 Assalamu alaikum viewers, welcome to virtual university. In today's lesson, we are going to look at how to write an essay outline. Because an essay is longer and more complex than a paragraph, it is even more important that you organize your thoughts and plan your essay before you begin to write. Now the best way to do this is by making an outline. In today's lesson, we will first consider what an outline is and then consider how it can be used for writing an essay and last you will have some practice in writing outlines. Now outlining is a useful skill, it is a skill that you must learn because it can be used in both writing and reading, both in your reading and writing. An outline is basically an organization of related ideas, ideas that are similar in some selected way. Then you present them in a simplified manner, in a manner that clearly shows the relationship within each paragraph and among all the other paragraphs. So preparing an outline is essentially a problem of classifying and organizing, classifying and organizing your ideas. Now as I said earlier, an outline is useful in both reading and writing. Now because writing is language that is meant to be read, you can think of reading and writing as different ends of the same communication, somebody writes and somebody reads. So all writers use an outline, they use an outline to help make their writing clear. This is the main purpose of an outline, it helps to make your writing clear. If writers use an outline to organize their writing clearly, their readers should be able to analyze that organization of writing. An outline is like a skeleton, which helps the writer to put flesh around it. It is the reader who removes the flesh to see the skeleton underneath. Now suppose you were asked to write about the traffic problems of your city, this was an essay topic. And as you think about this topic, you decide that there are three main causes, how would you go about it? The first thing is just jot down the ideas as they come to you, just jot them down, write them down a piece of paper and it comes to your mind that traffic in your city is a problem because and you come up with three ideas. There is a great variety of vehicles that move on the road, then you think that maybe it is the narrow roads, the roads are narrow, they were built a long time ago. And then another idea comes to your mind that the drivers of these mechanical vehicles, they do not follow the traffic procedures, the traffic rules and later you develop these three points and you write your essay. And you develop your paragraphs along those points that you jotted down, write the name of the city, whichever your city is, you can begin by saying that traffic is becoming a serious problem in my city and you name your city. There are three basic reasons, first there is a great variety of vehicles moving on the roads, there are fast moving mechanical vehicles like cars, buses, vans, motorcycles, motor excursions and there are slow moving vehicles like horse driven, horse drawn coaches for public transport which are called Tongas, oxen and horse driven cars for carrying goods and merchandise. This mixture of fast and slow moving traffic, slow moving vehicles is the greatest of traffic problems. Moreover, the number of these vehicles has risen considerably in the recent years. Now you notice you are writing along the points that you have noted down and your essay continues. Another reason is that roads are old and narrow as cars are parked along the side of these roads, it makes the roads more narrow leaving little room for the main traffic to move smoothly. Third, as many drivers in my city do not obey traffic rules, the result is that traffic jams result from cars going one way and buses going the opposite way on the same road. Thus there is chaos on the roads of my city. Now a reader who reads this paragraph can easily make out the outline of its organization which would be something like traffic problems, three causes, number one great variety of vehicles, fast moving, slow moving, then number two narrow roads, narrow streets, cars are parked on both sides, number three drivers do not obey traffic rules. So from this example you can see that an outline has two purposes. The first purpose in writing is to organize and present ideas effectively and number two that in reading the purpose in writing is to organize and present ideas clearly and the purpose in reading is to analyze the organization and relationship of ideas. So I hope it is clear that when you make an outline you have two purposes in mind. Number one that you organize and present your ideas in an effective manner and number two that from your outline you can make out the relationship of ideas. Now how is an outline written? The writing of an outline will depend on the purpose and the subject of your essay. The important point is that there is no one way or method that suits everyone and is superior on all occasions. There are many ways of writing. We shall look at one example of an outline. Suppose you were asked to write on the works of Shakespeare, now that is a vast topic. The easiest way would be to make a list of all that Shakespeare wrote. Now he wrote plays, he wrote poems, he wrote poetry, he wrote sonnets, he wrote a lot of things. Now you have already classified his works, plays and poetry by just saying plays he wrote plays he wrote poetry. You have classified his works. You can further classify or divide his plays into three categories. You look at his works and you notice that there is one type that is they are all tragedies and then you look at another type and you notice that those plays are all dealing with comedy. There is a lot of humor in them and then you notice that there is another category. There are some plays written by Shakespeare that are historical plays. They deal with kings and how they rise and fall. So as I said last time that you classify and you categorize and that is a very easy method. In the same way you look at Shakespeare's poetry and you can categorize it. There are long poems, he has written some long poems and he has written sonnets. Now the works of Shakespeare you just jot down the names that you can recall. There is Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, King Lear, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Great Summer's Night's Dream, Richard the Third, Othello, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Fourth, Parts I and II, Venus and Adonis. A lover's complaint these are poems and then he has written a whole lot of sonnets I think around 154. Now that was a very haphazard list of plays, list of his works. You can categorize them in three or four categories. You can have one category of comedies and of the names that you just jotted down you can take out the ones that are