As the term outline implies, one is supposed to outline the structure of their essay. The essay should revolve around a thesis or a central point. Based on the articles in question, a solid thesis could go something like this:

To combat poverty and unemployment, the United States needs a long-term program to help people who have trouble paying their rent.

With a thesis established, the outline should go on to note the various points that back the claim of the thesis. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Matthew Desmond each link lack of housing, lack of employment, and poverty. In “Cancel the Rent,” Taylor writes, “eviction is a plunge into American poverty.” In “The Moratorium Saved Us. It Really Did.,” Desmond writes that eviction “separates families from homes, children from parents, workers from jobs, students from schools, neighbors from communities.”

The outline could also include stats that support the claims. In their articles, Desmond and Taylor each supply plenty of data to demonstrate the tenuous position of American renters. According to Taylor, forty-seven percent of renters were “cost-burdened” before the COVID-19 outbreak, which means that prior to the pandemic, they were already spending more than thirty percent of their income on rent. Desmond’s article cites the Eviction Lab at Princeton, which concluded that the government’s temporary eviction moratorium stopped 1.55 million eviction filings.

To incorporate chapter 5 from They Say / I Say, pay close attention to who is speaking in the texts. Desmond starts his article with a woman, Lakia Higbee, who was struggling to pay her rent. However, Desmond only directly quotes Higbee once; most of the Higbee section remains in Desmond’s voice. As for Taylor’s article, a lot of it is in her voice, although she quotes politicians and activists from time to time. Like Desmond, Taylor uses the plural first-person pronoun we, which creates the impression that Desmond’s and Taylor’s voices are speaking for other people.