An outline, also called a hierarchical outline, is a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships and is a type of tree structure. An outline is used [1] to present the main points (in sentences) or topics (terms) of a given subject. Each item in an outline may be divided into additional sub-items. If an organizational level in an outline is to be sub-divided, it shall have at least two subcategories, although one subcategory is acceptable on the third and fourth levels, as advised by major style manuals in current use. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] An outline may be used as a drafting tool of a document, or as a summary of the content of a document or of the knowledge in an entire field. It is not to be confused with the general context of the term "outline", which is a summary or overview of a subject presented verbally or written in prose [7] (for example, The Outline of History is not an outline of the type presented below). The outlines described in this article are lists, and come in several varieties.
A sentence outline is a tool for composing a document, such as an essay, a paper, a book, or even an encyclopedia. It is a list used to organize the facts or points to be covered, and their order of presentation, by section. Topic outlines list the subtopics of a subject, arranged in levels, and while they can be used to plan a composition, they are most often used as a summary, such as in the form of a table of contents or the topic list in a college course's syllabus.
Outlines are further differentiated by the index prefixing used, or lack thereof. Many outlines include a numerical or alphanumerical prefix preceding each entry in the outline, to provide a specific path for each item, to aid in referring to and discussing the entries listed. An alphanumerical outline uses alternating letters and numbers to identify entries. A decimal outline uses only numbers as prefixes. An outline without prefixes is called a "bare outline".
Specialized applications of outlines also exist. A reverse outline is a list of sentences or topics that is created from an existing work, as a revision tool; it may show the gaps in the document's coverage so that they may be filled, and may help in rearranging sentences or topics to improve the structure and flow of the work. An integrated outline is a composition tool for writing scholastic works, in which the sources, and the writer's notes from the sources, are integrated into the outline for ease of reference during the writing process.
A software program designed for processing outlines is called an outliner.
Outlines are differentiated by style, the inclusion of prefixes, and specialized purpose. There are also hand-written outlines and digitized outlines, such as those contained within an outliner.
There are two main styles of outline: sentence outlines and topic outlines.
Propædia is the historical attempt of the Encyclopædia Britannica to present a hierarchical "Outline of Knowledge" in a separate volume in the 15th edition of 1974. The Outline of Knowledge was a project by Mortimer Adler. Propædia had three levels, 10 "Parts" at the top level, 41 "Divisions" at the middle level and 167 "Sections" at the bottom level, numbered, for example, "1. Matter and Energy", "1.1 Atoms", "1.1.1. Structure and Properties of Sync".
A feature included in many outlines is prefixing. Similar to section numbers, an outline prefix is a label (usually alphanumeric or numeric) placed at the beginning of an outline entry to assist in referring to it.
Bare outlines include no prefixes.
An alphanumeric outline includes a prefix at the beginning of each topic as a reference aid. The prefix is in the form of Roman numerals for the top level, upper-case letters (in the alphabet of the language being used) for the next level, Arabic numerals for the next level, and then lowercase letters for the next level. For further levels, the order is started over again. Each numeral or letter is followed by a period, and each item is capitalized, as in the following sample:
Thesis statement: E-mail and internet monitoring, as currently practiced, is an invasion of employees' rights in the workplace.
- I. The situation: Over 80% of today's companies monitor their employees.
- A. To prevent fraudulent activities, theft, and other workplace related violations.
- B. To more efficiently monitor employee productivity.
- C. To prevent any legal liabilities due to harassing or offensive communications.
- II. What are employees' privacy rights when it comes to electronic monitoring and surveillance in the workplace?
- A. American employees have basically no legal protection from mean and snooping bosses.
- 1. There are no federal or State laws protecting employees.
- 2. Employees may assert privacy protection for their own personal effects.
- B. Most managers believe that there is no right to privacy in the workplace.
- 1. Workplace communications should be about work; anything else is a misuse of company equipment and company time
- 2. Employers have a right to prevent misuse by monitoring employee communications
Some call the Roman numerals "A-heads" (for "A-level headings"), the upper-case letters, "B-heads", and so on. Some writers also prefer to insert a blank line between the A-heads and B-heads, while often keeping the B-heads and C-heads together.
If more levels of outline are needed, lower-case Roman numerals and numbers and lower-case letters, sometimes with single and double parenthesis can be used, although the exact order is not well defined, and usage varies widely.