comedies. You can have Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Mid-Summer's Night's Dream and Tempest. You can put them down under one category, the category of comedies. Then you have a second category, the category of tragedies and you can have Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello these can come under tragedies. Then you have got his history plays and among the history plays you have got plays like Richard the Third, Henry the Fourth, Part I, Henry the Fourth, Part II and you have got Henry the Fifth. So you have got three categories of plays. What about poems? He wrote a number of long poems, fairly long and you can recall two poems. One is Venus and Adonis and another one is A Lover's Complaint. And then you put sonnets in an entirely different category. So you can categorize or make an outline of Shakespeare's works under five headings. Comedies, tragedies, histories, long poems and sonnets. So that was a very rough, brief outline but it is systematic and if you were to write on the works of Shakespeare you could use that as an outline. Now did you notice that the names that you jotted down in the first list and the names that you categorized in the second list, the names are the same but it is the second list that is clearer. At one glance you can see the organization. Why is it clear? Why is the second list clearer? It is because there is organization. The names are listed in a meaningful way, the titles are grouped according to similar characteristics and you have five main headings, comedies, tragedies, histories, long poems and sonnets. Now this kind of organization helps in making the differences clear and in focusing on one particular difference or category at a time. Here are two more examples of topic outlines. You notice the difference between the two lists. The topic is books I enjoy reading. You have got list A and you have got list B. Look at the way the books are listed in under A. Notice number one fiction, spy thrillers, historical novels, number two love stories, number three non-fiction and under non-fiction there are two more subtopics inventors and biographies and number four military heroes and number five science or space exploration or explorers. Now if you look at the list the same topics but notice the way they are organized in the second list and there are two main categories, one and two. Notice in the first one there were one, two, three, four, five and in the second one you find that under one heading fiction there are three subtopics, love stories, historical romances, historical romances and the third one is spy thrillers. They all come under fiction right. The second major category is non-fiction and under non-fiction you will notice there are two major subtopics biographies and science and medical explorations. And under those two major subheadings you have got a lot of other subheadings sub subheadings. Under non-fiction you have got biographies. Now under biographies whose biographies? It is listed statesmen, kings, freedom fighters, inventors, military conquerors. Now when you have the subtopic military conquerors you find it is listed conquerors and generals. Then you have got under biographies, sportsmen, you have got movie stars. Look at the number of categories under biographies. Under A you have got one, two, three, four, five, six subcategories and for category B which is a subtopic of non-fiction you have got medical science, space exploration. Now example A the list under A the outline under A it is a poor topic outline as it seems confused the main topics are not of equal importance right. Example B is a good topic outline. In the two examples of topic outlines that you have seen so far the first one was works of Shakespeare and the second one books I enjoy reading. The topics are arranged in a logical order. You have noticed that only topics are given and each topic begins with a capital letter and because they are topics and not full sentences a full stop or a period has not been used at the end of each topic. Each topic of the same rank is expressed in the same grammatical form also I would like you to notice the indentation notice how the sub subcategories they are indented and it is the same system of numbers or the same letters that are used. If you have used A for one subcategory then and if you have got another one subcategory then use B for it and then C and D right and the method of outlining is presented in brief for you notice on your screen that when you begin to write when you want to make an outline just jot down the ideas as they occur to you that is the first step the next is that you arrange these ideas in a satisfactory manner which could be natural or logical order with headings and sub headings. You may find that some of the ideas which you have jotted down are not included because you realize later on that they do not fit in with your purpose. Now the third stage and this is the stage where you begin to make an outline you label your headings and the sub headings very carefully the main headings you use Roman numericals Roman 1, Roman 2, Roman 3 the sub headings for sub headings you use the letters of the alphabet A, B, C and for further subdivisions of those sub headings you may use one the Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3. Now if in your further subdivisions you have number 1 and you find for number 1 you have got a few more points to add something further then you add then you use the Roman numerals in small case right. If you have got 2 if you have got 1, 2, 3 if you have got more than one point so you will have 1, 2, 3 but if you have only just one there is no need for you to write the numerals the Arabic number and number 4 you must remember that you have to indent you have to set down the outline as you can see on your screen this is a very good way A number 1 that is one major point given under Roman 1 this is followed by a Roman 2 next major heading and then number 3 Roman number 3 in big case now under one you have got A sub point A another sub point B right look at number 2 the Roman number 2 under that you find you have got 2 major sub headings and those sub headings have further subdivisions and you have the Arabic number 1 and the Arabic number 2. A the subtopic A has further subdivisions Arabic number 1 Arabic number 2 while B does not have any so you do not have to see does not have any further subdivision you do not have to put down any mark and then you have got your Roman number 3 the first one could be your introductory paragraph number 2 could be your main body number 3 could be your main body number 4 could be your main body and the last one could be your concluding paragraph now we will look at a topic a very common topic the topic of travel right jot down all the ideas that come into your