Reverse Outline Workshop. Literature & Language Coursework

Competing the Reverse Outlining according to Paper 4

Reverse Outlining- Independent Writing Workshop 
Students often learn to use outlines to create lists of paragraph topics or material “to be covered” as they write an essay. However, because writers often discover much about their argument as they write, such outlines don’t necessarily produce a cohesive argument. For many writers, a more effective way to use outlines is after the essay has been drafted. Today we will be exploring this strategy by writing a “reverse outline,” which will enable you see the ideas of your argument with fresh eyes. The reverse outline will help you develop an argument that progresses and that has logical relationships between its different parts. Download this document, and complete each of the following steps directly on this page. Once you are done, upload your completed document to the assignment portal on Canvas.  
1. Identify your Main Points: Skip your introduction and reread your body paragraphs carefully. What appear to be the main parts of your argument? In other words, what is the main point that you make in each body paragraph? List them in the table below.
TIPS• To test whether an idea is a main part or point in your argument, make sure that it ties directly into the question of the prompt.
• At this point we don’t want to rely on our thesis statements to find the main parts of our arguments because in the rough draft stage, our thesis statements may not yet express these main parts. This is why we want to look at our body paragraphs instead.
• At the same time, we don’t want to rely on our topic sentences either, since they, too, might not yet express the main point in each body paragraph.
Main Points Long Form: Describe this main point in 1-2 sentences Short Form: Describe this main point in a few words (no more than 5)
Main Point 1 Main Point 2 Main Point 3 (Main Point 4, etc., if applicable)
2. Develop Relationships between your Main Points: What are the logical relationships between these main points? Developing relationships between our main points will help us to move our thesis statements from simply a list of these main points to a complex statement of the logical relationships between them.
• It helps, when applicable, to think here in terms of causality.* Does one main idea, for example, lead to, cause, affect, impact, extend, build upon, refine, complicate, establish limitations for, etc., the other? 
*“Causality” is defined as the relation between cause and effect. Exploring causality, then, can involve exploring how a particular process, phenomenon, event, or concept, for example, causes, leads to, or results in, another process, phenomenon, event, or concept.
Types of Logical Relationships | Connective Language
 Cause and effect: A affects B. 
          To make this relationship more specific, ask yourself how A affects B.
          Connective language used to express this relationship:
                   causes; leads to; impacts; changes; as a result; affects; because; given that; if 
                   [this], then [this], consequently, therefore, thus 
Extension: B takes the ideas of A a step further.
          To make this relationship more specific, ask yourself how B extends the ideas of A.
          Connective language used to express this relationship:
                    builds upon, adds/contributes to, sheds light on, allows us to think about, raises the                    question of 
Complication: B complicates A.
          To make this relationship more specific, ask yourself how B complicates A.
          Connective language used to express this relationship:
                   although, while, at the same time, however, exceptions, to some extent, sets limits                     for
In the table below, brainstorm and think through the logical relationships between each of your main points. In the “Connective Language” column, list words or phrases from the box above (those placed in italics) that you could use to express this relationship.
 Main Points (Short Form) Relationships                                                            Connective Language
Main Point 1 and Main Point 2  Main Point 2 and Main Point 3  Main Point 1 and Main Point 3
   [additional main points, if applicable]    
3. Organize your Main Points: Now that you have explored the relationships between your main points (and perhaps revised some of your main points along the way), think now about how you might most logically organize these main points so that your argument progresses over the course of your body paragraphs.
a. Which main point should go first, second, third, etc.? Why should your main points go in this order?
b. The main point that you decide should go first will be A; the second, B; the third, C; etc.  Record (using the Short Form) A, B, and C here:
i. Point A:
ii. Point B:
iii. Point C:
4. Rewrite your Topic Sentences: Now rewrite your topic sentences so that they express the relationships between A, B, and C as you have established them in the table above and in 3a. Develop topic sentences that will help to transition the reader from one main point to the other so that the reader gets a clear sense of the logic of your organization and of how your argument progresses throughout your essay. Record your revised topic sentences below:
a. Body Paragraph 1 (Main Point A):
b. Body Paragraph 2 (Main Point B):
c. Body Paragraph 3 (Main Point C):
d. [Body Paragraph 4 (Main Point D, etc.] 
5. Revise your Thesis Statement: Now, after you have revised your topic sentences, it is time to revise or rewrite your thesis statement. In your thesis statement, express the logical relationships you have established in your topic sentences between the main parts of your argument. (Be careful, however, not to simply copy, word-for-word, your topic sentences into your thesis statement. Both your thesis statement and your topic sentences need to express the same logical relationships and connections between your main points, but you don’t want to do this in a way that feels repetitive to your reader.) Also, remember that to generate a complex thesis statement, you don’t want to LIST your main points (e.g. “because A, B, and C”), but to communicate to your reader the relationships between A, B, and C (e.g. “A impacts B, which leads to C”). 
a. Record your original thesis statement, as it appears in your rough draft:
Now revise or rewrite this thesis statement so that it does not list A, B, and C, but instead establishes relationships between A, B, and C by using connective language.