Essays: Outlining
We’re still in the prewriting stage of the essay process. In the previous module, we looked at Getting Started —that is,
- Figuring out what to write about, where you get familiar with the prompt and what form your essay is going to take;
- Gathering information, where you research and choose a topic; and
- Brainstorming, where you do some exploration, figure out what ideas are in your head, and start to organize them.
From here, the next step is to unite your essay under a central idea that you can communicate clearly to a reader.
While prewriting, I chose to write my rhetorical analysis on an image that seemed full of meaning:
Source: https://uwm.edu/welcome/event/illusionist-the-maze/
In my brainstorming, I decided that I’ll focus on the ethos and pathos of the image, which seem to have the most content to talk about.