“my fathers funeral in the philippines showed me it is ok to party the pain away ” narrative critique

The Purpose of an Outline

An outline provides a one-page snapshot view of the essay before you start writing. It helps to keep you on track.

Remember that you can depart from the outline as you draft and revise. The outline doesn’t lock your content down. It is more like a planned route to a destination: you know your goal and roughly how you will get there in schematic or pictorial overview, but you are open to detours and unplanned stops along the way.

How to Write the Outline

You already have most of the key ideas that will go into your outline:

• background to your main source,
• provisional thesis,
• basic content and pieces of textual evidence for your summary and response, and
• new questions to raise in your conclusion.

You may not yet have identified the claims (key points) you want to make when critiquing your main source. The outline will help you to start that important process.

There are many ways to outline, ranging from a rough-and-ready list to a detailed, formal, alpha-numerical outline.

An outline works well when it helps you see the structural purpose of each section in the essay.

Keep these purposes in mind:

Introduction:

• Provide background
• Introduce your main source
• State your thesis—your overall evaluation of the main source

Summary:

• Provide a neutral overview of your main source

Response:

• Critique the main source
• Support and develop the critique through reference to research sources

Conclusion:

• Summarize your evaluation in new words
• Indicate possible new questions beyond the scope of your essay
• Provide a sense of closure

Sample Outline – Critique of Colier’s “The Power of Off”

INTRODUCTION

• Hook or Inciting Idea: Digital/cyber world is a frontier
• Background Context: Tech is changing the human condition, for better or worse
• Main Source–author, title, one-sentence summary: Nancy Colier, “The Power of Off: Your Best Self in a Virtual World,” argues for counter-push against influence of tech in our lives
• Provisional Thesis: Colier’s piece identifies a real problem–overuse of technology–but her argument is not as rigorous as others’ in terms of the influence of technology on mental health and the need to mitigate its negative consequences.

SUMMARY

• Statement of issue/problem, thesis/message, reasons/narrative events: Issue: Whether we are overloading on technology or not, what effect it has on our lives; Thesis: Technology has taken over our lives and we must control it more; Reasons: Tech is addictive; changing our relationship to self-hood and reality.

RESPONSE

• 1–First claim critiquing the main source: Lack of definitions
  • Textual evidence from the main source: terms “addiction” and “technology”
  • Textual evidence from (one or more) research source(s): Twenge (2017, para 11) specifies social media; Bragazzi & Del Puente (2014, p. 156), distinction between normal and addictive uses of tech, missed by Colier.
• 2–Second claim critiquing the main source: Lack of evidence in Colier to substantiate claim that digital tech is changing our relationship to life.
  • Textual evidence from the main source: para. 6, how we relate to life
  • Textual evidence from research source(s): DiGiulio (2017, para. 11), mediation of screen; Twenge (para 4), correlation of increased phone to decreased healthy social behaviour
• 3–Third claim critiquing the main source: Colier overgeneralizes the negative feedback loop where more dissatisfaction from social media use leads to more engagement with the platforms.
  • Textual evidence from the main source: para 6, 11
  • Textual evidence from research source(s): Wincent (2016) confirms addictive, habitual behaviour. Bragazzi & Del Puente (p. 157) incidence of nomophobia; Twenge (para 36) on neg impacts: but these commentators limit focus to younger generation and provide data.

CONCLUSION

• Restatement of the thesis in new words: The core of Colier’s argument appears to be true, but her development of the argument is flawed and not as compelling as it could be.
• New question(s): What are the implications of arguing an important thesis in a flawed manner? How fair is it to hold Colier to a certain level of evidence in an opinion piece? If she had qualified her statements, would that be enough?
• Concluding statement: Without quantifying the magnitude of the problem, her assertion that a wholescale re-evaluation of our interaction with technology, or that we are all addicted to our mobile phones has the ring of the boy who cried wolf— sounding the alarm without a strong sense of the underlying threat. 

The outline you’re writing in this step helps you organize your ideas and plan your essay before drafting. The drafting itself will be much easier and more efficient as a result.