Essay Writing for Neurodivergent Students: Outlining Example
The previous post in this series gave general instructions for how to create an essay outline. However, I thought having a specific example might be helpful to understand the steps better. So, this post will go through the process of creating an outline for an imaginary essay.
If you’re looking for the general process to create an outline, head over to Essay Writing for Neurodivergent Students: Outlining. If you’ve already finished your outline, feel free to skip this post and go straight to writing a thesis statement (coming soon!).
If you’ve read the previous post about outlining in general but are still confused, read on for an example that will hopefully clarify the process.
Before Starting: Select a Topic
Before you can make an outline, you first need to select an essay topic. For this example, our hypothetical assignment is to write an essay about pets. That’s a pretty broad category, so I’m going to pick a specific pet to write about. Let’s say I decide to compare cats and dogs.
I like both cats and dogs, which makes them interesting to me. Over the course of my life, I’ve had a total of 6 cats and 10 dogs (not all at the same time!). So, I know a lot about both species. Both of these factors (interest and knowledge) should make this a relatively easy topic for me to write about, which makes it a good choice for me.
Now that I have a topic (cats versus dogs), I can move on to creating an outline, following the four steps described in my previous post about outlining.
Step 1: Gather Evidence
Because I have had both cats and dogs for many years, a good chunk of my evidence could come from personal experience. And if the assignment didn’t require me to cite external sources, I could absolutely use just my personal experiences. However, formal essays usually require quotes from external sources, so I’m going to assume that’s the case for this imaginary assignment.
Let’s say I decide to research cats first. Depending on the type of assignment, I may want to look at shelter websites, popular articles, academic research papers, or social media to find quotes about cats. To find these, I might search for terms such as “cat ownership,” “how to care for a cat,” “what it’s like having a pet cat,” or “research articles about cats as companion animals.”
Let’s imagine I did extensive online research and found the following quotes:
“Cats make wonderful companions for people with busy lifestyles. They’re content to entertain themselves and don’t require daily walks.” (Sunny Paws Animal Shelter)
“Adopting a cat means gaining a loyal friend who will fill your home with warmth, playfulness, and quiet affection.” (Bayview Humane Society)
“Studies indicate that cat ownership is associated with lower levels of perceived stress, particularly in individuals who identify as introverted or highly autonomous.” (Journal of Human-Animal Interaction Studies, 2021)
“The domestic cat’s unique blend of independence and social adaptability allows it to thrive in both solitary and multi-pet households.” (Comparative Psychology Quarterly, 2019)
“Veterinarians say cats are increasingly popular with young professionals who want the companionship of a pet without the time demands of a dog.” (USA Today Pets)
“Adopted a shelter cat last year and she’s basically my therapist now.” (Reddit user u/quietcoffeebean)
“My cat doesn’t ‘need me,’ he chooses me. And that makes it better <3” (@indoorcatmom)
As you can see, I included the source after each of the quotes for easy reference later. (Note: All these quotes are made up, including the sources. For a real essay, you should find real quotes with actual citations.)
If this was a particularly long essay, I would go through the process again to find a set of quotes about dogs. However, I ended up with a rather large number of cat quotes, which I think would be enough to write a full essay. So, rather than spending time researching dogs, I’m going to change my essay to be only about cats, and move on to the next step.
If it turns out I don’t have enough material to write a full essay about cats, I can always come back to this step and add a second part to the essay (about dogs) to fulfill the length requirement.
Step 2: Find Your Supporting Points
There are several ways to approach this step, but the end goal is to come up with 2-4 supporting points based on the quotes found in step 1.
Look for Any Obvious Patterns
First, I’m going to read through the quotes, and see if any patterns or themes stand out to me. Let’s say that at this point, I notice that quotes 1 and 5 also relate to dogs, either by mentioning dogs directly or by alluding to aspects of dog ownership.
Quote 1: “Cats make wonderful companions for people with busy lifestyles. They’re content to entertain themselves and don’t require daily walks.” (Sunny Paws Animal Shelter)
This one doesn’t mention dogs directly, but it points out that cats don’t require daily walks. This is likely alluding to the fact that dogs do require daily walks. Thus, this quote shows a potential advantage of cats over dogs, because their daily care requires less work.
Quote 5: “Veterinarians say cats are increasingly popular with young professionals who want the companionship of a pet without the time demands of a dog.” (USA Today Pets)
This quote directly states that cats require less time than dogs.
After summarizing both of those quotes, I’m noticing that both of them suggest that cats are less work than dogs. So, a potential supporting point could be: “Cats are easy to care for.”
Finding the Less Obvious Patterns
So now I have one supporting point, which is great. But what if I can’t think of anything else just by looking at the quotes? As mentioned in the main guide, separating the quotes onto individual pieces of paper could help with testing out different potential groupings. Let’s say I try that, but I still can’t find any other supporting points.
