by Sylvia Korman
WHAT’S A REVERSE OUTLINE?
It’s the outline you write after you’ve drafted a paper. That’s right: you outline your own writing after you’ve finished a draft. Doing so allows you to think about the logic, flow, and structure of your ideas.
WHY SHOULD YOU USE A REVERSE OUTLINE?
- Get a birds-eye view of your own paper
- Make sure each paragraph has a clear point
- Make sure each point contributes to your overall argument
- See where your structure might be confusing for your reader
HOW DO YOU MAKE A REVERSE OUTLINE?
- Start with a complete draft
- Write a one sentence summary of the main point each paragraph is making. If the paragraph has a topic sentence that summarizes its point, you can copy that in. Otherwise, write a sentence that summarizes the paragraph.
- Number your list, for easier reference
OKAY. NOW WHAT?
Use your reverse outline to answer some questions about your paper.
- Does each of your paragraphs make one clear, specific point?
- Does each paragraph relate back to your main argument?
- Do multiple paragraphs repeat the same point?
- Are there places where the order of your points might be unclear for a reader?
- Are your paragraphs too long? Too short?
PRACTICE IT!
You are writing a paper arguing that books are always better than the movies that adapt them. I’ve given you almost all of a hypothetical reverse outline for this paper.
First, read the paragraph on the next page — it’s the second paragraph in this hypothetical paper. On your own, write a one-sentence summary of the main point made in this paragraph, and add it to the reverse outline, in the space by #2. Then assess the organization of this paper and its argument, based on the points laid out in the reverse outline.
While some might groan at the long page-counts involved with reading books, those pages give the reader a huge advantage over the movie-watcher: detail. This detail is present not just because books generally take longer to read than movies take to watch, but also because the narrative form of books allows for more emotional specificity. Books, with their focus on narrative voice, are much stronger at capturing the emotional ebbs and flows of their characters than movies are. First-person accounts, for example, prioritize the emotions and thoughts of the narrator by literally stating them: “I thought,” “I felt,” etc. This clarity and nuance might be lost with dialogue in movie adaptations, which might skip the unspoken thoughts between the spoken words—especially if the director opts not to utilize narrative voiceover in the movie.
- Regardless of the quality or success of any specific book-to-movie adaptation, the original book is always better than its subsequent film adaptation.
- In addition to providing more emotional specificity, books provide you with the opportunity to have your own interpretations of what characters and settings look like—using your own creativity in this way is much more pleasant than having a movie adaptation make the decision for you.
- The experience of reading a book at your own pace over a long period of time, in whatever environment you would like, can be both more comfortable and more engaging than the experience of watching a movie.
- The dialogue in movies does not tell you as much about its characters as the descriptions in books, which makes them less complex.
- The Harry Potter books have sold more copies than the Harry Potter film adaptations have sold cinema tickets.
- All in all, the experience of reading books in their original form continues to be more robust, entertaining, and comfortable than the experience of catching their film adaptations on the silver screen.
Are there any issues with the points made in this reverse outline? What changes would you make to the organization of your paper?
