanie

Are you returning to school to finish a degree, but struggle with writing essays? It’s okay, I’ve got you covered. 

Because there was great interest in the topic of how to write academic research papers, the next couple posts will break down some other key paper writing skills I’ve implemented as a working student. 

These strategies have allowed me to get consistent A’s and B’s on essays with less stress and effort, and I believe they will help you as well.

This post will cover how to outline essays fast. But before we get into the steps, let’s talk about why you should outline your paper before jumping all into the writing portion.

Why Outline Your Essays?

Creating an effective outline takes more time, right? Maybe so, but if you want to maximize your grade on your essays and save your sanity, outlines are essential. Here’s why. 

Outlining your essays helps you follow the instructions.

When we outline our essays, we can make sure that we’re hitting all the right points. 

When I don’t outline, I’m always afraid that I may be missing something that the professor was asking for. This means I’m spending too much time referring back to the instructions and wasting energy worrying about if I’m doing everything right. 

Outlining fixes this because we incorporate all of the requirements into the paper from the beginning.

Even if the paper itself isn’t the best, you can still save a lot of points by just addressing all the questions listed in your assignment prompt. Doing this has saved my grade a bunch.

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Outlining = Organization

Outlining allows you to organize your thoughts, arguments, and evidence in an order that not only makes sense to you, but to your professor as well.

Here’s an example:

In a previous class, I wrote an essay comparing the Ancient Greek, Roman, and Renaissance periods. This time period spans over the course of millennia. 

If I hadn’t taken the extra time to outline my paper, I would have been more scattered on what I needed to research and what I needed to address in order to answer the prompt fully.

Organizing with an essay outline gave me a basis on where to start in each section. 

Not going to lie, it was still a difficult paper to research. But when I started to feel overwhelmed, I could rely on my outline to bring me back to what mattered in the assignment.

Now that we’ve covered why you should take the time to outline the paper, let’s dive into how you can effectively outline your paper fast.

How to Outline College Essays as a Working Student

This section will use the following example instructions that I pulled from ChatGPT. If they happen to be similar to your essay prompts, it is purely a coincidence. 

We’ll be using what I’m calling The Steph Method to Outline Essays.

Assignment Prompt Example

Here’s our assignment prompt for a hypothetical College History Class:

Assignment:
 Write a 3–4 page essay explaining the major causes of the American Revolution.

Purpose:
 Show your understanding of why the colonies decided to separate from Britain and support your points with evidence from reliable sources.

Requirements:

  • Length: 3–4 pages (not including title and reference page)
  • Formatting: APA Format

Sources:
Use at least two scholarly sources (books, journal articles, or credible websites). Include in-text citations and a References page following APA guidelines.

Assignment Overview

First, read through the assignment prompt. Let’s pick out the information we need that involves our outline.

Our essay is going to be about the major causes of the American Revolution.

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More than likely, in a real college class you’d have some material, reading, or lecture that would give you the background information you need in order to be familiar with the topic. 

You don’t need to know everything. That’s where the actual researching will come into play later.

Next, we know that our professor wants us to explain why the colonies decided to separate from Britain in the American Revolution. 

A typical rule of thumb is to give 2-3 reasons for any topic (if the number of reasons isn’t specified in the instructions). And we need to support each point with evidence from a reliable source. 

Okay, we know what the assignment is asking, so it’s time to find our information and put together our thesis statement.

Background Information/Initial Research

You may have to do a google search or look through your textbook/lecture notes to refresh your memory on the causes of the American Revolution.

I just did a ChatGPT search for the simplicity of the example (and because I forgot haha).

Here are 3: 

  • Taxation Without Representation
  • British Military Control and Punishments
  • Introduction of Enlightenment Ideals

For right now, that’s all we need to know. Let’s take this with us to crafting the thesis statement.

Thesis statement

First off, what is a thesis statement? A thesis statement is basically your main point or argument in one or two sentences. 

It tells the reader what your paper is about and what you’re trying to prove. Everything else in your essay should connect back to it. 

It shows your opinion and sets up what your body paragraphs will explain in more detail.

Template for creating your thesis statement:

The [topic you’re writing about/your stance on the topic] was [caused by/due to] the following reasons: [reason 1], [reason 2], [reason 3].

In our case for the paper: 

“The colonies decided to separate from Britain in the American Revolution due to the following reasons: Taxation without representation, British military control and punishments, and the introduction of Enlightenment ideals.”

This thesis statement will go at the end of your introduction paragraph. Just set it, and forget it 🙂

See how everything is falling together?

