Premise

You’ve likely made outlines at some point in your life. Whether for a grade school essay or a presentation at work, outlines can be a useful way to organize your ideas in a clear format. So, then what in the world is a “reverse outline”? And how does it differ from what you are used to doing with this type of tool?

Simply put: while a traditional outline helps you organize and plan your material before you write, a reverse outline assesses what you’ve accomplished after completing a work—as well as what more you might want to do to expand and clarify your purpose. This can be particularly useful for academic papers that you’re trying to refine. It raises questions like, whether your paper accomplishes what goals you think it does? Does each section work towards proving your thesis fully? Do you even have a complete thesis?

Examples

Questions to Ask Throughout

The process of completing a reverse outline starts with asking questions about each paragraph (note, you might want to ask additional and or entirely different questions for another type of document (e.g., a rhetorical analysis paper); this is just an example for researched argument papers):

• Are my topic sentences clear? I.e., is there a clear point identified that logically builds upon the previous point to my new one in this paragraph? Is it clear to my reader why we are continuing the way that we are?
  • NO: “We must also look at why our school has not tried to make any changes yet.”
  • NO: “A second solution would be to consider eliminating the current policy.”
  • YES: “While the problem is clear, what’s less clear is why our school has not even attempted to take any steps towards making meaningful changes yet.”
  • YES: “A more dramatic—albeit impactful solution—would be to consider eliminating the current policy.”
• Are there opportunities for more advanced and emphatic phrasing? E.g., specifying vague words, phrases, and other details?
  • NO: “This shows how campus dining is not good.”
  • YES: “This startling example details how some of the claims that students are making about food quality here are much worse than them just not liking the taste.”
• What about grammar and punctuation? Am I still seeing sloppy mistakes or is everything clear? Are there advanced opportunities—like em dashes, colons, etc.—to help emphasize specific parts of speech?
  • NO: “in the end our school doesnt do the best job they can, especially when u consider the diversity of these startling example.”
  • YES: “In the end, our school does not do the best job they can—especially when you consider the diversity of these startling examples.”
• Are my MLA form and style details consistent here (for this paper, parenthetical paragraph citations)—including the formatting?
  • NO: “The author points out how she will not ‘accept these horrifying excuses by administration.(School Crooks 2)”
  • YES: “The author points out how she will not ‘accept these horrifying excuses by administration’ (‘School Crooks’ 2).”
• Are my quotes introduced and integrated in clear and elaborative ways?
  • NO: “The author states that ‘she hates green eggs and ham’ (para. 2).”
  • YES: “The author points out in a rather mocking tone how she ‘hates green eggs and ham’ (para. 2).”
• Is my analysis thorough? Do I identify which particular type(s) of audiences might be responsible here?
  • NO: “Some may argue that this change in food quality is not worth the cost.”
  • YES: “Administrators—particularly those who have expressed concerns over any budget increases as previously mentioned—might conceivably question whether this particular change in food quality is worth the increased cost.”

How to Generate the Reverse Outline

Annotated Reverse Outline Template

Now that you have some baseline questions to ask as you read your work, you can create the actual reverse outline by reviewing each paragraph. Some of those questions may come up as points you want to note within your reverse outline. Below are the summarizing elements that you should look for in each paragraph, including example answers for a hypothetical paper. If you want to jump straight to the template that you can copy and paste into a blank document to complete for your own work, then just scroll farther down for that version.

Note, that while the introductory and concluding paragraphs have different checklist criteria, that each body paragraph should follow the same assessment formula (even though each paragraphs’ goals might be different as you progress):

Checklist Items for Introduction

• Opening rhetorical hook:
  • Yes, but focus on how the example here is directly connected to students at our school.
• Clarifying information (topic identification, issue, etc.):
  • Yes, but specify further when this issue first arose.
• Thesis statement (copy and paste current version):
  • “Our university’s Office of the Provost should prompt departments to more carefully assess their asynchronous course offerings—encouraging (although not specifically requiring) that they try to offer a balanced approach that better meets students’ diverse scheduling needs.”
• What more to do with your thesis statement:
  • Moving forward, I think that I should try to specify which type(s) of classes/departments in particular might benefit from this change? Summarize a bit more how I compare/contrast to how other schools have done this?
  • Maybe more than one sentence here needed for a full thesis statement?

