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Write one sentence for each paragraph.
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The sentence should express the main idea of the paragraph as completely as possible.
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Write complete sentences.
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Write them from the writer’s point of view. (Not “She thinks” or “The paragraph says”—just write it as he would.)
In the book “Ghostbread” written by Sonja Livingston, Sonja explains why children who grow up in poverty tend to be poor themselves. Poverty occurs because there is a cycle of teenage pregnancy, lack of higher education, and the issue of falling for the idea of love. Livingston herself grew up in poverty and we see her view of the world and her view of her family shift as she gets older. We also see how she experiences these cycles, but escaped them out of chance.
People get stuck in poverty because of patterns of teen pregnancy, limited education, and falling for the idea of love, but Sonja escaped by chance.
With the rest of the essay:
- Write one sentence for each paragraph.
- The sentence should express the main idea of the paragraph as completely as possible.
- Write complete sentences.
- Write them from the writer’s point of view. (Not “She thinks” or “The paragraph says”—just write it as he would.)
The big idea of the Reverse Outline is that it allows you to make a smaller, more manageable version of your paper--kind of like a scale model. That means two things:
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It shouldn't be hard to write your one-sentence summaries. If you have difficulty writing one sentence to explain the paragraph, there are probably too many ideas at work in that paragraph. Consider dividing the paragraph up.
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Your one-sentence summaries should read like a paragraph. When you read your summaries from top to bottom, they should make sense, and they should still make your point clearly--even if they don't have much detail.
Things to Do With The Reverse Outline
- Each of your paragraph summaries should fit with your whole-essay summary. Unity means that each piece of the essay is working toward the same goal; your whole-essay summary should express that goal. Anything that doesn't fit with that probably doesn't belong in the paper.
- Look for long, awkward, or run-on sentences. I don't mean in your paper, here; I mean in your Reverse Outline itself. If your Reverse Outline has any long, awkward, or run-on sentences, that probably means that the paragraph you're describing has too much going on. Those are good paragraphs to think about breaking into smaller pieces.
- Look for things that don't belong. If a summary sentence doesn't seem to fit in the Reverse Outline, it's a good idea to think about removing that paragraph from your essay.
- Look for things that are out of place. If your Reverse Outline feels like it's out of order, or like you're jumping back and forth, your paper probably does, too. If moving a sentence within the Outline makes sense, you can probably move the paragraph within the paper in a similar way.
- Look for things that are missing. The nature of summary--and therefore the Reverse Outline--is that there's not a whole lot of detail there. But keep an eye out for ideas that are missing, not just lacking detail. If there's something that's important to your argument that isn't on your Outline, it's probably missing from your paper, too.
- Move things around. Play with your Reverse Outline. That's what it's for. Try new things by moving pieces of your outline around, changing the order, adding things in, and taking things away. Each change you make to your Reverse Outline is one that you could make to your paper. If it helps the Reverse Outline make more sense, it's probably also going to help your paper work better.