The Essay Outline
Once you have taken your research notes, recorded bibliographic information, and composed your central idea, the next step is to create an outline of your essay. The outline is your essay's blueprint, in which you arrange the parts of your discussion into a logical order.
You should make a preliminary topic outline at an early stage of your research; the outline can serve as a guide for the research itself. As your work continues, you will likely have to revise your outline. In some cases, your course instructor may require you to submit your preliminary outline and bibliography, along with the central idea, before you begin writing the essay.
Take care that your outline covers the whole topic promised in your essay title -- but no more. A common student error is to consume space at the beginning of the essay with irrelevant biographical or anecdotal material.

Outline Format

Write your outline in point form, using numbering styles and levels of indentation to make clear the logical order and hierarchy of your ideas, as follows:
Title:

General Idea:

1. Used for major headings
2. . . .
   1. Used for "first level" subheadings
   2. . . .
      1. Used for "second level" sub-subheadings
      2. . . .
         1. Used, if necessary, for "third-level" headings. Use the multi-level paragraph numbering tool in your word processor, which will wrap text around with proper hanging indents.
         2. . . .

Headings and subheadings stand for logical divisions, and a division has at least two parts. Therefore, you should not have any single headings at a given level.

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Success is never achieved by the size of our brain but it is always achieved by the quality of our thoughts.