Strengthen your outline: the clothesline method

High School outlining writing

How often have you found yourself in the following situation: you finally decide to hunker down in the quietest part of the library, crack your knuckles, and draft out this essay which has been looming over you all week. Hours pass; you’re tired, you’re hungry, and you can’t seem to push past the 150-word mark. Who knows how you’re going to get to 1,500 by Friday? 

Or, how about this: you’re in the zone, the words flow like water, and only halfway through the paper do you realize that your argument makes no sense. Your stomach sinks as you stare down the prospect of a rewrite.   

By my first year in college, I had been in situations like these more times than I could count. It’s exhausting, demoralizing, and, in quick-paced classes, these stumbling blocks can feel like fatal blows. Well, if it’s sink-or-swim, it’s best to go with a lifesaver:  

Outlines. Yes, they’re worth it. 

Sigh, you say: you’ve heard it all before. Perhaps you’ve set the tool aside, since progress feels more palpable in the word count than it does in the hours spent building a list of bullet points. Perhaps you skip past it due to a feeling that it can only slow you down. But if I have learned anything, it is that outlines are a time-SAVING device, not a time-wasting one 

Lay out your argument in front of you: write it down or type it up.  

“Oh shoot, my argument doesn’t quite work!”  

“I haven’t gathered nearly enough evidence to support this part of my argument!” 

“Ah, it seems I’ve spent far too much time on sub-topic A, leaving myself no room for the crucial sub-topic B!” 

These are all realizations that you can catch quite easily on an outline page. And, if you want to write a good essay, you should indeed be interested in catching them. It’s far less painful to edit, re-draft, or rearrange an outline than it is to take a chainsaw to your precious, hard-won paragraphs. 

It may be that you understand all of this conceptually, but have still failed to reap its benefits practically. There is a simple answer to this: not all outlines are created equal. I kept track of which outlines failed me and which did not. One form of outline, which I have always imagined as a clothesline, has won me consistent success. 

I’d like to show you my clothesline 

The Clothesline Method, as I call it, is distinguished by two key features. The first is its specificity: thesis statements and topic sentences are written out in full, rather than in summary. We ought to give ourselves no room to hide behind paraphrase and ambiguity. If there is weakness in the statement, we force it to show itself so we can promptly correct it. 

The second is the presentation of the evidence. A full outline will contain evidence quoted or described exactly as it will appear in the essay. (While the author may include bigger chunks of text as a note-to-self on a quote’s broader context, the portion that will actually end up in the paper should be kept in bold or highlighted.) 

All other outline content is standard—context and analysis are written beneath each piece of evidence, as precisely or generally described as the author sees fit.  

The thesis and topic sentences, pulled taut through the entire essay, are the clothesline over which we drape our evidence. Most everything we write will be pinned to this line of reference. Our evidence, the clothes, are pinned to the argument itself by our analysis, the clothespins.  

(Note: Of course, in creating arguments, it’s best practice to proceed from the evidence. In actually writing the argument out, however, let the thesis be your structure!) 

Let's take a look at a clothesline outline below:

THESIS STATEMENT WRITTEN OUT IN FULL 

  • [notes for introduction: apparent problem, stakes of the question] 

TOPIC SENTENCE #1 WRITTEN OUT IN FULL 

  • “[Evidence #1a, precisely as it will appear in the essay]”
    • [Context for #1a]
    • [Synthesis; here is what #1a tells us, why it supports topic sentence #1] 
  • “[Evidence #1b, precisely as it will appear in the essay]”
    • [Context for #1b]
    • [Synthesis; here is what #1b tells us, why it supports topic sentence #1] 
  • [Repeated for each subsequent piece of evidence]
    • [Synthesis; evidence supporting topic sentence in turn supports thesis statement] 

TOPIC SENTENCE #2 WRITTEN OUT IN FULL 

[Same structure as Topic Sentence #1 outline] 

[Repeated for each subsequent topical paragraph] 

CONCLUSION [i.e. thesis revisited] STATEMENT WRITTEN OUT IN FULL 

  • [notes for introduction: why this argument matters, broader implications] 

In summary

Yes, writing such a detailed outline does take a good deal of time and energy. But outline work is worth more than its weight—one hour now saves you two hours later. Once you have your clothesline all set out in front of you, writing becomes as easy as walking: no frantic quote-hunting, no agonizing over the phrasing of a topic sentence, and thank goodness, no chance of needing to start over from scratch. Serious problems would have been painfully obvious in the outlining phase, and resolved long ago. 

This has helped me avoid hours and hours of fruitless effort. I hope it helps you, too! 

Michael earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, where he double-majored in history and political science (with a minor in philosophy). He graduated summa cum laude, earned a 3.952 GPA, and was inducted into UChicago’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

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