Lecture 10 | How to prepare an outline-03

5. Highlight Your Main Points. Now that you have determined main points of your essay and put them in order, this is time to add some relevant content to support each of your idea. The objective of this step is to extend your original idea (Your Thesis Statement). This will be greatly helpful for your readers in better understanding of your argument. Here you have got a better chance to add some more details such as examples, quotes, facts, theories and personal anecdotes etc. Theses all things will support the main idea. This step may seem boring and tiring but, bear in mind, your drafting depends on it. Therefore, it is essential to do. 

Your goal in this step is to expand upon your original ideas so that your reader has a better understanding of each point. You can add more detail to each concept by including examples, quotes, facts, theories or personal anecdotes. While this step may seem tedious, it will make your drafting process much easier. You’ll save time in the long run because your paper will be more logical and focused and your ideas will be fully developed.

In the previously done exercise, we put our ideas into order, add some more information after doing some brain storming and finally my outline looked like as follows:  

Outline: Fall of Pakistani TV Serials

I.   Intro

A.      Common Trends in Pakistani Serials

a.      Far from Reality

b.      Repetitive Themes

c.       Unnecessarily Lengthy

d.      Focus on Glamourisation instead of Art

e.      Adopting Indian trends

f.        Director should focus on presentation of reality in an artistic way.

II.    Body

A.      Themes

a.      Common themes

                                                 i. Romance, Divorce, Halala, Betrayal, domestic conspiracies etc.

                                             ii. Sister-in-law likes her brother-in-law, Rich boy and poor girl or vice verca

                                                 iii. Lack of portrayal of social issues

                                                 iv. Frustrating titles of TV serials

B.      Story/Script

a.      Script does not seem to be pre-determined

b.      Unnecessary length

c.      Watage of time in Title song (OST), Music, facial expressions etc.

d.      Give an example of drama ‘Khaani’

e.      Urdu saying “Kawwa chala Hans ki chaal”

C.      Glamourisation

a.      Make up, unbraided hair, wig, expensive clothes, jewelry

b.      Drama looks like a drama instead of representation of reality

c.      Impact of such things on poor people

                                                 i. Frustration, hopelessness etc.

d.      They are far from reality

D.     Indian impact on Pakistani Dramas

a.      Trends are taken from Indian media.

b.      Consequently, we have lost our individuality.

E.      Personal Nostalgia/Why do I feel those issues?

a.      Author still remembers of TV serials aired in 90s.

b.      PTV dramas were reality-based

c.       Presented an issue and finally ended it with proper conclusion.

F.       Today dramas have become market-driven.

G.     Comments of an expert

                                    a. Comments of Mr. Agha Rafique (A renowned playwright of Pakistan)

III.                Conclusion

H.     Importance of marketing-advertising for TV channels

a.      It’s true that it is utmost important

b.      Reality-based can get equal advertising

c.     Advertising can be got through presenting a reality-based drama as well.

                                               i. Examples Cheekh, Kaneez, Udaari etc. 

6. Review and Adjust. 

Still, it may not be the final outline. Many budding writers think at step five their outline is done. But this is not always so. Writing is not an act but a process instead. All writers continue reviewing their work even their outlines in order to find the best way to express themselves. There is always room for improvement. You can still make some shuffling in the above outline, make some amendments as well. An outline is just like a roadmap which guides and directs you throughout writing process. Once you revise and review your outline, the prewriting stage of your writing is over and now it's time to start second stage: drafting or writing. 

You just have to make sure that you have included all the points in your outline and you are in better position to make a connection of all selected points with main point (Thesis Statement). Outline may seem, and indeed it is, a lengthy and tiring process but it makes your writing easier and wonderful enough to accomplish in a day. With completion of outline, all the hard work is done and you are ready to put your words into sentences and develop a well-developed, well-thought and informed essay.

All the best