The phrase "in the outlines" is a valid and usable phrase in written English.
It can be used to refer to the general structure of an idea or plan. For example, "We made some changes to the project, but kept in the outlines the same."
Through illuminating interviews with Mr. Obama's former high school and college classmates, two girlfriends from his time in New York City in the early 1980s, and colleagues from his days as a community organizer in Chicago, Mr. Maraniss — an associate editor at The Washington Post — does an energetic job of filling in the outlines of the president's formative years.
These studies are filling in the outlines of a robust homeostatic self-renewal process that defies some of the classical definitions of stem cell behavior, such as asymmetric division, quiescence, and exhaustion.
In the outlines of this plan I am not alone.
We all see faces in the clouds, and cartographers find familiar shapes in the outlines of continents.
Although the President Bush described in this volume will be familiar to most readers, Mr. Draper colors in the outlines with lots of tiny details.
"He walked on, around the edge of the lake, taking in the outlines of the beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright..."...
"Sometimes he'll have that line in the outline, sometimes he won't," Charles continued.
Like Mr. Bleckner, Gary Simmons, another juror, employs smearing effects in the outlined objects in his elegantly minimal paintings.
It's all in the outline, her unerring contours and profiles, hand gestures, the ways a body leans or recoils.
The other was only included in the outline of the provincial government plan.
