Essay Outline Templates

Many students are familiar with writing an essay. Each student writes numerous essays during their academic pursuit. However, most of them know that they could have written it better if they had the chance, and they always have to look for reasons or at least excuses why they didn't perform to their fullest. Why is that? They most likely did not have an outline for their essay. During a test, they only have limited time. Therefore, many would skip the outline part entirely and start writing immediately. Some students might even skip the brainstorming process. Although one can get away without writing an outline, it will most likely not get graded an A+.

To write excellent essays, you should learn and practice planning. Why is important? You see, planning gives you control over what you will do - same as people have schedules detailing what they will do the next day, next week, etc. Everyone needs a sense of direction that would guide their actions. The same could be said about writing as well. It is best to know exactly what you want to write. Without an outline, it becomes easy to go off track as you write, and one might even run into a dead-end. In academic writing, a dead-end means reaching a point from which one cannot continue further or that you cannot link your idea to the next. It must be avoided at all costs.

Of course, your essay outline does not need to be too strict. An outline should be of help in coming up with ideas, as well as in organizing the ideas you already have. You can always make changes to the outline before you start writing. It is at all times better to change it there rather than desperately try to make sense of a series of confusing sentences. When the flow of information is appropriately organized, then it is next to impossible mess up your writing. You will know what you want to address first, how to link your an idea to the next, and how to bring your essay to a satisfying closure. It is beneficial for avoiding dead-ends. All you need is spend a few minutes drafting a plan.

How to Write an Essay Outline Template

It is worth brushing up on your time management skills. You might need to produce an essay within a short time, especially on exams. As such, knowing how long it will take you to write, among many other factors, helps determine the approach to take when writing your essay. Remember to include the time for writing the outline into your calculation.

Every student knows how to write an outline, but many of them do not practice it often. As such, they get out of practice, which can impede their ability to produce a good outline. If this is your problem, then do not despair. We have some templates helpful for organizing your ideas. Plus, we will tell you how the essay outline template for specific kinds of essay works. That way, you can come up with your own outline templates for essay and avoid repetition. Besides, expressing your own ideas should be an exciting process. It would not be as exciting if you use the same template all the time.

Outline Template for Essay: Research Essay

One of the hardest essays to write is a research essay, although it always presupposes plenty of time for working on it. This is the type of essay that you will get as a regular homework assignment. Teachers give their students extra time for writing this type of essay for a reason. Conducting extensive research and gathering information about the topic on your own may be necessary. There are specific guidelines to follow. All of that will be very time-consuming, as well as overall challenging to write. This kind of essay puts your understanding of the topic to the test.

Since there is plenty of time for working on the essay, it may be recommended to take things slow and plan what to write very carefully. Our essay outline template gives just that. It helps you organize your ideas and use facts to reinforce your arguments.

Outline Template for Essay: Process Essay

Here, our job is to focus on elaborating on a specific process or concept. Basically, you explain thoroughly to the reader how things work. A deep understanding of the technical level may be necessary for writing a good process essay. That way, you can simplify things, helping the audience understand them even though they may be complete beginners. Therefore, your explanation needs to be divided into several parts, and then they get brought together into a comprehensive whole at the end. This essay outline template is what you need to make that happen.

Outline Template for Essay: Cause and Effect Essay

A cause and effect essay studies an event. It can be a good or bad one in life. It is different from a process essay because your task is to explain what caused the event. Logical links between your ideas are necessary. Deeper analysis may be required for a more profound understanding of how things come together and make this happen. Make sure that the audience understands how each possible cause is a piece of the puzzle, and together, they form the bigger picture. It can be complicated without an outline. This template assists you in organizing your ideas and maintains that smooth information flow.

Outline Template for Essay: Reflective Essay

This type of essay is similar to the cause and effect essay in the sense that you need to write about an event. The difference is that a reflective essay demands that you describe your own experience. This is one of the easiest types of essay considering that it does not require any research. It focuses on an object, an event, or an experience from your past. All you need to do is write what you think or feel about it, no need to argue or use facts for defending your argument. All that you need to do is write in a way that makes the experience relatable so the audience can sympathize.

As easy as it is, one can still mess up their writing without proper planning. We tend to get carried away when we write about the things we know well. The same happens when someone asks us to describe ourselves. It is very easy to get sidetracked and eventually run into a dead-end. This essay outline template should be sufficient for helping you plan how you want to structure your essay, formulate a hook and colorful descriptive body paragraphs that effectively imprint the picture into the readers' minds, and think of a meaningful conclusion as well.

Outline Template for Essay: Persuasive Essay

The task of a persuasive essay, as the name suggests, is to convince the reader of your view as the correct or more favorable one. The reader must believe that you are right. It is recommended but not obligatory to use facts to defend your claim. There are various ways to convince people to support your view.

For writing an excellent persuasive essay, your ideas need to be arranged correctly. This outline template for essay is useful for that purpose.

Outline Template for Essay: Expository Essay

An expository is similar to a report. It is a demonstration of your understanding of a topic. Most of the time, you will need to write this type of essay for a particular book or other work. This type of essay should not be a challenge, but a good essay outline template is still beneficial. Here is one.

Outline Template for Essay: Compare and Contrast Essay

This type of essay aims at discussing the similarities and differences between two subjects or ideas. Although this seems easy, many students have done rather poorly for this type of essay. Why is that? Although it may be easy to tell the difference between blue and red, one can lose track of their own writing very quickly and run into a dead-end. How do you avoid that?

First, you need to define an objective. Understand the purpose of the essay. Is it to clear a misunderstanding or argue that one thing is better than the other? Knowing what you want to accomplish in the essay helps you structure your ideas. We have an essay outline template just for that purpose.

Outline Template for Essay: Argumentative Essay

Although this type of essay is similar to the previous two types of essay, the objective is to convince the reader of your rightness. What differs this one is that you need to defend your claim with facts. This requires some research. To assist you in writing a good argumentative essay, we have come up with an outline for essay. This outline helps you figure out how to organize your ideas, how to link them together, and how to draw a conclusion.

Outline Template for Essay: Critical Essay

A critical essay focuses on the advantages and drawbacks of something. Basically, you should analyze the topic (which is often a work of a famous author) and point out the flaws. This essay outline template helps you analyze the topic critically, as well as organize the ideas and formulate a satisfying conclusion.

Outline Template for Essay: Analytical Essay

An analytical essay requires you to analyze the topic and point out the meaning behind it. Most of the time, you will analyze a book or a poem. You should read between the lines and discover the hidden meaning and draw the audience's attention there. Then, explain how the work is famous for its meanings. You can use this essay outline template to help you with that.

How Do You Use the Essay Outline Templates?

It is simple. All you have to do is fill in the gaps, and you have everything one needs to start writing. It is worth taking a little time and drafting an outline before you start writing. It will consequently save you a lot of time, and you will not be frustrated when things go wrong. You can be confident throughout your writing process when your outline is ready and at hand. All you need to do is write and look up the outline now and again to make sure that you do not get sidetracked.

With the essay outline templates above, you should have all the tools to write an excellent essay and let your creativity shine!