Summarize Each Quote
At this point, the next strategy would be to summarize each quote in a few words, and see if any patterns emerge. For the sake of being comprehensive, I will do this for all the quotes, but you could skip 1 and 5 because they already have a category.
“Cats make wonderful companions for people with busy lifestyles. They’re content to entertain themselves and don’t require daily walks.” (Sunny Paws Animal Shelter)
Low maintenance
“Adopting a cat means gaining a loyal friend who will fill your home with warmth, playfulness, and quiet affection.” (Bayview Humane Society)
Loyal friend
“Studies indicate that cat ownership is associated with lower levels of perceived stress, particularly in individuals who identify as introverted or highly autonomous.” (Journal of Human-Animal Interaction Studies, 2021)
Reduces stress in humans
“The domestic cat’s unique blend of independence and social adaptability allows it to thrive in both solitary and multi-pet households.” (Comparative Psychology Quarterly, 2019)
Adaptable to different homes
“Veterinarians say cats are increasingly popular with young professionals who want the companionship of a pet without the time demands of a dog.” (USA Today Pets)
Low maintenance
“Adopted a shelter cat last year and she’s basically my therapist now.” (Reddit user u/quietcoffeebean)
Cat as therapist
“My cat doesn’t ‘need me,’ he chooses me. And that makes it better <3” (@indoorcatmom)
Feeling chosen
Extract the Summaries
Extracting just the summaries, the list becomes:
Low maintenance
Loyal friend
Reduces stress in humans
Adaptable to different homes
Low maintenance
Cat as therapist
Feeling chosen
Look for Patterns in the Summaries
This simplified list makes it easier to see additional themes. For example, you might notice that quotes 2, 3, 6, and 7 have to do with the relationship between cats and humans. All four quotes say positive things about human-cat relations, so you could combine them all into one supporting point (“Cats and humans get along well”) and call it a day.
However, I’m now noticing that quotes 3 (Reduces stress in humans) and 6 (Cat as therapist) both relate to mental health and wellbeing. This suggests a more specific (and therefore stronger) potential supporting point: “Cat ownership can improve a person’s mental health.”
This leaves quotes 2 (Loyal friend) and 7 (Feeling chosen). This one is a bit trickier, but I think I can make it work. These quotes are specifically about the bond between cat and owner. The word “loyal” is often associated with dogs, but in quote 2 it’s attributed to cats.
Looking back at the original text of quote 7 (“My cat doesn’t ‘need me,’ he chooses me. And that makes it better <3”), I’m realizing that this quote also subtly alludes to a difference between cats and dogs. Although cats’ independence may make them initially more aloof than dogs, this quote suggests that when a cat does bond with a person, they bond more deeply than dogs. Whether this is true is up for debate, but this quote could certainly be used to argue that point.
So, from quotes 2 (Loyal friend) and 7 (Feeling chosen), I might come up with the supporting point: “The human-cat bond may be even stronger than the human-dog bond.”
Before moving on to step 3, I have a couple thoughts about being flexible during this process.
Some Thoughts on Flexibility
You may have noticed that I didn’t use every quote from my evidence. And that’s okay! Just because you found a quote, doesn’t mean you have to use it. If something no longer fits the essay you’re writing, feel free to leave it and move on.
You may have also noticed that I started out planning to write a comparison between cats and dogs. Then, after gathering the evidence, I changed my mind and decided to write only about cats.
However, in the process of examining my evidence, I noticed that some of the quotes also related to dogs. But, the supporting point I got from that observation ended up only being about cats (“Cats are easy to care for”). Meanwhile, my final supporting point (“The human-cat bond may be even stronger than the human-dog bond”) ended up including a comparison to dogs.
As you can see, I changed my mind many times about whether this essay would include dogs. I thought about going back and making the topic consistent throughout this post. And if this were an essay, that definitely would have been the right thing to do.
However, I thought it would be more helpful to show how this process actually happens. Perfectly formed, fully coherent essays don’t just spring forth from the abyss. The process is messy, and you might find yourself changing your approach more than once. If you find that happening, there’s no need to be alarmed; you’re still perfectly on track.
In fact, the ability to change the direction of your essay is one of the biggest benefits of creating an outline. Changing your mind at this stage involves much less work than if you’d already written full paragraphs.
Anyway, we now have our supporting points, so let’s move on to step 3.
Step 3: Draft a Main Point
To review, from step 2 we got the following supporting points:
Cats are easy to care for.
Cat ownership can improve a person’s mental health.
The human-cat bond may be even stronger than the human-dog bond.
