Students Struggle with Outlining. Here’s How You Can Help Them.

Most public speaking teachers agree: outlining is a critical skill for students. And yet, so many report that outlining is one of the skills students struggle with most in their classes. When we were developing our own public speaking webtext, we wondered, how can we help students overcome the challenges of outlining?

Why Outlining is Difficult for Students

Outlines provide a critical foundation for speeches. They help students organize their ideas, work out their language and style choices, and stay focused. So why do so many students struggle with and even avoid outlining altogether? We asked public speaking instructors about outlining in an online poll. Here’s what they had to say.

Our respondents gave a variety of reasons why outlining is challenging for students. These reasons include technical difficulties with formatting, lack of experience, problems in understanding how to scaffold ideas, and just not seeing the purpose or value of outlining.

Here’s what some instructors had to say, in their own words:

• “Many of them say they’ve never used an outline or been taught to create an outline.”
• “Even with lots of instruction, few understand the purpose or why it is helpful to organize in this way.”
• “They are more comfortable writing paragraphs” and they “over-rely on too many words rather than just including key points.”
• “[One issue is] turning an outline into a manuscript they just want to read.”
• “They don’t understand the formatting… or even the general point/purpose of an outline.”
• “The word processing programs don’t do formal outlining correctly.”
• “[They don’t] see the value goes beyond the semester.”

Techniques for Helping Students Learn How to Outline

So how can we better help students overcome these hurdles? Clearly, there’s no magic bullet when instructors have to take into consideration everything from technical proficiency to organizational skills to basic motivation. But we did ask instructors: what’s most helpful for students when it comes to learning how to outline?

Overall, the responses fell into several categories or teaching techniques. Instructors say that they rely on

• examples (48%),
• physical resources like videos and textbooks (14%),
• opportunities for practice (13%),
• templates (13%),
• and demonstrations (8%).

Even with this variety of methods, instructors still report that it’s difficult to get students to use outlines consistently. That’s why many instructors have strong opinions on outlining styles. These, in their view, have the potential to either make outlining easier or harder to learn.

Selecting the Best Outline Style

But which style is the best style for students? We asked instructors—and our followers on social media—to choose between two popular styles, illustrated in the graphic below.

The main difference between the two styles is in the labeling of the major sections of the outline, which ends up determining how extensively students will use Roman numerals.

Style A is based on a conventional outline format found in a large number of public speaking textbooks. The main sections of the speech are formatted without any symbolization attached (i.e., a letter or number). Main ideas—including all the elements of the introduction—are labeled with Roman numerals. Subpoints are labeled with capital letters, and support with Arabic numerals.

Style B labels the main sections with Roman numerals. Main ideas are labeled alphabetically with capital letters; subpoints are labeled with Arabic numerals and support with lower-case letters.

We were interested in finding out how instructors feel about these two styles and whether either could make outlining more approachable for students.

Survey Results: Instructor Preference

In our new webtext, Public Speaking for Everyone, we use Style B. Our results show that most respondents preferred this style as well.

Fifty-six percent of respondents chose Outline B, while about one third preferred Outline A. Around 10 percent voted for neither option, commenting that they teach using some alternative version of the two or a different style completely.

When we broke down the data, we discovered a few interesting things. First, we looked at what kind of institutions our respondents taught at. Around 60 percent said they teach at 4-year institutions, while 30 percent said they teach at 2-year colleges. The rest indicated that they teach in high schools or at a mixture of institution types. Instructors at 4-year institutions preferred Outline B by a wider margin (60 to 29 percent), while the vote was a little closer among teachers at 2-year colleges (55 to 44 percent).

Survey Results: Reason for Preference

During the development of Public Speaking for Everyone, we ultimately decided to go with Style B to avoid any potential confusion caused by Roman numerals; many students don’t feel comfortable using them extensively.

Our reason for choosing this style—the concern about confusion—overlapped with what many instructors said when asked why they preferred the outline style they chose. Whether respondents preferred Outline A or B, the top two reasons for their preference were the same in both groups. They believed their preferred style was easier to understand and that it was standard (or at least taught in their textbook). A third, slightly less popular reason was that the formatting was better in the chosen outline.

