Final Project Outline

Overview

An outline can be a very useful organizational tool when writing a longer document.  By Week 5 you should have a pretty good grasp on the basic content of your paper.  You’ve gathered background information, have identified a problem and should have a few ideas about how you might solve it.  Use this material to organize an outline before you attempt a first draft.  That way you can focus on structure, logic and organization, before you worry a lot about the prose of your paper.  Use the precise headings from the final paper format, and go at least two hierarchical levels deeper than those headings (a. and i. shown in the example).  This will ensure that you are thinking about details.  Use the format shown below.  Each section of the outline does not require the same number of subsections, but I do want subsections under each main heading.  In other words, just because I have points i. and ii. under the a. subsection below for Situation Analysis, doesn’t mean you will.  I expect you to have whatever you feel provides sufficient detail for your paper.

1. Executive Summary (you don’t need anything here for now)
2. Situation Analysis
   1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
      1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
      1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
   1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
3. Problem Analysis & Description
   1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
   1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
      1. This is a placeholder for a subsection
4. Solutions, Evaluation, & Recommendation
5. Implementation & Success Metrics (I don’t expect any content here at this point!)

Focus on short, descriptive lines for each entry, not paragraphs.  I want to see your ideas, not a lot of writing.  An outline helps me (and you) to see and think about flow.

If you don’t submit an outline you will lose 4 points from your final grade for the course. This will really help me to see your progress on the paper.  If you write a good outline, you are well on your way to a good paper.

See the grading rubric on the next page for more information.

Rubric

Credit Type	Description
Full credit (4 points)	Draft submitted with sufficient detail
Partial Credit (1 to 3 points)	Draft Submitted with minimal detail
No Credit (0 points)	No Draft Submitted