Body Paragraph One

• Summary (one sentence if possible):
  • Starts by giving background context about the history of this issue
• Purpose (one sentence if possible):
  • Tries to establish how this issue has existed for quite some time prior to our current situation. It also shows how much the problem has continued to grow and develop worse in recent years
• What more needs to be done here to clarify the point?:
  • Potentially break up this longer paragraph into two separate ones (there are multiple distinct points. I.e., the history of this issue; then the fact of how it’s gotten worse in recent years)
    • Make sure that my transition between these two new paragraphs is clear (why we are continuing on from one point to the next)
  • Continue working on more specific phrasing and check the formatting of parenthetical citations

Body Paragraph Two

• Summary (one sentence if possible):
  • Continues by giving more recent student-cited examples of this issue
• Purpose (one sentence if possible):
  • Tries to show how this issue is recently affecting students to illustrate that this is not just a hypothetical problem
• What more needs to be done here to clarify the point?:
  • Clarify why we are moving onto this point from the previous one (clearer topic sentence transition)
  • Focus on explaining the research process for context of the examples I do include
    • I.e., the fact that “if you research this issue by going to the Subreddit, you’ll see dozens of posts of students making similar claims.”
  • Make sure to continue to look at sentence level phrasing (e.g., lots of vague “it” words!)

Continue Body Paragraphs As Follows Above

Conclusion

• Does my conclusion “wrap-up” and remind my reader of the overall point and purpose of my paper?
  • Yes, but maybe give a bit more descriptive reminder of how we proved the overall argument.
• Do I incorporate new information? If so, should I make this further detail its own paragraph?
  • Yes, I do have that extra quote of analysis. Maybe make this its own paragraph? Or weave it in with a previous related example as further supporting evidence?
• Other concerns and considerations?
  • Check sample papers to see how their tone manifests in the last couple of concluding lines.

Simplified Reverse Outline Template (Copy And Paste To Complete For Your Own Paper!)

Checklist Items for Introduction

• Opening rhetorical hook?
• Clarifying information (topic identification, issue, etc.):
• Thesis statement (copy and paste current version):
• What more to do with your thesis statement:

Body Paragraph One

• Summary (one sentence if possible):
• Purpose (one sentence if possible):
• What more needs to be done here to clarify the point?:

Body Paragraph Two

• Summary (one sentence if possible):
• Purpose (one sentence if possible):
• What more needs to be done here to clarify the point?:

Continue Body Paragraphs As Follows Above

Conclusion

• Does my conclusion “wrap-up” and remind my reader of the overall point and purpose of my paper?
• Do I incorporate new information? If so, should I make this further detail its own paragraph?
• Other concerns and considerations?

Further Considerations

• It’s just a template. We say this because different assignments (and the documents they produce) might inherently require different assessment questions, so it’s best to think of these guidelines above as more of a template—of which, some of these considerations might apply more for some works than for others.
• Why not just let AI do it for me? Good question! Well, besides for that technically being “cheating,” the better answer is the fact that you know your work best—and how to fix it, which is exactly what the reverse outline process seeks to reveal to you. Completing it also helps you develop cognitive processing and organizational skills that can translate to many other real world tasks. Don’t think of the reverse outline as a “job” or a “task” that needs to be completed. Think of it as a tool to better understand your work and identify how to tailor it more accurately to your goals!
• What if I require more than one sentence summaries per paragraph? Great question! This is actually quite common in the practice of reverse outlining, and one of the reasons why it’s so useful for identifying opportunities to refine your work. If you find yourself needing more than one sentence to describe either a paragraph’s “summary” and or its “purpose” then that’s usually a sign that your paragraph might have too many ideas. That’s not a bad thing. It just means that you might want to break it up into another, further supporting paragraph. Or maybe you can trim or move the extra content to someplace more appropriate.
• Wait, but what if my one sentence summaries aren’t quite one sentence? That happens too! And it basically means that maybe you need to clarify and expand what you already have in order for that paragraph to convey a complete thought within the larger context of your paper’s goal(s).