Based on these three supporting points, I need to come up with a main point to tie them all together. Let’s test out a few possibilities. To start, I’m noticing that all three supporting points say good things about cats. So, one potential essay topic would be:
Cats make great pets.
This main point is simple, straightforward, and related to all three supporting points. Its only weakness is that it lacks any controversy or inherent reason for the reader to care, which makes it a less-than-compelling topic.
Despite this, a main point such as this one would likely be adequate for most school assignments. So, if you find yourself with a main point that’s boring but functional, it might make sense to move forward with it regardless. In particular, if you’re struggling with how to make the main point more compelling, it would be preferable to simply move forward than to spend a long time trying to improve it. Later on, you can explain why the reader should care about your topic.
For the sake of completeness, let’s consider a couple other potential main points. Perhaps I decide to go all in on the cats versus dogs controversy, leading me to argue that…
Cats are better pets than dogs.
This is a pretty strong, bold statement, so I would need a lot of evidence to back it up. If the assignment specifically requires you to take a strong, controversial stance, a main point such as this one would be perfect.
As a reminder, this imaginary assignment was to write an essay about pets, which may or may not include taking a controversial stance. However, if all three of my supporting points are clearly aligned with this main point, I could still move forward with a persuasive essay.
Unfortunately, my second supporting point (“Cat ownership can improve a person’s mental health”) doesn’t match this main point, because dog ownership can also improve a person’s mental health. So, if I tried to move forward with this essay, the second supporting point would likely feel out of place, as it doesn’t directly relate back to the main point (“Cats are better pets than dogs”).
I could try to find a new second supporting point, but in general it’s easier to just pick a different main point. Let’s try one that has a softer persuasive element, and doesn’t mention dogs.
More people should consider cat ownership.
This main point has an element of persuasion, without coming across too strongly. It matches all three supporting points, and is more interesting than simply saying that cats are great pets. Out of the three main points discussed, this is the one I would choose for my essay.
Part of the reason this main point works is because it toes the line between controversy and softness. Explaining why cats are great may be easy, but it’s also pretty bland. On the other hand, saying cats are better than dogs is likely to rile people up, but it’s such a strong stance that it would be hard to get enough evidence to actually support that statement.
Let’s break the sentence down to understand how it has both controversy and softness. The controversy comes mainly from the word “should,” which is essentially telling people what to do. And no one likes to be told what to do; they need to be convinced.
However, this “should” is softened by the words “more people” and “consider.” To understand how these words soften the statement, consider a more extreme variant: “Everyone should own a cat.” It’s very hard to prove that something is true for everyone, so changing it to “more people” keeps the scope realistic.
Furthermore, adding the word “consider” changes the requested action from “get a cat” to “think about getting a cat.” In general, asking someone to think about doing something is a gentler request than asking them to specifically do something.
You might think that softening your stance would make your argument weaker. In reality, it strengthens your argument by keeping it within the scope of what you can actually prove. So, although adding some controversy can make your essay more interesting, consider also using modulating words and phrases to soften your argument.
Now that we have our main point, let’s move on to the final step.
Step 4: Assemble Your Outline
The last step is also the easiest: putting it all together. As a reminder, here is the general format for an outline:
Main point
Supporting point 1
Quote or evidence 1 for supporting point 1
Quote or evidence 2 for supporting point 1
Supporting point 2
Quote or evidence 1 for supporting point 2
Quote or evidence 2 for supporting point 2
Supporting point 3
Quote or evidence 1 for supporting point 3
Quote or evidence 2 for supporting point 3
For the example in this post, the finished outline would look like this:
More people should consider cat ownership.
Cats are easy to care for.
“Cats make wonderful companions for people with busy lifestyles. They’re content to entertain themselves and don’t require daily walks.” (Sunny Paws Animal Shelter)
“Veterinarians say cats are increasingly popular with young professionals who want the companionship of a pet without the time demands of a dog.” (USA Today Pets)
Cat ownership can improve a person’s mental health.
“Studies indicate that cat ownership is associated with lower levels of perceived stress, particularly in individuals who identify as introverted or highly autonomous.” (Journal of Human-Animal Interaction Studies, 2021)
“Adopted a shelter cat last year and she’s basically my therapist now.” (Reddit user u/quietcoffeebean)
The human-cat bond may be even stronger than the human-dog bond.
“Adopting a cat means gaining a loyal friend who will fill your home with warmth, playfulness, and quiet affection.” (Bayview Humane Society)
“My cat doesn’t ‘need me,’ he chooses me. And that makes it better <3” (@indoorcatmom)
Conclusion
This post gave a step-by-step example of creating an essay outline. I hope you found it helpful, and that it clarified the process of outlining.
For a more general guide on outlining, see Essay Writing for Neurodivergent Students: Outlining. Once you’ve finished your outline, the next step is to create a thesis statement (coming soon!).
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