Organizing Your Essay

Here is the actual first body paragraph:

Because I was born and grew up in upstate New York, near the mountains, I find the heat and humidity of Georgia summers hard to take. I love fall because that is when the temperatures in the South start to cool down. I can go for a walk without coming back dripping with sweat, and I don't have to leave my car doors open for five minutes after it's been sitting in the sun before I can get in and drive without suffocating from the heat inside. I can also leave windows in my house open to let in fresh air, and I can finally turn off the air conditioning and lower my electric bill. The cool temperatures cause another of my favorite things about autumn: the beautiful fall scenery

Outline = Roadmap

Creating and using an outline is a good way to keep on topic and to make sure that you put the best ideas you have in the best possible order. Once you have brainstormed for ideas, sort through the ideas for the ones that will make the best thesis statement. Let's use for an example an essay whose prompt topic is this: Which of the four seasons of the year do you like the best? Why?

Think of support for your opinion.

Here are my reasons why fall is my favorite season: The weather gets cooler in the fall, and I prefer cool weather to hot weather. I see fall as a time for new beginnings: it is the start of a new school year, new leaders of our government are elected in the fall, and, because my birthday is in the fall, I feel like I get a chance to "start over" every year in the fall and change and improve myself. The scenery in the fall is, to me, the most beautiful of any time of year I may also like fall because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, the World Series is played in the fall, or because I enjoy visiting Halloween "haunted houses" that are only open in October. These reasons don't go together very well. The ones I will be using do go together. There may be many reasons that support the opinion that you are developing in your essay, but choose the strongest ones. For a short essay (500 to 800 words) you should limit the number of supporting points to three. If you include more than three supporting points, you won't be able to develop any of them well in a short essay. You should also try to use supporting points that relate to each other in some way.

Why Do Essays need to be Divided into Paragraphs?

No matter what kind of essay you are writing, you will include several different points. If it is a narrative essay, the points will be things that happened in the story presented in chronological order. If it is an argumentative essay, the points will be reasons you are providing in support of your thesis statement. When you move from one point, topic, or event to the next one in an essay, you need to begin a new paragraph. Paragraph divisions help your reader tell when you have moved on to a different idea. Paragraphs help keep your reader from getting confused.

Transitions Between Paragraphs

One of the writer's jobs is to create smooth connections between the different ideas presented in the essay. One way to do this is by having transitions between paragraphs. Ideally, the last sentence of one paragraph should introduce the topic of the next paragraph. Here are the last sentence from the first body paragraph and the first sentence from the second paragraph: The cool temperatures cause another of my favorite things about autumn: the beautiful fall scenery. With cooler temperatures, the humidity in the air drops, which causes the sky to be clearer than it is at some other times of year. How do these sentences create a link between the dominant idea in the first paragraph and the dominant idea in the second one?

The Thesis Statement

This should provide the general plan for the essay. Arrange your thesis points in a logical order. Discuss the points in the order in which they appear in your thesis statement. Here is the thesis statement for an essay about my favorite seasons: Fall is the season of the year that appeals to me most because the weather gets cooler in the fall, fall scenery seems the most beautiful to me, and I see fall as a time for new beginnings. Notice that I have put the two points that relate to each other next to each other in my thesis statement. I also put the most complex point last. You should put your strongest, most complex, or most important point last and discuss it last in your essay.

Planning Your Essay

Writing an essay is like going on a trip to a far-off destination: you need to have a plan. To get from Dalton to Valdosta, you would follow a map (forget GPS for right now). If you don't, you might get lost and have a trip that is needlessly long and frustrating. Writing an essay without a plan to organize it will make the task of writing it long and frustrating. Worse, it will make reading the essay a frustrating experience for your audience.

