Learning Processes Entry #3

I spent a good part of the weekend working on a primary source paper on circuses and the changing role of gender during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for my History of Popular Culture class. While working on this paper, I realized that I tend to write history papers differently than papers for other classes. With other papers, I find that I do not have a need to make an outline, and that so long as I know where my paper is headed to, I am able to write a sufficient paper. However, due to the amount of material that has to be cited in history papers, I tend to find that making an outline for these papers allows me to write more fluent and flowing papers. I put all of my evidence into my outlines, including paraphrased and direct quotations. Then, I find that my outlines write the papers themselves. The funny thing is that I've tried to do this for papers for other subject area classes, and the writing of the outlines does not seem to help my writing process at all.