Students should inculcate the habit of writing a term paper outline because preplanning enhances the quality of an assignment. Preplanning means preparing a rough draft of the assignment before you write it finally. If you make this rough draft before the research then it will even guide you in the research process and make it more focussed.

In many institutions, students are asked to present their rough drafts either a few days ahead of the submission of the assignment or along with their final assignment. Therefore you should not write your rough draft in such a way that it is difficult for your tutor or even you to understand it later.

While writing it, first of all, write the title of the assignment in the beginning of the page. Then write all the ideas that come to your mind. There is no need to worry about the order of ideas because you may forget important ideas if you try to keep them in your mind and think about a more logical point that follows the point you have just written. You should either do the numbering or bulleting of these ideas. This would make your first draft more organized and neat.

The introduction of an essay should be very catchy. It should immediately hold the attention of the reader. Quotes or examples make the introduction more reader friendly. Write if any such thing comes to your mind while preparing the rough draft. You can elaborate that point later when you are preparing the final version.

Don't underestimate the importance of the rough draft. Though it is secondary to the main essay, the main essay is entirely based on it. The more effort you will make in preparing the first version the better would be the final version of your essay. Since the final essay would have three distinct parts - introduction, body and conclusion, if you wish you can write your rough draft in this version too. But it will take a little more time than just haphazard noting down of ideas.

If you write down the page numbers and the name of the texts from where you would make your citations besides each point then your work while preparing the final draft would become much easier. The flow of ideas gets hampered if you look for quotations from time to time while writing the final version of your essay. This strategy would also cut down the time you will take in preparing the final draft.

If you have certain suggestions or if you can predict certain implications of a particular action or situation related to your topic then note it down in your rough draft so that you don't forget to use it in the conclusion of your essay.

Writing a term paper outline is more difficult than producing the actual essay because this is where you are developing your ideas. While preparing the actual assignment you have to just pick up these ideas and elaborate them. So be very attentive while preparing the rough draft of your assignment.