mind about travel you can talk about means of travel and then you can write down bus travel bus train aeroplane car etc etc and then you think of a particular journey you travelled all the way from Lahore to Peshawar which is in the north west and then another idea comes to your mind you remember a quotation you read this quotations somewhere long time ago and it said to travel hopefully is better than to arrive and then you remember that there are books on travel you remember years ago you read an essay by somebody called bacon on travel write it down jot it down in your notes and then you have another idea that travel has some educational value and then you think and say to yourself that I yes holidays travel and holidays and then you have another idea that you meet people when you travel the country that you would like to visit what is it that you would like to see over there any particular country that you would like to travel what problems you would face when you travel when you go for Hajj Hajj is also travel what about the customs of the people and the preparation that goes into when you travel so all these are ideas that came into your mind and you think you got all these ideas and you have to sort them out right you sort them out and you drop some of these ideas and you make an outline it is when you are making an outline then you clarify your ideas you realize that two points that you had in your notes are good but point number three is not relevant so your first idea is well I will make it into a personal essay why I would like to travel and your first paragraph you write value of travel and you remember a quotation you jot it down travel in the younger sort is part of education in the elder a part of experience and you say that would make a good opening sentence jot it down write it down so value of travel is your first point major point and then while talking about value of travel you remember that you jotted down the knowledge that you gain from books and you remember there is a book from the oxes to Jamuna right that is a b the knowledge that one gets from experience you have already visited certain places and you gained a lot of knowledge so point number one which is value of travel has two major sub points one knowledge from books and the other knowledge from experience then you your second major point is the pleasures of travel and again what are the pleasures and you say well I can divide this into two this paragraph can be divided into two one part could be about seeing new places and the second part could be meeting new people now a seeing new people a seeing new places you can have further subdivisions cities buildings countryside historical sites so you make subdivisions 1 2 3 then the second part meeting new people you can subdivide this under customs and under languages the third major point that comes to your mind from the points that you noted that you jotted down is about the method of travel so you can have one major paragraph on methods of travel and you subdivide this into cars buses train what are the good points if you travel by car or by bus or by train one advantage is that you can see the country you get a chance to meet people and you can say that it takes longer the other part is aeroplanes we are talking about methods of travel and you say that the second part second method is to travel by plane and you notice that there is one advantage that you can get there quicker now as your topic was you if you remember at the beginning you said why you would like to travel so far you got three paragraphs value of travel the pleasures of travel the methods of travel and your fourth paragraph would be the desire to travel and here you would explain why you want to travel a b where you would want to go so that would cover the personal aspect and the last paragraph would be preparations for travel and you could talk about getting your passport and your visa and buying a ticket and other preparations that you make such as you look at the climate of that place what is what are the weather conditions over there at the time of the year you are traveling and you will pack your suitcase accordingly now that was an outline for the topic travel now notice travel itself is a huge topic you limited it by saying why I would like to travel right now I want you to notice number one that each heading in the outline that you saw on the screen is expressed in a phrase or a word and number two that parallel points have parallel wording one two three four five all these major headings are noun phrases value of travel pleasures of travel methods of travel so when you make an outline this is how you have to do it then you noticed that the subheadings to a was seeing so to be was meeting it has to be parallel if that is seeing the other one would be I N G also number for a was why you would like to travel so you had for B as where you would like to travel and number three you should not allow headings to overlap number four do not coordinate any heading which should be subordinated and do not subordinate any that should be coordinated number five do not make a single heading or subheading anywhere in the outline example where you have number one you must have number two and similarly if you put a there must be at least B and if you have got number one then you must have at least two and number six point number six you have to keep in mind six points the outline provides for a prompt beginning right if you have got your outline in front of you you should have no problem in beginning now over here in this essay that we had on travel you started with a quotation and the ending you ended with the buying of a ticket and you give information about these and they are not labeled notice in your outline you did not have the word introduction or the word conclusion anywhere now we will have some practice to illustrate the first two points that I just that I just read out to you and which I hope you have noted we will talk about flower arrangement you will notice that on the left hand side of your screen there are a series of ideas on the subject of flower arrangement and on the right hand side is a framework for an outline you use the material that is given on the left to complete the outline given on the right this is practice work for you this is just to give you some practice in making outlines for essays now the topic is flower arrangement and the guiding purpose is that you are to present this as an art how is flower arrangement to be presented as an art look at all the ideas that were jotted down by the writer and these ideas are on the left hand side and you have got words like when you think of flower arrangement the things that come into your mind names of flowers roses chrysanthemums peach blossoms dahlias greenery a single rose