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Exercise 1-2C: Reverse Outline

Outlining is a helpful revision exercise for writers because it gives them a scaffolding for their ideas. Reverse outlining is simply generating an outline for a composition that has already been written. Creating a reverse outline after writing a draft can be especially helpful as a way to double-check the organization and flow of your ideas and ensure you’ve completed all parts of the assignment. 

It’s easiest to reverse outline with a hard copy of your text and a handful of colorful highlighters or markers. Once you have those:

  1. Read the text out loud and take notes in the margins every few sentences to remind you what that small section is talking about. 
  2. Highlight each of these sections in a different color (if you find connected themes or ideas, you can highlight them in the same color as the corresponding section). 
  3. Write a bullet point or two describing the highlighted sections to identify the main ideas
  4. Fill in the space between these bullet points with the sub-topics that arrive. 

You now have a reverse outline, but you’re not quite finished.

  1. Read your new outline (again, out loud is better), listening to make sure everything flows logically. 
    1. Do the main ideas follow each other sequentially? 
    2. Does each main idea have sub-topics that relate to it and each other? 
  2. If the reverse outline feels jumpy, odds are you either need to add evidence to your claims or you’re talking about the same point in more than one place. Look for any gaps and add content that would help a reader make sense of your thoughts.
  3. Compare your outline to the assignment sheet your instructor gave you to make sure you’ve completed all of the requirements.