Essay Structure, or How to Write an Organized Essay Without Falling Victim to the Five Paragraph Monster

• The introduction should be begin by discussing your main topic in a more general manner than your thesis (something that reader can relate to) and then moving toward your specific argument about the topic in the thesis. This paragraph should be significantly shorter than your body paragraphs.

• The thesis should include your topic, argument, and subtopics (which do NOT have to be three in number or correspond to only one paragraph). The thesis sets up the overall structure of the essay and, as such, is extremely important. When you begin writing, don't worry about getting the thesis precisely right. Instead, think about your first thesis as a working thesis that will change as you write the essay and develop your ideas.

• The body paragraphs should develop a subtopic or part of a subtopic and can be any number. However, you must consider the length of your essay when deciding how to organize your subtopics into paragraphs. For example, having nine paragraphs in two pages is NOT a good idea because each paragraph will be too small to explore any idea in depth. Since your thesis is always some sort of an argument, each body paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that makes an argument about the subtopic or part of a subtopic that it is dealing with. This topic sentence works the same way for the paragraph that the thesis works for the overall essay -- it provides structure. The paragraph should end with a concluding sentence that both draws to a close its paragraph and transitions to the next.

•  The conclusion should begin by stating the thesis with a difference. This difference comes from the argument that you have developed in your body paragraphs. Then the conclusion applies the specific argument of the thesis to a larger context. However, be careful not the end with a "save the world" sentence. The conclusion should be short and sweet and only about three sentences in the case of two to three page papers.

For specific editorial pointers please see the Essay Advice Page.

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