An outline is a hierarchical way to display related items of text to graphically depict their relationships.They are often used by students for research papers. Outlines provide a summary showing the logical flow of a paper. They are useful because they:
help the writer organize their thoughts before getting bogged down in word choice and sentence structure;
show which ideas need illustration or elaboration; and
help the writer decide on an organizational technique for the report, whether it be logical, chronological, or categorical in nature.
Outlining reports
Textbooks generally recommend that, before constructing an outline, a writer should research the topic and take notes--preferably on index cards--as they go. The notes need not be more than a summary of what the author thinks is important. Each note card normally has a heading (called a slug) in the upper-left hand corner. Each slug later becomes a heading or subheading in the outline. The writer can later lay their car