How To Compose an MLA Format Outline For a Paper?

Published: July 23, 2024

You heard about this task and know that it is required for the majority of works. Have you ever thought about its purpose? It is a way to organize your ideas and track large amounts of information. It is used both for composing academic papers and preparing oral speeches. Now you are going to learn how to write an outline in mla format, what their main kinds are and what regulations you need to know.

An outline can be used to:

  • Help you with writing
  • Organize your concepts
  • Reveal relationships and logical connections
  • Compose a brief overview

Before starting to write an outline you need to conduct small research. Define the main goal of your writing, then imagine your future audience and the readers and compose a thesis. Then you need to make a list of all ideas and thoughts you want to be included.

Find the relationship between these concepts and place them in separate groups. Organize your material and mark out specific parts. These features are constant regardless of your needs, no matter if you need to write an outline for essay mla format or how to create a hook for a research paper.

Composing the MLA Format Essay Outline

Like for every paper, MLA format requires beginning with a separate sheet, even if it is a part of a bigger document. Start with filling in your name, the name of your tutor, the name of the class and the date. Remember that on every page in the upper right corner you have to leave the surname and the page number.

In the format under the date in the middle of the document place the name of the document. If you do not know what to write there, consult your tutor. An outline is a big list of sentences with three layers.

The MLA format requires a new line to contain the main thesis you have gathered from thoughts.

Then you need to recall the groups of statements you have picked before. Name each group and place the name to the first layer of the list. Within the format the list should be numerical with Roman digits.

In the format the second layer of the list is composed of notions of the groups. Each concept should become a new line of the 2nd level list with alphabetic marks in the MLA format.

For this format under them, you have to place evidence and arguments. Each argument, if it has been cited, should be paraphrased or taken into quotation marks. The arguments compose the third layer of the list and have Arabic digits as marks.

In general, your outline should look like this in MLA format:

A thesis statement: the sentence with the main thesis of your writing

I.    The sentence that characterizes and describes the group of ideas
A.      The idea
1. The first argument for the idea
2. The second argument for the idea
B.      The second idea
1. The first argument for the idea
2. The second argument for the idea
II.    The sentence that characterizes and describes the second group

Continue following this MLA format structure until you describe all your thoughts and provide them with sufficient evidence. Note that it is a flexible document. If you feel you need to change the direction of your paper, do it.

Where to Find a Good Paper and an Outline?

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