Steven pinker ted talk 2007

Formal Outline

What’s an outline, why do I need one, and what does it look like?

At its simplest, an outline is just a shorthand list of what you plan to say in a paper, in the order you plan to say it. Because essays are written in paragraphs, you should think of each unit in an outline as a plan for a paragraph. An informal outline is great for collecting your first thoughts about how to organize. Once you are further along, you can use a detailed formal outline to map out exactly what to say and where to say it. Whatever kind of outline you use, any outline should

· start with a statement of the paper’s thesis.

· organize information in a logical way

· use declarative statements (e.g. “Obesity causes health problems”), not just topics (e.g. “Health Problems”)

Don’t think of your outline as a blueprint you must adhere to. But remember: writing an outline is a waste of your time if you don’t actually USE it as a guide to writing.

Short, Informal Outlines

An informal outline can be as simple as a statement of the thesis and a list of arguments, examples or reasons you will use to support it. Once you start writing, you can re-organize by crossing out some ideas, adding others, and putting them in a logical order. Here’s an example:

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Detailed, Formal Outlines

Once you have a complete draft, a formal outline can help you sort supporting details into larger categories that correspond to the topic sentences of paragraphs, as in the following example:

THESIS: Although companies often have legitimate concerns that lead them to monitor employees’ internet usage, the benefits of electronic surveillance are outweighed by its costs to employees’ privacy and autonomy.

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Two Outline examples for a report/summary essay – one informal, one formal

Thesis: Contrary to popular belief, the world is less violent than it has ever been, according to Steven Pinker.

I. Violence has been declining

· compared to the prehistoric hunter-gatherers

· compared to the ancient historical past

· compared to the middle ages

· compared to the last century

II. Why this fact has been overlooked

· Reporting

· Guilt about treatment of native peoples

· Higher standards today

III. Possible reasons why violence has declined

· Hobbes’s explanation

· Payne’s explanation

· Wright’s explanation

· Singer’s explanation

Thesis: According to Steven Pinker’s “The Surprising Decline of Violence,” evidence shows the world is less violent than it has ever been, despite the common belief that we are more violent today. There are a several plausible explanations.

I. Violence has been declining for a long time

· Evidence from anthropology shows that hunter-gatherers are more violent than modern societies.

· Passages from the Hebrew Bible show that ancient civilizations accepted extreme violence as normal.

· The history of the middle ages shows that torture and brutality were widely accepted

· Statistics since the early 20th century show that war and genocide have fallen since that time.

· Statistics from the FBI show violent crime has fallen a lot over the last 50 years.

II. Despite the decline in violence, we have been reluctant to notice the decline, for several reasons.

· Bad news sells, so the media doesn’t focus on how the world has improved.

· People in developed societies feel guilty about destroying traditional cultures, so we romanticize the, imagining they were more peaceful that they actually were.

· We have higher standards for behavior than ever, so we tend to focus attention on violence in our own moment, not on how much less there is now.

III. We aren’t sure why violence has declined, but Pinker sees four likely explanations.

· Thomas Hobbes thought the rise of central government controls people’s violent urges by punishing them.

· James Payne argues that when life was short due to disease, life was cheap – so we didn’t think violence was a big deal the way we do now that many people live longer, better lives.

· Robert Wright thinks societies have learned it’s more profitable to cooperate with our neighbors than fight them.

· Peter Singer suggests evolution leads us to empathize with other humans, which has increased over time.

(These are outlines for a summary of Steven Pinker’s March 2007 TED talk “The Surprising Decline of Violence,” https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence?language=en

something to notice:

neither of these samples offers a plan for the essay’s introductory paragraph. You can certainly use your outline to do that, but make sure that the main point in your introduction is the thesis statement itself.

start with a thesis that makes a claim

each heading represents a paragraph

a declarative statement here becomes the topic sentence of the paragraph

sub-points explain & support topic sentences – these become sentences in the paper. As this outline develops, the writer should replace these topics with statements (in this case, what “Wright’s explanation” actually is.).