How to Do Research for Middle and High School Students

An outline is an overview of your project and shows the order in which information will be placed within the written portion(s) of your project.  Using an outline will help you to stay on track during the writing process and to determine if you have an adequate amount of information or perhaps too much.

Here are some tips to remember when creating any outline:

• Headings and subheadings should maintain a similar structure.  For example, they could all begin with a verb or maybe all begin with a noun.
• The information found in headings should be more general than the information in the subheadings.
• Less important information should be indented.
• The headings should be able to be divided into at least two subheading.

So let’s start with organizing the notes you have gathered from your sources.

How do I take the information gathered from my sources and prepare to write my paper?

Moving from Notes to an Outline - how to handout from the Writing Center at Washington College

What type of outline format should I use for my research project?

Outlining example - brief video from Walden University

Brief handout - from the University College at Oklahom State University

Types of outlines and samples - overview from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab