Writing Techniques

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Five Paragraph Essay Writing:

Organization:
Most English essays have three main sections:
  • Introduction(Intro)
  • Body
  • Conclusion

Introduction:
As the name implies, the introduction is the section of your essay which comes first.(this does not mean you have to write it first)Your introduction should:
  1. give readers some idea as to what your essay is about.(your topic)
  2. get your reader's attention...make them interested enough to want to read your essay.

Very often your intro will also have a Thesis Statement at its end. However, we'll talk more about this later.

Body:
The body is the main part of your essay and is also the longest section of your essay. Within the body is where you place the Supporting Details of your essay.

Conclusion:
Finally, the conclusion is the section of your essay which comes last. In your conclusion you can:
  1. sumarize the main points of your essay.
  2. or
  3. make comments about your topic.(for ex, suggest future research, possibilities, etc...
  4. or
  5. restate what you wrote in the introduction (using different words).

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Choosing and narrowing a topic:

When choosing a topic for your essay you should be sure to a subject about which you can write a lot.

for example:
you might choose Sports as your broad topic. Sports covers a wide area of information so you now will want to narrow this topic a little. Perhaps you could narrow the topic to a specific type of sport: Soccer. Soccer is still a broad topic and would require an essay many pages long to cover it completely. Therefore we need to narrow our topic still more. Maybe we can talk about: The last World Cup Soccer Championship. This is much narrower than 'Sports' but still would require a long essay to discuss every aspect of the last World Cup championship. So, let's narrow the topic further and write about: The most valuable player on the French Team during the last World Cup championship... Now we have a suitibly well narrowed topic about which we can probably write a five paragraph essay. In fact, we can even use this narrowed topic as our Topic Sentence.

The most valuable player on the French Team during the last World Cup championship was Mr. X.
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Creating supporting details:

Now that you have a good narrowed topic sentence it's time to think of some reasons/facts that support or explain your topic sentence.

for example:
In our narrowed topic sentence we said:
The most valuable player on the French Team during the last World Cup championship was Mr. X.
Q) What are some reasons why Mr. X was the most valuable player on the French team durring the last World Cup?
  1. He was a team leader.
  2. He demonstrated great athletic ability.
  3. He played even though he was injured.

Each of the three statements above support the opinion that Mr.X was the most valuable player. These are called supporting details. Furthermore, each of these statements can be used to make a thesis statement. They also can be expanded into 3 paragraphs that support your topic sentence. For a five paragraph essay you should have at least three supporting detail paragraphs.
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Writing a thesis statement:

The supporting details we wrote above can also be combined with the narrowed topic sentence to make a thesis statement A thesis statement is simply your narrowed topic sentence + your supporting details. It states your opinion and then gives some short reasons why your opinion is correct.

for example:

The most valuable player on the French Team during the last World Cup championship was Mr. X because he was a team leader, demonstrated great athletic ability, and played even though he was injured.
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Creating supporting detail paragraphs:

To make the body of our essay we need to expand the supporting details we wrote eariler into three separate paragraphs.
Q) How do we do this?
Take each of the supporting detail sentences and think of some information that explains them more completely.

for example:
  1. He was a team leader. (motivated his teammates, gave a lot of good advice, acted responsibly)
  2. He demonstrated great athletic ability. (scored 3 goals, practiced hard between games, when everyone else was tired and slowing down, he continued to give his best effort and work hard,)
  3. He played even though he was injured. (played with an injured knee, doctors told him it was risky, Mr. X stated that he played because his team needed him.)

We can now make three paragraphs out of the information above.

for example:

Mr.X was the most valuable player because he was a team leader. He motivated his teammates to play their best and not give up. Furthermore, he also gave them good advice to improve their performance. Finally, he also acted responsibly and advised the fans to act peacefully.

In addition to to being a team leader, Mr. X demonstrated great atheletic ability. He scored three goals in the last game and always practiced hard between games. Additionally, when everyone else was tired and slowing down, he continued to give his best effort and work hard. This resulted in his team's victory.

Not only did Mr. X demonstrate great atlethic ability; he also played even though he was injured. He played the last two games with an injured knee. The doctors told him it was risky to continue to play and that he could permanently damage his knee. However, Mr. X stated that he played because his team needed him.

*Notice that the first sentence in each supporting detail paragraph was a transition sentence. A transition sentence connects paragraphs together and makes your essay sound more smooth.




Writing a conclusion:

The most important thing to remember is that people should know that your essay is finished after they read the conclusion. There is no one best way to write a conclusion though. However, there are some forms that are commonly found in conclusions.

for example:

  • Restate your thesis and main supports in a brief way.
  • Add an additional support point to your argument that did not fit very well into the essay body.
  • If you are writing an opinion essay, you can briefly show the opposite point-of-view from the opinion you argued.
  • If you propose a problem in your essay, you could then propose a possible solution in the conclusion.

More to come...
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