The Five-Paragraph Essay

Although you can write a good essay that has four, six, seven, or more paragraphs, a five-paragraph essay is a good "formula" for organizing an essay that can be developed effectively in 800 words or fewer. Note: whenever you move from one part of the essay to the next or from one idea to the next, you need to begin a new paragraph. For essays written for college classes, do not use block paragraph style. Indent the first sentence of each paragraph instead. Here is the standard five-paragraph essay formula: The introductory paragraph should "hook" the reader and attract his interest and attention in some way. This paragraph should end with a thesis statement that tells the purpose of the essay and lets the reader know the points that the writer will be using to support his points. The second paragraph (first body paragraph) will develop the first point in the thesis statement. The third paragraph (second body paragraph) will develop the second point of the thesis. The fourth paragraph (third body paragraph) will develop the third point of the thesis statement. The concluding paragraph will sum up or possibly restate the main ideas. It should also give the reader a sense of closure, so that he feels like the essay has come to a satisfying ending.

Topic Sentences

Each paragraph in an essay should have a topic sentence. This is like a thesis statement for a paragraph; it tells the reader what the main point of the paragraph will be. The topic sentence can appear anywhere in the paragraph, but it is usually the first sentence. Just as the old leaves will fall in autumn, clearing the way for new growth, autumn has always seemed to me to be a time of new beginnings and fresh starts. My birthday is in the fall, and I regard my birthday the same way that other people regard New Year's Day: as a time to reassess my life and make changes that will help me be happier and more successful in the coming year. Fall also brings a new school year, when students meet new teachers and new subjects and when teachers meet new students who create a whole room full of unguessed potential and promise. Political elections also occur in the fall; changes in elected officials can mean a positive change and a new direction for our communities and our nation. I love the potential for change and improvement that the fall brings. The topic sentence is usually a general statement of the paragraph's main point. The sentences that come later will contain specific details that offer concrete evidence in support of the main point.

The Introduction

Here is the introductory paragraph for the essay about my favorite season: September comes; nights get longer, and days get cooler. The color of the trees changes from uniform green to a glorious patchwork of red, gold, orange, brown and yellow. Big yellow school buses loaded with eager, bright-eyed children appear on the roads once more, and political campaign posters go up on lawns and roadsides. These are some of the things I look forward to in the fall. Fall is the season of the year that appeals to me most because the weather gets cooler in the fall, fall scenery seems the most beautiful to me, and I see fall as a time for new beginnings. How does this paragraph "hook" the reader and make him want to read the rest of the essay? After reading this, what point would the reader think that the writer is going to be making in this essay?

The First Body Paragraph

Here is the main idea of the first point of the thesis statement, that the writer's favorite season is fall because of the cool temperatures: I love fall because that is when the temperatures in the South start to cool down. This idea by itself would not make a good paragraph in support of the first point. Why not? What could the writer do to develop this idea into a good supporting paragraph?

The Conclusion

The last paragraph of the essay should sum up the points made in the other paragraphs, but it should not merely repeat the thesis statement. It should also give the reader a feeling of closure; he should feel that the promise made in the thesis statement has been kept. The following paragraph provides a satisfying ending that fits well with the previous paragraphs and makes the reader feel that the promise made in the thesis statement has been fulfilled: A smile comes to my face when I feel a nip in the air and the smell of burning leaves floats through the air like a Halloween ghost. Fall is my favorite season of the year because I love the cool, dry weather, the spectacular landscapes of changing leaves, and the promise of change that comes with the short days of autumn. You should never introduce a new idea in the conclusion because you will not be developing the idea, since the essay is ending. Is the "Halloween ghost" simile a new idea that should not be introduced here?

The Second Body Paragraph

With cooler temperatures, the humidity in the air drops, which causes the sky to be clearer than it is at some other times of year. In the fall, I can see the stars more clearly at night without the haze of humidity. This is also the time when the leaves turn color. The north Georgia mountains that I see as I drive to work are beautiful with scarlet dogwood, golden brown oak, red and yellow maple leaves, and a variety of other vivid earth-tone colors that are only seen at this time of year. To me the mountains are at their most beautiful when they are wearing their fall colors. It is also a reminder that the leaves of the past year will soon be gone, making way for the new beginning that will come in spring. Transitions are also used inside paragraphs to connect the ideas within the paragraph. The underlined words in the paragraph create transitions within the paragraph. How do these words connect ideas? (The last sentence is also a transition; it will link this paragraph to the next one.)