pleasure you get pleasure so you write it down when you are arranging flowers you arrange them in vases the sizes then there is the Japanese style of arranging flowers then you say well lots of flowers are involved you need lots of flowers if you are presenting it as an art you use flowers at weddings at parties how would you classify an arrangement of flowers as good what is required for it to be a good arrangement what is required what is it that is that goes wrong and you say it is a bad arrangement and then you think of the time of year when you have flower flower arrangement competitions so these are all the kinds of ideas that come into your mind and as they come into your mind you just jot them down on a piece of paper now on the right hand side of your screen you will notice a rough outline is given you use words or ideas from the left hand side to fill out this outline to complete this outline number one the art of flower arrangement for example what could you have over there you could say Japanese style number two first look at the main headings the main headings are the art of flower arrangement you can talk about how the Japanese have developed this into an art the next major heading is the choice of flowers the third is the dash of flowers and then number four is again arrangement number five is the pleasure from flower arrangement so I would go about it in this way I would say that for number one the art of flower arrangement you can illustrate an example from Japanese style how the Japanese have made this into an art number two it says the choice of flowers and then you have got certain months mentioned over there now in our country of course we have got flowers all the year round but there are some flowers that are there in the cold months in December in December we have a lot of chrysanthemums chrysanthemums in grow in Lahore and Pindi in the upper regions so you can say in December chrysanthemums and what about roses you could say well roses you find all the year round but especially in let us say January they are there in bloom and February we have got peach blossoms they are there for a very brief time for a very short time all right your number three is number three is the arrangement of flowers you are going to talk your paragraph number three will be how flowers are arranged a the wrong way b the right way how do you what is it that makes flower arrangements a good arrangement of flowers which you would say is good what is it that makes that arrangement bad so you would explain over there then you would talk about flowers and then about bosses how should a big was what kind of flowers should go into a big was what kind of flowers should go into a small a small bars and number four paragraph number four could be about the local style what is our style of arranging flowers how do you go about it you take flowers you cut there the stems you take off the thorns if you are using roses and you take off all the extra greenery and then you talk about the pleasures one gets from arranging flowers flower arrangement you can talk about special occasions like weddings like parties so notice the pleasures from flower from flower arrangement a on special occasions and those special occasions are subdivided into number one weddings number two parties b the effect of flowers on your room or any room so you look at this arrangement this outline and you will notice that it is very clear right now here is another example in this example the main headings on the left hand side overlap you should write a correct version write two correct versions one on the left hand side talks about the history of the Punjab and you have got four periods period before fifteen hundred Mughals six after nineteen forty seven you could write it in another way number one one you can talk about the Hindu period before the coming of Muslims his Punjab under the Gupta the other earlier Hindu rulers then Punjab after Ghazni Mahmud of Ghazni because he annexed the Punjab to his kingdom and then you can have history of the Punjab under the Mughals and number four history of the Punjab under the six you can make another version you can have another version of this outline you can begin with Punjab under the Mughals number one number two you can have Punjab under the six number three Punjab under British rule and number four independence Punjab now these were samples for you right you looked at these samples and now I would like you to write a corrected version of the outline but remember here is another example and I would like you to look at it look at what is given on the left hand side and you rearrange the same thing on the right hand side and the topic is the uses of atomic energy on the left hand side you have the background of atomic research a for military purpose now over there you have got if you have got a then you better have b as well right otherwise do not have it number two is the atomic bomb number three other weapons number four for peaceful purposes a industry five medicine number six importance of atomic power if you look at the outline given on the left hand side you will notice in one glance that it is not very clear it is not written the way I have been telling you that it should be written look at the same thing on the right hand side number a you can write the background of atomic research number two could be the importance of atomic power and that could be split into two subdivisions a atomic bomb b other weapons all under one heading major heading the importance of atomic power number three you can talk about the importance of atomic research and this could be divided a subdivided into two medicine a medicine b industry and number four you can have a topic a paragraph on atoms for peace now in today's lesson we looked at how to write an outline and you and you had practice I showed you jumbled confused versions and you looked at corrected versions and you must have noticed that it is all a matter of organizing outlines are meant to help you help you sort out your ideas there has to be some order what we say in our language that deep you cannot cover everything in one essay you have to limit your essay topic and when you limit it you have to do it in a very clear orderly manner. So today's lesson should be helpful and in future whenever you write remember you may if you do not feel like following all those points one two three a b one two three at least have some idea I am I am sure you have got some idea of how to go about making an outline. So and we provided you some practice and I hope you feel that you have gained something from today's lesson next time we will talk about how to limit your essay topic that again is a major area and we are still looking at writing. So wish you all the best and hope to see you next time Allah Hafiz.