The scheme recommended by the MLA Handbook , [8] and the Purdue Online Writing Lab , [9] among others, uses the usual five levels, as described above, then repeats the Arabic numerals and lower-case letter surrounded by parentheses (round brackets) – I. A. 1. a. i. (1) (a) – and does not specify any lower levels, [8] [9] though "(i)" is usually next. In common practice, lower levels yet are usually Arabic numerals and lowercase letters again, and sometimes lower-case Roman again, with single parentheses – 1) a) i) – but usage varies. MLA style is sometimes incorrectly referred to as APA style, [10] but the APA Publication Manual does not address outline formatting at all.
A very different style recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style , [1] [11] based on the practice of the United States Congress in drafting legislation, suggests the following sequence, from the top to the seventh level (the only ones specified): I. A. 1. a) (1) (a) i) – capital Roman numerals with a period, capital letters with a period, Arabic numerals with a period, italic lowercase letters with a single parenthesis, Arabic numerals with a double parenthesis, italic lowercase letters with a double parenthesis, and italic lowercase Roman numerals with a single parentheses, though the italics are not required). Because of its use in the US Code and other US law books, many American lawyers consequently use this outline format.
Another alternative scheme repeats all five levels with a single parenthesis for the second five – I) A) 1) a) i) – and then again with a double parenthesis for the third five – (I) (A) (1) (a) (i).[ citation needed ]
Many oft-cited style guides besides the APA Publication Manual, including the AP Stylebook , the NYT Manual , Fowler, The Guardian Style Guide, and Strunk & White, are silent on the topic.
One side effect of the use of both Roman numerals and uppercase letters in all of these styles of outlining is that in most alphabets, "I." may be an item at both the top (A-head) and second (B-head) levels. This is usually not problematic because lower level items are usually referred to hierarchically. For example, the third sub-sub-item of the fourth sub-item of the second item is item II. D. 3. So, the ninth sub-item (letter-I) of the first item (Roman-I) is item I. I., and only the top level one is item I.
The decimal outline format has the advantage of showing how every item at every level relates to the whole, as shown in the following sample outline:
Thesis statement: ---
- 1.0 Introduction
- 1.1 Brief history of Liz Claiborne
- 1.2 Corporate environment
- 2.0 Career opportunities
- 2.1 Operations management
- 2.1.1 Traffic
- 2.1.2 International trade and corporate customs
- 2.1.3 Distribution
- 2.2 Product development
A first subsection may be numbered 0 rather than 1 (as in 2.0 Career opportunities) if it is an introduction or similar to the following subsections.
ISO 2145 describes a standard for decimal outlines.
Special types of outlines include reverse outlines and integrated outlines.
A reverse outline is an outline made from an existing work. Reverse outlining is like reverse engineering a document. The points or topics are extracted from the work, and are arranged in their order of presentation, by section, in the outline. Once completed, the outline can be filled in and rearranged as a plan for a new improved version of the document.
An integrated outline is a helpful step in the process of organizing and writing a scholarly paper (literature review, research paper, thesis or dissertation). When completed the integrated outline contains the relevant scholarly sources (author's last name, publication year, page number if quote) for each section in the outline. An integrated outline is generally prepared after the scholar has collected, read and mastered the literature that will be used in the research paper. Shields and Rangarajan (2013) recommend that new scholars develop a system to do this. Part of the system should contain a systematic way to take notes on the scholarly sources. [12] These notes can then be tied to the paper through the integrated outline. This way the scholar reviews all of the literature before the writing begins.
An integrated outline can be a helpful tool for people with writer's block because the content of the paper is organized and identified prior to writing. The structure and content is combined and the author can write a small section at a time. The process is less overwhelming because it can be separated into manageable chunks. The first draft can be written using smaller blocks of time. [13]
Outlines are used for composition, summarization, and as a development and storage medium.
Merriam-Webster's manual for writers and editors (1998, p. 290) recommends that the section headings of an article should when read in isolation, combine to form an outline of the article content. Garson (2002) distinguishes a 'standard outline', presented as a regular table of contents from a refined tree-like 'hierarchical outline', stating that "such an outline might be appropriate, for instance, when the purpose is taxonomic (placing observed phenomena into an exhaustive set of categories). ... hierarchical outlines are rare in quantitative writing, and the researcher is well advised to stick to the standard outline unless there are compelling reasons not to." [14]
Writers of fiction and creative nonfiction, such as Jon Franklin, [15] may use outlines to establish plot sequence, character development and dramatic flow of a story, sometimes in conjunction with free writing.