This seems to demonstrate that perceptions of whether an outline is easy to understand and the importance of a standard version are somewhat subjective. They vary among different users. There’s no clear agreement on a standard or “correct” outline format nor is there a strong consensus on what kinds of structure and format are most effective or easiest for students.

If instructors don’t even agree on which format is more user-friendly, it’s easy to imagine a case where an instructor, in good faith, teaches the style they feel is more understandable, only to have some students find the opposite is true for them.

Survey Results: Strength of Preference

We feel strongly about the outline style we chose, and we’re not alone in that.

Regardless of which style instructors selected, they seemed to have a strong but not overwhelming preference for that outline. In both cases, around 60 percent indicated that they preferred or strongly preferred the style they selected, while the other 40 percent were neutral or expressed slight or no preference. This seems to indicate some level of flexibility when it comes to outline styles.

So, where does that leave us? Our survey results suggest that students have difficulty outlining for a number of different reasons. The style instructors use is just one factor that can potentially make outlines easier (or harder) for students to grasp.

What We Learned: Three Big Takeaways

What can instructors do right now to encourage students to outline correctly? Here are the three big takeaways that we learned:

• Make it relevant.
• Make it simple.
• Build it into the process.

First, instructors absolutely should discuss outlining as a skill that can be used in many circumstances beyond the classroom. Students are interested in transferable skills, so making it relevant to them can help motivate them to learn. But outlining also needs to be relevant to the course in the moment. Assigning outlines for credit can really make a difference—so can using outlines as an opportunity to provide constructive feedback. This ensures students receive an immediate benefit from completing an outline.

Next, simplifying style is a good idea. Despite instructors’ preferences for one style or another, or convictions about a ‘standard’ outline format, there’s no overwhelming agreement. Using a style that is understandable (and breaking it down clearly) is key.

Also, as many instructors pointed out in our survey, templates are a valuable tool. They can help clarify the often frustrating formatting process. Allowing students to use emerging tools like AI to format their outlines might alleviate some of the frustrations.

Finally, build outlining into the process. Nothing says “priority” like devoting class time to active work. In addition to assigned reading and lectures about outlining (some of which can be shifted to outside of class time), teachers can build time into class sessions for students to actually write, workshop, and practice their outlines.

In-class time for freewriting outlines, peer reviewing them, and group practice sessions all create an active learning environment which encourages students to attempt the task and gives them immediate guidance if they need it.

Our Solution: A New Tool to Make Outlining Easier

In our new webtext, Public Speaking for Everyone, we tackled the challenges of outlining by thinking about the methods that instructors use most to incentivize and guide students through the process. We solved many technical issues that instructors noted by developing an outline tool that would not only help students select and organize their ideas but also format the entire outline for them, freeing them up to think more carefully about the contents.

These templates are embedded directly in the webtext, right alongside the readings. This allows students to complete everything in one place and receive feedback quickly and easily.

In the development process, we wanted to ensure that these templates would be easy to use and feel like an organic part of the learning experience. Assigning them for credit incentivizes completion and creates an opportunity for formative assessment along the way.

We’ve made outlining a process rather than a single attempt. Using templates like the one above, students first complete a short working outline as a first draft. Then they develop a more detailed outline, which encourages them to build on their initial draft to craft their ideas more fully, think about word choices, and add more detailed elements like the attention-getter and transitions. Lastly, students streamline their detailed outline to create a shortened speaking outline with delivery prompts, suitable for use while they deliver their speeches. The webtext guides them through a natural revision process to create an outline they will actually use.  

Outlining is Worth the Effort

Outlining is hard. But it’s important to help students see the value of this skill. Motivation, processing, and technological instruction all need to be part of the solution. We encourage instructors to continue to simplify style, review outlining during class time, and incentivize completion in order to guide students toward greater competence.

You can learn more about our new public speaking webtext by visiting our Public Speaking for Everyone catalog page. And if you’d like a hands-on preview of our new outlining tool, just get in touch!