AOA Suicide and Depression Outline Paper

the topic is suicide, and you have liberty to go at what ever angle you wish. for example you can base it off the alarming rate suicide it’s happening in the usa

the prose outline will be a formal outline for your speech and presentation. It will present your thesis, the major points in support of that thesis, and the sub-points supporting each major point. Each main point must have at least one sub-point and it may have as many sub-points as you wish after that.

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An extremely basic template:

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Thesis…

1. This is the first main point.
   1. This is my first sub-point under 1 and here’s how it relates…
   2. This is my second sub-point under 1 and here’s how it relates…
      1. Sub-point B has its own sub-points.
2. This is the second main point.
   1. It has two sub-points, this one…
   2. And this one…

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Your sentence outline should, if done thoroughly and carefully, represent almost a first draft of your speech. Once you’ve written the outline, your speech will practically write itself. You’ll just be filling in the blanks, so to speak—providing specific examples/anecdotes and other support to flesh out and prove the ideas you’ve already sketched. The purpose of doing this work then is not to make more work for you, but to save you time in the long run by breaking the work of the speech into smaller, manageable tasks.

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Topic and Sentence Outlines

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There are two major types of outlines:

1. Topic Outlines
2. Prose (or Sentence) Outlines

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1. A topic outline lists only words or phrases, arranging your ideas hierarchically (showing which are main and which are sub-points) and in the sequence you want. As the name implies, it identifies all the mini-topics that your speech will cover but does not necessarily show how they relate.

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1. A prose outline does all of this but it shows exactly what you intend to say about each main and sub-topic. It also shows how each main/sub-topic are related. As you’re developing a prose outline, you can use natural transitions between topics. Each main topic, instead of simply identifying a topic or sub-topic, acts like a mini-thesis statement about that topic. It expresses the specific and complete idea that that section of the speech will cover.

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Writing the Sentence Outline

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1. Write out your thesis at the top of the page.
2. Make a list of points you must cover to “prove” your thesis. What would someone have to agree to in order to accept the thesis?

• These will be the main sections of your speech. Like any thesis, these should be complete, declarative sentences—something you can either prove or disprove.

1. Write your first main point. This is the thesis for that section of the paper.
2. Make a list of the points you have to prove to prove that point. Just as with the main points, these should be complete, declarative sentences—statements you can prove or disprove.
3. Begin filling in sub-points for each main point.
4. Repeat the process for each of your main points.

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Once you have the main points and supporting points written down, it’s time to start organizing. First make sure you understand which are main and which are supporting points. You may find that what you thought was a main point is really part of proving another main point. Or, what you first listed under a main point may need its own section. This may change as you continue to work on the outline and draft the presentation.

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Now you can decide the order in which you want to present your ideas. Label the order with letters or numbers to indicate the sequence.

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• Tip: Don’t just settle for one organization. Try out at least two different sequences. You’ll be surprised at the connections that emerge and the possibilities that open up when you rearrange your ideas differently. You may find that your thesis suddenly snaps into focus, or that points that seemed unrelated in fact belong together, or that what you thought was a main idea is actually a supporting idea for another point. Good writing is all about re-vision, which literally means “seeing again”—seeing your work from a fresh perspective. You can do this at every stage of the writing process, and especially at the organization stage.

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Finally, write up the outline in the order you’ve chosen. Remember to include a thesis statement at the start of the outline.