Basic Essay Outline Template

You can use my template to help you outline your paper below.

  • Intro
    • Background Information
    • Thesis Statement
  • Body (the Meat of your paper)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 1
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 2
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 3
  • Conclusion
    • Thesis Statement (restated in different words)
    • How This Connects to the Current World or Future Society

Our background information and thesis statement now allows us to plug everything into this template.

  • Intro
    • Background Information
    • Thesis: The colonies decided to separate from Britain in the American Revolution due to the following reasons: Taxation without representation, British military control and punishments, and the introduction of Enlightenment ideals.
  • Body (the Meat of your paper)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 1: Taxation without representation
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 2: British military control and punishments
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 3: Introduction of Enlightenment ideals
  • Conclusion
    • Thesis Statement (restated in different words): Overall, the colonies chose to separate from Britain because they did not enjoy paying taxes without having a voice, being punished by the British military, and realizing through Enlightenment ideas that they had the right to govern themselves.
    • How This Connects to the Current World or Future Society

Congratulations, now you have a basic outline that you can replicate to use in your paper. However, here’s one more little secret that will save you drastic time on drafting the body of your paper. Next we’ll talk about topic sentences and where to put the evidence of your paper.

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Topic Sentences

Topic sentences are basically mini thesis statements for each body paragraph. They state what the paragraph will be about. 

The template is as follows: [First/Second/Another/Last] the [topic] is due to [Reason 1/2/3].

Let’s add these to the outline. They don’t have to be perfect, but seeing everything starting to come together in full sentences help me see the progress I’m making.:

  • Intro
    • Background Information
    • Thesis: The colonies decided to separate from Britain in the American Revolution due to the following reasons: Taxation without representation, British military control and punishments, and the introduction of Enlightenment ideals.
  • Body (the Meat of your paper)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 1: Taxation without representation
      • Topic Sentence: First, the colonies separated from Britain due to Taxation without representation.
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 2: British military control and punishments
      • Topic Sentence: A second reason why the colonies separated from Britain was because of the military control and punishments.
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 3: Introduction of Enlightenment ideals
      • Topic Sentence: Another reason why the colonies separated from Britain was because of the introduction of Enlightenment ideas
  • Conclusion
    • Thesis Statement (restated in different words): Overall, the colonies chose to separate from Britain because they did not enjoy paying taxes without having a voice, being punished by the British military, and realizing through Enlightenment ideas that they had the right to govern themselves.
    • How This Connects to the Current World or Future Society
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Evidence

Finally, we’re going to add spots in our outline for us to put our evidence as we find it. 

We’re also giving ourselves space to consider the commentary (how/why the evidence connects back to the topic sentence). 

You don’t have to find the evidence or come up with the commentary right now. This is the last piece of the outline that will make it easier to search for supporting proof later. 

  • Intro
    • Background Information
    • Thesis: The colonies decided to separate from Britain in the American Revolution due to the following reasons: Taxation without representation, British military control and punishments, and the introduction of Enlightenment ideals.
  • Body (the Meat of your paper)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 1: Taxation without representation
      • Topic Sentence: First, the colonies separated from Britain due to Taxation without representation.
      • Supporting Evidence #1: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #1 ties back to topic sentence)
      • Supporting Evidence #2: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #2 ties back to topic sentence)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 2: British military control and punishments
      • Topic Sentence: A second reason why the colonies separated from Britain was because of the military control and punishments.
      • Supporting Evidence #1: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #1 ties back to topic sentence)
      • Supporting Evidence #2: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #2 ties back to topic sentence)
    • Paragraph for Reason/Main Point 3: Introduction of Enlightenment ideals
      • Topic Sentence: Another reason why the colonies separated from Britain was because of the introduction of Enlightenment ideas.
      • Supporting Evidence #1: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #1 ties back to topic sentence)
      • Supporting Evidence #2: Put Here!
        • Commentary (How evidence #2 ties back to topic sentence)
  • Conclusion
    • Thesis Statement (restated in different words): Overall, the colonies chose to separate from Britain because they did not enjoy paying taxes without having a voice, being punished by the British military, and realizing through Enlightenment ideas that they had the right to govern themselves.
    • How This Connects to the Current World or Future Society

Conclusion

Look at that! We basically have a page written already just by taking the additional time to outline.

I broke this process down step by step based on my thought process. After following this so many times, I naturally go through this and can skip some steps. The more essays you do in your working student journey, the faster you’ll get.

If you were able to outline your paper fast and easy with the Steph method of outlining papers, I want to invite you to join the email list below for more tips and resources for working students by a working student.