How to Structure Your Essay
To make a clear overall point, any story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. In short, an author must provide his or her readers with a sense that every event starts and then, subsequently, finishes. However, no story can relate every detail of what happened in a given situation. Therefore, each individual writer must choose details carefully and use them to build a scene that reflects the chosen point or mood. To review how to plan and organize your ideas, return to Section 2.1, Generating Ideas and Planning.
The Introduction
There are many appropriate and interesting ways to begin an essay. Whatever method you use, you must catch the readers’ attention and give your audience an idea of what will follow. The first sentence (or even the first paragraph) should be like a store window; it should make people (who might otherwise pass by) stop and enter the store. You can choose to appeal to your readers’ curiosity or feelings to engage them. Your primary objective is to hook the audience and get them interested in reading more.
Let’s take a look at what should happen in the introductory paragraph.
Define the Topic
You’ve been given an assignment to write an essay about one of your hobbies. How can you get your reader interested in what you have to say? The simplest way is normally to plunge right into your subject.
Let’s consider an example.
For hundreds of years, hunting was necessary in order to avoid starvation. Even though it’s no longer a required activity to keep our families fed, some of us still find the thrill of the hunt and the connection to nature intoxicating. Hunting is absolutely my favorite hobby and one that I’m able to enjoy with my friends and family.
This is an example of a good, direct beginning. The paragraph has
Defined the subject
Stated that there’s a difference of opinion about it
Invited the reader to go on and read more
Start with an Incident or Anecdote
Plunging directly into the subject is certainly not the only way to catch the readers’ attention. You may also start with an incident, an anecdote, or some personal experience—something that will appeal to the readers’ personal curiosity.
Let’s consider another example.
My grandfather took me into the Smoky Mountains for my very first hunting trip. After years of listening to his stories, I looked forward to finally seeing him in action. However, what I remember most about that weekend is the time we spent together. He taught me lessons that I will never forget.
While this paragraph will require more information to be complete, the personal anecdote provides an effective beginning.
Start with a Bang
You can interest your reader in your subject with a startling, striking, or unexpected beginning. To do so, you’ll need to make a special effort to find something surprising to relate to your topic. If you can do it, it’s an excellent way to start.
Let’s consider a third example, one that incorporates a sense of mystery.
My grandfather took me into the Smoky Mountains for my very first hunting trip. After years of listening to his stories, I looked forward to finally seeing him in action. However, what I remember most about that weekend is the time we spent together. He taught me lessons that I will never forget.
You can also surprise the reader with the following:
Are you someone who would like to save money? An avid hunter living in an area that allows year-round opportunities for game can provide food for his family and avoid paying thousands of dollars in grocery bills.
Goals of an Introductory Paragraph
Following the opening sentence, the introductory paragraph should solidify your topic and your approach, setting the mood and tone for the remainder of the essay. Save the actual story for the body paragraphs. Use your introduction to build suspense, interest your reader, and establish an overview or preview of your writing.
Your introduction doesn’t need to be written first. Some writers find it helpful to write the body of the essay first and then go back to write the introduction later.
Your Thesis Statement
Finally, aside from an interesting beginning, keep in mind that your essay needs to have a strong thesis statement, one which will be supported by the essay as a whole. Your thesis statement declares the main idea of the entire paper and should be contained in your introductory paragraph.
It is concise, summarizing your point in one clear sentence
It should state the reason you’re telling this particular story.
It must be present not only to help grab the readers’ attention, but also to inform the readers of the approach you’re taking on a particular topic in your essay.
Your thesis statement is simply your main idea for the essay. It functions the same way a topic sentence does in a paragraph.
The Body
The body of your essay should consist of several fully developed paragraphs expand on the main points of your essay (mentioned in your introduction) according to the approach defined in your thesis statement.
The number of body paragraphs will vary depending on the assignment. Often, short papers make use of the “five paragraph essay,” which refers to having one introductory paragraph, one summary paragraph, and three body paragraphs, for a total of five. This is not always an appropriate length, and for longer assignments (such as some assignments in this course) you will want five to seven body paragraphs.
Be sure that you include appropriate and logical transitions between ideas within paragraphs, as well as between the paragraphs themselves. One idea must logically follow another as you lead your readers through your story.
Since the introduction sets up the content of the body paragraphs, there should be nothing covered in the body of the essay that’s different from what’s promised in the introductory paragraph. The Conclusion
The conclusion paragraph should restate the content of the introduction, summarize the main points covered in the body paragraphs, tie up any loose ends, and bring closure to the essay.
Be sure that your conclusion restates the overall message of your narrative, so that your readers are left with your main point fresh in their minds. The best conclusions are directly tied to the introduction and give closure to the work as a whole. This isn’t the place to write the actual ending to your story or to introduce new information.
CONCLUSION VERSUS ENDING
A conclusion and an ending aren’t the same. The ending of your story should be contained in the body; the conclusion paragraph has its own job to do.
Voice
Personal narratives should be casual and are often emotional. If you’re writing about something you feel very strongly about, your story should evoke emotions in your readers as well, whether happiness, sadness, excitement, joy, anger, or something else. When you show your audience how you feel about something and why, your readers can recognize your sincerity. Your sincerity will, in turn, allow your readers to relate to you and/or your situation.
Be firm about your opinions, your feelings, and your views so that the reader may get a clear picture of who you are and what you stand for.
Use the voice and tone that come most naturally to you, but keep in mind that this is an academic assignment. You’ll need to use appropriate language and proper grammar.
It’s very important to use your own vocabulary; an essay in which the author has made use of a thesaurus stands out, but not in a good way. When you honor your own voice and use the words you know, your writing is easily viewed as authentic, and an audience will recognize and appreciate this.
