Full sentence outlines
Top basic outlining tool for efficiency

The best basic outlining format for novice writers and speakers is the full sentence outline.

Students, and even many adult writers, tend to avoid sentence outlines as too much work. However, the work put in on the outline pays off in improved efficiency and decreased frustration later in the writing process.

1 sentence = 1 complete thought

In a sentence outline, each point is a full sentence. None of the points can be a fragment of a sentence or more than a single sentence.

The value of doing basic outlining in full sentences is that a full sentence conveys a complete thought.

Those full sentences indicate not only the topics the author is going to discuss but also summarize what the author is going to say about each of those topics.

By contrast, a topic outline gives only topics to be discussed but does not indicate what the author will say about them.

Sentences give development aid

From the full sentence outline, the author can determine whether:

• The thesis has adequate support.

• Points supporting the thesis are discrete or overlapping.

• Adequate evidence has been identified to support each point.

These three determinations are essential to a well-developed essay, speech or research paper. However, it is nearly impossible to make those determinations from looking at a topic outline.

Students who learn to outline in using full sentences are much more likely to get up to speed as nonfiction writers quickly than those who rely on topic outlines. And those students are also more likely to find that outlines are useful than are students who use topic outlines.

Formal number system unnecessary

Sentence outlines can be built informally without using the numbering system that characterizes formal outlines. Writers with access to a computer can create an informal sentence outline simply by using the TAB when they want to indent a sentence.