C1-d: Drafting a plan

C1-dDraft a plan.

Once you have drafted a working thesis, listing and organizing your supporting ideas can help you figure out how to flesh out the thesis. Creating outlines, whether formal or informal, can help you make sure your writing is focused and logical and can help you identify any gaps in your support.

When to use an informal outline

You might want to sketch an informal outline to see how you will support your thesis and to figure out a tentative structure for your ideas. Informal outlines can take many forms. Perhaps the most common is simply the thesis followed by a list of major ideas.

Working thesis: Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen evolves from a character unable to connect meaningfully with others to one who leads and relies on others, and it is this change that brings about a successful revolution over the Capitol.

  • Disconnecting people from one another is part of a government plan to maintain rule.
  • Katniss remains emotionally disconnected from her own mother after her father’s death.
  • Relationships with Rue and Johanna are milestones in Katniss’s emotional development.
  • The Mockingjay movement succeeds not because of Katniss’s charisma, but because of her ability to stir feelings of hope and connection in the Districts.

If you began by brainstorming a list of ideas, you can turn the list into a rough outline by crossing out some ideas, adding others, and putting the ideas in a logical order.

When to use a formal outline

Early in the writing process, rough outlines have certain advantages: They can be produced quickly, they are obviously tentative, and they can be revised easily. However, a formal outline may be useful later in the writing process, after you have written a rough draft, especially if your topic is complex. It can help you see whether the parts of your essay work together and whether your essay’s structure is logical.

The following formal outline brought order to the research paper that appears in MLA-5b, on regulating unhealthy eating. The student’s thesis is an important part of the outline. Everything else in the outline supports it, directly or indirectly.

formal outline

Thesis: In the name of public health and safety, state governments have the responsibility to shape public health policies and to regulate healthy eating choices, especially since doing so offers a potentially large social benefit for a relatively small cost.

  1. Debates surrounding food regulation have a long history in the U.S.
    1. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act guarantees inspection of meat and dairy products.
    2. Such regulations are considered reasonable because consumers are protected from harm with little cost.
    3. Consumers consider reasonable regulations to be an important government function to stop harmful items from entering the marketplace.
  2. Even though food meets safety standards, further regulation is needed.
    1. The typical American diet—processed sugars, fats, and refined flours—is damaging over time.
    2. Related health problems are diabetes, cancer, and heart problems.
    3. Passing chronic-disease-related legislation is our single most important public health challenge.
  3. Legislating which foods they can eat is not a popular solution for most Americans.
    1. A proposed New York City regulation banning the sale of soft drinks greater than twelve ounces failed in 2012, and in California a proposed soda tax failed in 2011.
    2. Many consumers find such laws to be unreasonable restrictions on freedom of choice.
    3. Opposition to food and beverage regulation is similar to the oppositionto early tobacco legislation; the public views the issue as one of personal responsibility.
    4. Counterpoint: Freedom of “choice” is a myth; our choices are heavily influenced by marketing.
  4. The United States has a history of regulating unhealthy behaviors.
    1. Tobacco-related restrictions faced opposition.
    2. Seat belt laws are a useful analogy.
    3. The public seems to support laws that have a good cost-benefit ratio; the cost of food/beverage regulations is low, and most people agree that the benefits would be high.
  5. Americans believe that personal choice is lost when regulations such as taxes and bans are instituted.
    1. Regulations open up the door to excessive control and interfere with cultural and religious traditions.
    2. Counterpoint: Burdens on individual liberty are a reasonable price to pay for large social health benefits.
  6. Public opposition continues to stand in the way of food regulation to promote healthier eating. We must consider whether to allow the costly trend of rising chronic disease to continue in the name of personal choice, or whether we are willing to support the legal changes and public health policies that will reverse that trend.