Begin by writing the way that you speak. After you have your story down, you can go back and correct grammar, word choice, and sentence structure.
Earlier in this course, you learned about the writing process and its effectiveness. Now is your chance to use that process to your advantage, as it will allow you to efficiently and effectively draft your essay. This assignment covers the stages of the writing process.
Prewriting
The first thing to do during the prewriting stage is to determine your purpose, medium, and audience. For this essay, your medium is the personal narrative and your audience consists of a general and diverse population of people who aren’t familiar with you, your life, or your work. What you need to establish, for the purpose of beginning your essay, is your purpose.
Your goal is to use one or more of the five types of prewriting (brainstorming, freewriting, webbing, researching, and journal keeping) to find the specific idea you want to choose as your focus.
Try any of these to help you get started:
If you can’t think of anything to write down, just write something, anything. Eventually thoughts that are relevant and related will begin to come to you.
Don’t think too much about it or apply too much pressure to yourself. Just jot down anything and everything you can think of.
Unless you’re relatively focused on a particular topic, do your prewriting exercises on all different topics. If you’ve chosen a topic or a specific area of focus, try to confine your prewriting exercises to that one topic or area.
You can use full sentences and paragraphs, or you may simply use words and phrases. You may even use a combination of both. You should use whatever makes you most comfortable and allows you to express your ideas.
If you get stuck, try taking a different approach to some of the words, phrases, or sentences you’ve already written down. Soon, new ideas will begin to surface.
If it doesn’t contribute to nervousness about the assignment try to set a time limit and write continuously during that time.
During this stage, don’t be concerned about how your writing sounds. The idea in this stage of the writing process is to try to discover ideas that might not otherwise occur to you.
When you finish your prewriting activities, don’t discard them. If you decide to change the direction of your essay during the revision process, referring back to prewriting exercises may help to make organizational decisions easier.
Planning
Once you’ve established an acceptable topic, you must decide which thoughts you wish to include, organizing them in a logical order. Outlining and/or mapping may help you make some difficult decisions. Keep in mind, however, that effective planning requires you to already have a firm grasp on your purpose, medium, and audience.
During the planning stage, you’ll be writing out your main ideas and organizing them in an order that your audience will be able to understand. This will set up a framework for paragraph development in the next stage. Remember the order can always be changed; getting your ideas down is the primary goal.
First Draft
Once you’ve established your purpose and decided on the points you would like to include, you’re ready to begin writing your first draft. For your own well-being, don’t try to perfect the first draft while you’re writing it. Don’t attempt to write, edit, and revise each sentence and paragraph as you proceed. This will only cause frustration and, most likely, will trigger writer’s block. For the time being, you can simply fill in the paragraphs indicated by your outline.
Revising/Editing
Revision requires you to look at your essay as a member of your audience. Your concern at this point is the overall message conveyed by your essay, or the “big picture.”
Ask yourself these questions:
Are my purpose and meaning clear? If not, you may need to reorganize your topics or take a different approach to your essay as a whole.
Are there sections of the essay that don’t contribute to my established purpose? If so, delete those sections.
Are there sections of the essay that require more information to be clear? If so, add more information as needed.
Are there sections of the essay that should be moved for the sake of clarification? If so, try to determine where the information will make the most sense.
Are there concepts/ideas that could be combined? If so, you may have to combine concepts/ideas into single paragraphs. Remember details within a paragraph should support the paragraph’s main idea or topic sentence. You’re goal is to give the reader a clear and concise explanation.
During editing, your goal is to establish a clear, concise writing style. Your focus should be on grammar, sentence structure, word usage, punctuation, and spelling.
Make changes and improvements in these areas:
Vary sentence lengths.
Look for and delete unnecessary words.
Eliminate irrelevant information.
Get rid of clichés.
Use specific, concrete words.
Replace generalities with specifics.
Change negative messages to positive ones.
Check and correct grammar usage.
CHECK AGAIN
You may have to repeat this entire stage several times. In fact, you can continue to repeat these checks until you’re completely satisfied with what you’ve produced.
Proofreading
In this stage, you’ll clean up your writing to make it presentable to the audience. Since typographical errors, as well as errors in spelling and punctuation, can interfere with the clarity of your of your essay, you must eliminate them. Your final draft should be as close to perfection as possible.
Check for
Consistent paragraph indentation
Typographical and spelling errors
Correct punctuation
Correct capitalization
Grammar errors
Confused words, such as homonyms and homophones
Repeated words, sentences, and lines
Skipped lines, sentences, and paragraphs
It’s also helpful to have someone else read your paper, such as a friend or family member. Often, we don’t know that we use certain words too frequently, or that we consistently misapply a rule of grammar. Having someone else read your paper is a great way to help spot small flaws in whatever you are writing, and it helps you carry those lessons forward to become a better writer.
While they’re not foolproof, spell-check and grammar-check programs will help you to locate possible problems. Be aware, though, that these programs will not find every error and may suggest unnecessary or incorrect changes. For instance, if you have a word that’s spelled correctly, the spell-check feature won’t highlight it, even if it’s the incorrect word for that particular sentence. The same holds true for the grammar-check feature. Neither should be trusted; both should be used with caution during the proofreading process.
PROOFREADING TIP
Try to get an outside opinion, as it’s difficult to spot problems or errors when you’ve been immersed in writing. A new set of eyes may notice what you can no longer see. Computer programs that check for spelling or grammar aren’t designed to actually “read” your essay and can’t make judgments about tone and word meaning that a human can.
Presenting
Presenting is the final stage of the writing process and, for most students, the most exciting. During this stage, you’ll submit your essay for grading.
Before you “present” your essay, take a final run through the steps of the writing process to ensure that you haven’t overlooked anything. Your goal is to make your final draft as perfect as possible.
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