Preparation of an outline is an intermediate step in the process of writing a scholarly research paper, literature review, thesis or dissertation. A special kind of outline (integrated outline) incorporates scholarly sources into the outline before the writing begins. [16]
In addition to being used as a composition tool during the drafting process, outlines can also be used as a publishing format. Outlines can be presented as a work's table of contents, but they can also be used as the body of a work. The Outline of Knowledge from the 15th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is an example of this. Wikipedia includes outlines that summarize subjects (for example, see Outline of chess, Outline of Mars, and Outline of knowledge).
Professors often hand out to their students at the beginning of a term, a summary of the subjects to be covered throughout the course in the form of a topic outline. It may also be included as part of a larger course synopsis.
Outlines are also used to summarize talking points for a speech or lecture.
Outlines, especially those used within an outliner, can be used for planning, scheduling, and recording.
An outliner (or "outline processor") is a specialized type of word processor used to view, create, build, modify, and maintain outlines. It is a computer program, or part of one, used for displaying, organizing, and editing hierarchically arranged text in an outline's tree structure. Textual information is contained in discrete sections called "nodes", which are arranged according to their topic-subtopic (parent-child) relationships, sort of like the members of a family tree. When loaded into an outliner, an outline may be collapsed or expanded to display as few or as many levels as desired.
Outliners are used for storing and retrieving textual information, with terms, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs attached to a tree. So rather than being arranged by document, information is arranged by topic or content. An outline in an outliner may contain as many topics as desired. This eliminates the need to have separate documents, as outlines easily include other outlines just by adding to the tree.
The main difference between a hand-written outline and a digital one, is that the former is usually limited to a summary or blueprint of a planned document, while the latter may easily include all of the content of the entire document and many more. In other words, as a hand-written work an outline is a writing tool, but on a computer, it is a general purpose format supported by a robust development and display medium capable of handling knowledge from its creation to its end use.
Outliners may be used in content creation instead of general word processors for capturing, organizing, editing, and displaying knowledge or general textual information. Outliners are ideal for managing lists, organizing facts and ideas, and for writing computer programs. They are also used for goal and task management (including personal information management and project management), and for writing books and movie scripts.
The graphical counterpart to outliners are mind mappers.
You should have at least two items to list at each level; if you do not, reconsider the structure of the outline.
Logic requires that there be a II to complement a I, a B to complement an A, and so on.
Division – How do I accomplish this? Each heading should be divided into 2 or more parts.
Both topic and sentence outlines follow rigid formats... By convention, each category consists of a minimum of two entries.
Each heading and subheading must have at least two parts.
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filing systems, library catalogs, and reference books.
Penmanship is the technique of writing with the hand using a writing instrument. Today, this is most commonly done with a pen, or pencil, but throughout history has included many different implements. The various generic and formal historical styles of writing are called "hands" while an individual's style of penmanship is referred to as "handwriting".
The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 18 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing.
Capitalization or capitalisation is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter and the remaining letters in lower case, in writing systems with a case distinction. The term also may refer to the choice of the casing applied to text.
This page is a glossary of library and information science.
An outliner is a specialized type of text editor used to create and edit outlines, which are text files which have a tree structure or a tree view, for organization. Textual information is contained in discrete sections called "nodes", which are arranged according to their topic–subtopic (parent–child) relationships, like the members of a family tree. When loaded into an outliner, an outline may be collapsed or expanded to display as few or as many levels as desired.
A table of contents, usually headed simply Contents and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list, usually found on a page before the start of a written work, of its chapter or section titles or brief descriptions with their commencing page numbers.
Copy editing is the process of revising written material ("copy") to improve quality and readability, as well as ensuring that a text is free of errors in grammar, style and accuracy. The Chicago Manual of Style states that manuscript editing encompasses "simple mechanical corrections through sentence-level interventions to substantial remedial work on literary style and clarity, disorganized passages, baggy prose, muddled tables and figures, and the like ". In the context of print publication, copy editing is done before typesetting and again before proofreading. Outside traditional book and journal publishing, the term "copy editing" is used more broadly, and is sometimes referred to as proofreading; the term sometimes encompasses additional tasks.
