 Reverse Outlining Technique This video will explain the reverse outlining technique and how you can use it to revise your essays. Reverse Outlining is the process of creating an outline from the draft of an essay. It is an effective way to ensure that the structure of your essay represents the main ideas you want to communicate to your readers in a logical manner. By removing the supporting ideas and writing in your essay and reducing your draft back to your main ideas only, you can check your work to ensure it demonstrates the points you were trying to make. It can also help you analyze whether or not you need to add more supporting points or evidence. Once you have a complete draft of your essay, take a look at the paragraphs used to create that essay. For each paragraph, try to read the main point or idea of that paragraph. Sometimes, if the topic sentence is well done, you can use the topic sentence because it will adequately reflect the main ideas of that paragraph. For example, this paragraph covers censorship in Gilead. It talks about how women are not permitted to read. Reading materials are restricted for men, and that the censorship aims to control the flow of ideas. The topic sentence. Censorship of the novel in school or anywhere else is incredibly reminiscent of the strict regulations enforced in the Republic of Gilead. Effectively summarizes the main ideas of the paragraph, which is censorship in Gilead, so I can use it in my outline. Here is an example of a reverse outline. It is made up of the points of an essay on Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid's Tale. For each paragraph in the essay, you should have a sentence or two to summarize the main idea. Once you have completed the sentences for each paragraph, you should have a condensed version of your essay. If you group the sentences together, you should have an accurate version of the main ideas you are trying to communicate in your essay. If it is not accurate, then you'll be able to identify where the essay is lacking ideas or evidence to further explain the points. You may also find that many paragraphs are making the same point, or that a paragraph, in fact, makes no point at all. Maybe you've observed that a paragraph is too long, or has two main ideas in it. If that is the case, then you should separate the paragraphs into two paragraphs. In this reverse outline, most of the paragraphs adequately express the point that the essay is trying to communicate, which is the reception to The Handmaid's Tale, strengthens the point made in the novel. Point two and three relate to how negative male reception to the novel mirrors the attitude of men in the story. Point four and six adjust how doubts that the events in the novel could really happen are similar to the doubt and lack of interest in politics that is found in the story. Point seven and eight cover censorship of the novel and of books in the story. Point nine restates the thesis. Point five talks about credit cards and does not fit with the rest of the essay, so we should consider revising the paragraph. Congratulations, you now know how to use the reverse outline technique to revise your essays. Thanks for watching.