Jeff Zuckerman

I admit it: I was the oddball in the front of your 4th-grade composition class who actually liked diagramming sentences. I write that with no particular pride. In fact, maybe if had I paid attention in science class, I’d have done a lot more to save the planet than simply correcting its noun-verb disagreements.

Still, being able to write halfway decently isn’t a bad skill to have if you’re enrolled in a writing-intensive graduate program. And it always amazes me how those irritating back-to-basics we learned in elementary school still work today.

Here is one for starters: Those outlines they had us do actually made sense. Before you stop reading, note that you don’t necessarily need one of those formal outlines we did in school, like this:

     I. Food From the Garden
         A. Vegetables
               i. Beans 
               ii. Tomatoes
         B. Fruits
               i. Watermelon
               ii. Cantaloupe 

A formal outline is fine, but you need only do what works for you. Instead, think conceptually: What’s your overall purpose? (Notice I didn’t ask what your overall topic is. Students get hung up on topics, which are broad and often pointless. A purpose is much more directive: The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between this or that, or the effect of something, or the problem of something.)

And then: What’s your overall thesis—the overall point you’re making? What topics and subtopics relate to that overall thesis? And where do you want to get to in the end of the paper?

Suppose you’re writing about the challenge of doing a public health campaign among the Amish for immunizations. What might your overall thesis be? How might you organize the paper?

Overall Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that cultural and religious values can be a difficult but not an impossible barrier to public health professionals concerned about the welfare of a closed community.

Main Thesis: Because of their religious beliefs and distrust of public health workers, the Amish are at risk for communicable disease outbreaks.

Background: Write about the problems the Amish have experienced, perhaps by showing a couple of examples of outbreaks.

Major Topic: Public health challenges.

Subtopic 1: Amish religious attitudes and values.
Subtopic 2: Amish attitudes toward “the outside world.”
Subtopic 3: Amish attitudes toward vaccination.
Subtopic 4: Efforts by outsiders to break into closed communities.
 And so on. 

So how can you get help writing an outline? You’ll find a nicely written piece on this at the Purdue University OWL at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/544/01. You might also consider “concept mapping” or “clustering”; explore the writing centers listed at http://www.WaldenU.edu/c/Students/CurrentStudents_1458.htm.

My advice? Head to the local coffee shop. Find three white napkins (white works best). Take a felt tip pen (I recommend blue).

• Think about what you’ve read about your topic, what you know, what you think is interesting, and what you’d like to learn more about.
• Jot down some notes.
• Next, jot down some more notes on the second napkin.
• Consider how the ideas can best be held together into something that sort of makes sense.
• On a clean napkin, organize all your notes into something that resembles an outline—with a beginning, supporting body, and end.
• Now buy yourself a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. And then?
• Enough play time. Get busy writing your paper, basing it on your outline.

I learned that last step in elementary school, too.