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals and smaller lowercase in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems that distinguish between the upper- and lowercase have two parallel sets of letters: each in the majuscule set has a counterpart in the minuscule set. Some counterpart letters have the same shape, and differ only in size, but for others the shapes are different. The two case variants are alternative representations of the same letter: they have the same name and pronunciation and are typically treated identically when sorting in alphabetical order.
The Ol Chiki script, also known as Ol Chemetʼ, Ol Ciki, Ol, and sometimes as the Santali alphabet is the official writing system for Santali, an Austroasiatic language recognized as an official regional language in India. It was invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925. It has 30 letters, the design of which is intended to evoke natural shapes. The script is written from left to right, and has two styles. Unicode does not maintain a distinction between these two, as is typical for print and cursive variants of a script. In both styles, the script is unicameral.
The shapes of the letters are not arbitrary, but reflect the names for the letters, which are words, usually the names of objects or actions representing conventionalized form in the pictorial shape of the characters.
A lightweight markup language (LML), also termed a simple or humane markup language, is a markup language with simple, unobtrusive syntax. It is designed to be easy to write using any generic text editor and easy to read in its raw form. Lightweight markup languages are used in applications where it may be necessary to read the raw document as well as the final rendered output.
Title case or headline case is a style of capitalization used for rendering the titles of published works or works of art in English. When using title case, all words are capitalized, except for minor words that are not the first or last word of the title. There are different rules for which words are major, hence capitalized. As an example, a headline might be written like this: "The Quick Brown Fox Jumps over the Lazy Dog".
Technical writing is a specialized form of communication used by many of today's industrial and scientific organizations to clearly and accurately convey complex information to a user. An organization's customers, employees, assembly workers, engineers, and scientists are some of the most common users who reference this form of content to complete a task or research a subject. Most technical writing relies on simplified grammar, supported by easy-to-understand visual communication to clearly and accurately explain complex information.
Technical communication is communication of technical subject matter such as engineering, science, or technology content. The largest part of it tends to be technical writing, though importantly it often requires aspects of visual communication. Technical communication also encompasses oral delivery modes such as presentations involving technical material. When technical communication occurs in workplace settings, it's considered a major branch of professional communication. In research or R&D contexts, it can overlap with scientific writing.
In typography, small caps are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technically not a case-transformation, but a substitution of glyphs, although the effect is often approximated by case-transformation and scaling. Small caps are used in running text as a form of emphasis that is less dominant than all uppercase text, and as a method of emphasis or distinctiveness for text alongside or instead of italics, or when boldface is inappropriate. For example, the text "Text in small caps" appears as text in small caps in small caps. Small caps can be used to draw attention to the opening phrase or line of a new section of text, or to provide an additional style in a dictionary entry where many parts must be typographically differentiated.
Professional writing is writing for reward or as a profession; as a product or object, professional writing is any form of written communication produced in a workplace environment or context that enables employees to, for example, communicate effectively among themselves, help leadership make informed decisions, advise clients, comply with federal, state, or local regulatory bodies, bid for contracts, etc. Professional writing is widely understood to be mediated by the social, rhetorical, and material contexts within which it is produced. For example, in a business office, a memorandum can be used to provide a solution to a problem, make a suggestion, or convey information. Other forms of professional writing commonly generated in the workplace include email, letters, reports, and instructions. In seeking to inform, persuade, instruct, stimulate debate, or encourage action from recipients, skilled professional writers make adjustments to different degrees of shared context, e.g., from a relatively accessible style useful for unsolicited contact letter to prospective clients to a technical report that relies on a highly specialized in-house vocabulary.
Scientific writing is about science, with the implication that the writing is done by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peers—those with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles, which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. There is not one specific style for citations and references in scientific writing. Whether you are submitting a grant proposal, literature review articles, or submitting an article into a paper, the citation system that must be used will depend on the publication you plan to submit to.
Org Mode is a mode for document editing, formatting, and organizing within the free software text editor GNU Emacs and its derivatives, designed for notes, planning, and authoring. The name is used to encompass plain text files that include simple marks to indicate levels of a hierarchy, and an editor with functions that can read the markup and manipulate hierarchy elements.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books.
Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of the alphabet. English punctuation has two complementary aspects: phonological punctuation, linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing; and grammatical punctuation, linked to the structure of the sentence. In popular discussion of language, incorrect punctuation is often seen as an indication of lack of education and of a decline of standards.