Finding one’s path. Photo Credit: Teresa Brown.
It’s the end of the semester. That point where it feels like the end is in sight, and yet there is still so much to complete before we can say we’re really finished. And, for a lot of us finals season means long essays and research papers.
In writing my final assignment for my thesis class this semester, a chapter of my thesis, I found myself completely stuck. I had some ideas, I had all of my primary and secondary sources, but I just didn’t know how to put words to my thoughts. I forced myself to get 6 pages of writing down, and turned in a preliminary draft. But I was unsatisfied.
At the same time as I was writing (or attempting to write) this chapter, I had to submit an outline of a final research paper for a different course. While working on this assignment, it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea what my professor meant when he asked for an outline. I have never before been asked to turn in an outline for an essay in college, in fact sometimes professors have made it explicit that they won’t read outlines, so I found myself more than a little lost.
I ended up creating bullet points of the main arguments and topics I wanted to discuss in my paper, and then below each bullet I listed the various primary sources that would serve as support. Fortunately, my professor appreciated my outline, though he warned me to ensure that my paper kept a narrative and didn’t become a laundry list of primary sources.
It was at this point that I realized I was struggling with writing my thesis chapter because I had nothing more than a single sentence description of what I wanted the chapter to be about. This lack of direction was making it nearly impossible for me to put pen to paper. So, I went back to the proposal I submitted for my thesis, and wrote a new, much more substantial, outline based on the model that I used for my other course. Suddenly, I felt like a fog had been cleared and I could see the full arc of my project. Now, when I go back to fill in the sentences, I will be able to write without having to think twice about what the purpose of each paragraph is.
Beyond essays, outlines can be useful for lots of things. When I think about my post-college plans, for example, I often feel completely lost. There are so many things I could (and should) be doing and it is overwhelming to decide which of them is the most important or if I should somehow attempt all simultaneously. But what if I could outline my future? Not that I should create a “set in stone” life plan for the next 30 years, but that I could create a flexible roadmap of sorts. When I look at a project, whether it’s an essay or figuring out what I want to do after I graduate, as a single obstacle, it often feels like an insurmountable challenge. Breaking these challenges into pieces, and turning them into a series of tasks that can be accomplished in say an hour or two makes them more approachable. Then, even if I only complete one out of the many tasks I have outlined, I have completed one and that’s a step forward.