After viewing the content material for Unit 3, what aspects of the organization in writing do you find most challenging? Do you have any suggestions to share with the class to help organize your thoughts into an essay?
Putting Organization Into Practice
Now that we have tools for the two aspects of the organization, focus, and shape, we will see how this can work in practice to build an essay.
Here is an example of how a student could go from searching for an idea to building the idea for an essay.
In Unit 2, there was an example of responding to a magazine article about hurricanes and various ideas that came from that reaction. In Unit 3, we saw under Focus that we could use that reaction to come up with a Topic and Thesis of “Older dogs make better pets than puppies.”
Now we are ready to build an outline around this thesis. The first step is to do some freewriting, brainstorming, etc. to come up with some points to support this thesis. This step may take some time. You may come up with several points. You may not use all points, and you may combine some points under one large category.
With that in mind, here is an example of what a writer might come up with to support the claim that older dogs make better pets than puppies: They are more obedient. They are more loyal. They are less destructive.
How many points you have depends on the length and scope of the essay. For our purposes now, we will just use three points.
Using the Notes on Shape, my Outline might look like this:
I. Introduction
Topic: Older dogs
Thesis: Older dogs make better pets for families than puppies.
Attention Grabber: A story about older dogs not being adopted in shelters as frequently as younger dogs.
Signposting: They make better pets for families because they are more obedient, more loyal and less destructive
All put together, the introduction might read like this: “During my years volunteering at the local animal shelter, I’ve noticed a pattern. I can never get attached to the younger dogs because within a week, they find homes through adoptions. At the same time, I’ve formed many close relations with older dogs because it is rare for them to be adopted. I see those same old dogs for months or sometimes years, and I see the sad look as families pass them by for the younger dogs. I have to wonder the reason for their being left behind. While I’m sometimes glad to see the misbehaving puppies leave with their new families, I see the good characteristics of those older dogs. It is a shame that more families do not see this because older dogs do make better pets for families than puppies. They would make such good pets because they are more obedient, more loyal and less destructive.”
II.Body: This is where the writer gives evidence to support the thesis about older dogs. Most of the writing and length of the essay is in this section. Each section might be just one paragraph, or it might be multiple paragraphs. It just depends upon how much detail you are putting into each section. However, whenever you start a new point below, you will begin that new point by starting a new paragraph.
More obedient-Here the writer puts all the details, examples, data, etc. to show older dogs are more obedient
More loyal- This is where the writer gives all details to show loyalty
Less destructive-This is where all the details for less destructive goes.
III. Conclusion: In this last section, the writer will communicate closure for the essay.
One more important point is when you start a new paragraph for each of the points in the Body, you will want to have transitioned to move smoothly from one point to the next. The following page in our online text offers explanations and examples for achieving this transition in your essays:
https://owl.excelsior.edu/writing-process/paragraphing/paragraphing-and-transitioning/
(Links to an external site.)
To review, this is the process for organizing your thoughts into an essay:
Find your Topic and Thesis. Also, consider the Audience and Expectations
Spend some time brainstorming to come up with points or evidence to support the claim by made for your thesis.
Develop an Outline to help you see the order of these points. The outline does not have to be formal. It just-just a plan, as we see above, to show the arrangement and order of your idea.
You will then use that outline to write the essay. It is a matter of putting all the information and details into each point of the essay.
This is a very simple outline process, but the same process can be used for even much longer and more complicated essays. It just will most likely take longer to come up with more points and to decide how to arrange those points.
