这里很详细-an-OutlineChoose your outline's Each entry in an outline can either be a word or short phrase without punctuation (a topic outline) or a full sentence with punctuation (a sentence outline) There are advantages to both， but the important thing is that you choose one and stay consistent throughout the Outlines can also be in either Roman number--letter--number form or they can be in decimal Again choose one， and be Write down your main In general， you write your thesis statement at the top of the outline and omit any introduction and conclusion (although in longer papers these may be long enough to warrant inclusion in the outline) The outline thus covers only the body of the work， the information that supports the Decide on your main The main categories are key points of your thesis， the main divisions of your For example， in a basic wikiHow article， the main categories might be "Steps，" "Tips，" and "W" For a novel， each chapter might be a main category， or you might divide the story into its exposition， rising action， climax， falling action， and Put your main categories in logical List the main categories in the order you want them in your This may be chronological or thematical， but it should make Label each main category with a Roman numeral ( "I"， "II"， "III"， ) for a Roman numeral-letter-number outline Label each main category with a number ( "0"， "0"， "0，" ) for a decimal Note there are periods after each label in a Roman numeral outline but not in a decimal Fill in the subcategories for each main Each main category of the paper may be composed of several Each subcategory typically correlates to one paragraph within your paper， but in a long paper or a novel each subcategory may include many For example， in this article， subcategories might be the bolded sentence for each Indent several spaces (typically 5)， and write down only a short word or phrase (for a topic outline) or a brief sentence (for a sentence outline) to describe the main idea of each Label each subcategory as a letter ("A" "B"， "C"， ) in a Roman number Under main category "I" you will have one set of letters， and then your will start again at "A" for the first subcategory of each subsequent main Label each subcategory as a decimal in a decimal Thus for main category "" the first subcategory would be "1"， and the next would be "2" The first subcategory under main category 2 would be "1" and so Fill in the tertiary categories or Within each sub-category， list and arrange your specific notes to support or expand the argument or point made on that The tertiary (third-level) categories will often correlate to the order of sentences in each paragraph since each tertiary category should correlate to a distinct point or idea， such as these:Indent each tertiary category several spaces from the beginning of each For Roman numeral outlines， label each tertiary category as a So you would have ""， ""， ""， For decimal outlines， label each tertiary category as a decimal with two decimal Thus， "1"， "2"， "1"， Continue adding smaller divisions as While tertiary categories often correspond to individual sentences， many outlines will require smaller For example， you may have one supporting sentence (tertiary category) that is then followed by three sentences giving three specific examples of the point you made in the that These example sentences do not deserve their own tertiary categories because they don't make a new point--they just support the supporting Thus you can break them down under that tertiary category as ""， ""， and "" or as "1，" "2，" and "3" You can make even smaller divisions if Write your You should easily be able to write your paper with the completed outline in front of You may only need to add transitions and connecting words， since all of your points and evidence will already be in their correct places in the
