This post is all about the best college essay outline template.
One thing is for sure about university… no matter what you’re studying, you’ll be writing essay after essay after essay! The number one thing that helped me get through college was creating my own college essay outline template that I could use for EVERY essay to make it a faster, smoother process.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing a research essay, literature essay, personal essay, college admissions essay, or any other type of essay. This editable essay outline is amazing and will help you get all your thoughts, arguments, quotes, and research organized so that your writing process becomes ten times easier!
Taking advantage of this college essay template is seriously one of the best college essay tips, and in this post I’m going to walk you through creating an effective college essay outline.
BEST OUTLINE FOR A WELL-CRAFTED ESSAY:
I’m going to walk you through the exact college essay outline template I used throughout university, which you can download for free here!
Copy the question/prompt into the template
At the top of my essay outline template is a space to copy and paste the assignment instructions (or just summarize your professor’s rubric/expectations). This will keep it front and center at all times so that you can easily glance at it as you create your outline to make sure you’re still on track with fulfilling the assignment requirements.
Start with your thesis
I always recommend starting with writing your thesis as the absolute first step, because this will help you translate your essay topic into an actual argument or main point that will give you direction as you come up with evidence or arguments and write the rest of your essay.
It’s important to remember, though:
IT’S OKAY IF YOUR THESIS CHANGES AS YOU WRITE.
The best way to sort through your ideas is start with an initial thesis and then be flexible to change it as you create your essay structure and content.
This was my #1 rule anytime I wrote an essay in college. I can’t tell you how many times I wrote a thesis statement and then later changed it based on my research or the points I came up with. Whether it’s a slight tweak or totally changing the point of your essay, it’s important that your thesis statement matches up with all your main points, so it’s worth changing if it will make your essay more cohesive overall.
Fill out the template with your supporting evidence, arguments, or ideas
In my free college essay outline template, there are a couple sections to write your main points along with bullet points and quotes that back up your argument. In the left column, write the main point you’re arguing. And in the right hand column, add your bullet points and quotes.
I would always use this template as I did my research and brainstorming so that I could capture all my ideas in one place in an organized way. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up using every single bullet point or idea you write down, but this gives you a place to capture the main idea of each point along with supporting evidence that will help you prove your point of view.
If you want, after you’ve collected your bullet points and research, you can also write a topic sentence at the top of each section. Bold it so you remember it’s your topic sentence. This will come in super handy when you go to actually flesh out your essay and write the full thing!
The great thing about this simple format is that it works for any type of essay:
- College application essay: You might not have to do as much research, but you can still write your main points in these sections and the supporting bullets that explain how you reached your main point for each section.
- Persuasive essay or argumentative essay outline: Think about it kind of like a pyramid. You’re writing an essay about your overall argument. Each main point features a supporting argument, and the bullet points or quotations give proof for why your point of view is correct.
- Literary analysis essay: As a creative writing major, literary analysis essays were the bulk of the essays I would write in college. They function very similarly to an argumentative essay; you’re simply making an argument based on your unique analysis of a piece of literature and then backing it up with quotes and arguments.
- Research essay: For a research essay, rather than filling in the outline with simple ideas and quotes to back up your points, you’ll want to use that space to lay out your data in a more concise way. This will help you translate it into words later when you go to actually write your essay draft.
Focus on body paragraphs before your introduction
The reason I recommend working on your body paragraphs (or supporting points) after your thesis and before your introduction is because this is the main part of your essay that will largely dictate the direction of your essay.
It’s easier to craft an introductory paragraph that really grabs the reader’s attention when you already know your exact main points and supporting arguments. This way, you’ll be able to tailor your introductory paragraph to accurately introduce your essay and set the stage for all the important details, which will in turn help you write a more impactful essay.
Create and document citations as you create your outline
This might sound annoying in the moment but it was a HUGE time saver for me whenever I’d right college essays. Rather than waiting until you’ve finished writing to go back and create citations for all your sources or quotes, document them as you create your outline.
If you’re writing a literary essay and take a quote from a book, create the citation for that book right away to go in your Works Cited page, and note the in-text citation as well (for example, author last name and page number). This is so important because then you won’t run into the, “Shoot, where did I get that quote??” problem later on. It can be a huge headache to track down a page number for a quote you really want to use in your essay. So instead, create those in-text and Works Cited citations as you craft your outline (before even diving into your first draft).
This also means that by the time you have a copy of your final essay, the in-text citations will already be there and you won’t have to go back through and find everything that needs to be cited or worry about missing something.
Write your introduction and conclusion in bullet points
If it helps, you can create a bullet-point version of your introduction and conclusion to make it easier to write them later.
Remember, your introduction should:
- Include a strong hook that captures readers’ attention
- Include your thesis statement
- Introduce your main topic and convince the reader that they should keep reading
And your conclusion should:
- Emphasize or reiterate your thesis
- Summarize your key points and arguments
- Leave your reader with something to think about or emphasize
Use split screen for writing
Once your essay outline is complete, open it on one side of your computer screen, and then open a blank document on the other side to actually write your essay.
This is the easiest and most efficient way to go from outline to first draft, because you’ll have your whole layout right in front of you and can just write by following the whole outline from start to finish!
If you want some tips on how to actually write your essay, here are my best college essay writing tips that I learned from writing dozens of essays in college.
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