Outlines are essential for establishing an order of presentation of ideas. What comes first, what s next and so on. It helps put a logic to your thoughts and body of information. You may also want to create a concept map to identify the key concepts and separate those from the subordinate concepts.
Concept maps are also useful to illustrate how various concepts connect to one another.
Outlines are not able to do that. Recall the concept map you created while narrowing your topic. You may want to modify this map or create one from scratch. Click here to view an actual student concept map. Notice the difference in structure from the concept map created in Narrowing Your Topic.