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STEPS TO BETTER WRITING 39: WRITING THE ESSAY
Turn your outline from the previous step into a complete essay as follows, checking off each step as you go:
| 1 | Write an introductory paragraph containing the thesis sentence. Your first paragraph should provide an introduction to the central idea of your paper. Do not just plunge into your first main point. Instead: |
| | > Give the reader any background information that he might need. |
| | > Explain why your topic is important to him. |
| | > Tell him what point you are setting out to prove (your thesis) |
| | > Give him a clue to how you plan to prove it. |
| | Not every introduction will include all of these things, but each must contain at least the thesis sentence. |
| 2 | Write a paragraph for each of the main supporting points, following the paragraph outlines you prepared as part of the essay outline for Step 38 . Each of these supporting paragraphs should be organized in the same manner as the paragraphs you wrote earlier. (The introductory paragraph generally does not follow the standard pattern. It is a special-purpose paragraph and has a pattern of its own which we will discuss later.) |
| 3 | Write a concluding paragraph to summarize your supporting ideas and restate your thesis. |
| 4 | After you have completed your essay, mark it as follows in order to help you to visualize the structure of your essay. |
| | A. Put a wavy line under the thesis sentence. |
| | B. Underline topic sentences of supporting paragraphs. |
| | C. Number the specifics in each supporting paragraph. |
| | D. Circle signal words in the paragraphs. |
We will be coming back to this essay in several of the next steps in order to apply new lessons to it directly.
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