Tuesday, September 17

Journal - What is creating an outline for a paper important? Do you think it helps you personally? How would you prefer to outline a paper - pen and paper or an online tool? Is there a different way you know if that would prefer to organize your thoughts? Creating an outline for a paper is important because without the outline your paper would be harder to write. Writing an outline before you write the paper helps guide you in writing an effective essay so that you make sure to catch all the important points, it also keeps you on track of what to include so that you don't stray off topic too much. I love to write outlines for my essays/papers because I have a tendency to write way too much that doesn't truly relate to the topic at hand. Outlines allow me to check off what I have included in my paper and give me a sketch on what to use and what not to use. I usually don't use a website to help me outline, instead I just sketch it onto a piece of paper. (But this helps too!) I prefer to organize my thoughts with pen and paper because that way I can pull it out whenever is convenient and not have to log onto a computer, and pull it up onto the screen. In my opinion that is just much easier than using an online tool, but I do think that the online tool can help make it look more 'official' and clean.