Essay Writing Notes

9: Writing Essays - From Start to Finish

9.1: Developing a Strong, Clear Thesis Statement

A thesis statement provides a specific focus for an essay and organizes the discussion.
It summarizes the entire essay, similar to how a topic sentence summarizes a paragraph.
The thesis tells the reader the main point you want to make in your essay.
Form the thesis before organizing the essay, but revise it as the essay develops.
Focus on a central idea stemming from the chosen topic or assigned question.
Articulate that central idea into a controlling idea, which is the main idea upon which the thesis is built.
A thesis is not the topic itself, but your interpretation of the question or subject.
Ask, “What do I want to say about it?” to form a precise, forceful, and confident thesis.
A thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of the introduction.
It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how the information will be organized.
A thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

Qualities of a Strong Thesis Statement:

Specificity: Focus on a specific area of a general topic.
- Example: Health care is broad; options for individuals without health care coverage is specific.
Precision: Be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and remain focused on the topic.
- Example: Instead of just discussing those without insurance, discuss the limited options for those uninsured by their employers.
Ability to be argued: Present a relevant and specific argument. Avoid factual statements.
Ability to be demonstrated: Provide reasons and examples for your opinion.
Forcefulness: Show readers that you are making an argument with an assertive tone.
Confidence: Use confidence in your claim. Avoid phrases like "I feel" or "I believe."

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements:

"The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxon in the play Fences symbolize the challenge of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States."
"Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration."
"Shakespeare’s use of dramatic irony in Romeo and Juliet spoils the outcome for the audience and weakens the plot."
"J. D. Salinger’s character in Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield, is a confused rebel who voices his disgust with phonies, yet in an effort to protect himself, he acts like a phony on many occasions."
"Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown."
"Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts."
"In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job."

Pitfalls to Avoid When Composing Your Thesis:

Weak Thesis: A mere declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss.
- Example: "My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge."
Weak Thesis: An unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side.
- Example: "Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books."
Weak Thesis: An obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end.
- Example: "Advertising companies use sex to sell their products."
Weak Thesis: A statement that is too broad.
- Example: "The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging."

Thesis Statement Revision

Your thesis will probably change as you write, so you will need to modify it to reflect exactly what you have discussed in your essay.
A working thesis statement is an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing.
Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

Pinpoint and replace all nonspecific words
- Reduce vagueness, replace words like "people," "everything," "society," or "life" with more precise words.
- Working thesis: Young people have to work hard to succeed in life.
- Revised thesis: Recent college graduates must have discipline and persistence in order to find and maintain a stable job in which they can use and be appreciated for their talents.
Clarify ideas that need explanation by asking yourself questions that narrow your thesis.
- Working thesis: The welfare system is a joke.
- Revised thesis: The welfare system keeps a socioeconomic class from gaining employment by alluring members of that class with unearned income, instead of programs to improve their education and skill sets.
Replace any linking verbs with action verbs.
- Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action.
- Working thesis: Kansas City schoolteachers are not paid enough.
- Revised thesis: The Kansas City legislature cannot afford to pay its educators, resulting in job cuts and resignations in a district that sorely needs highly qualified and dedicated teachers.
- Linking verbs include forms of the verb "to be".
Omit any general claims that are hard to support.
- Working thesis: Today’s teenage girls are too sexualized.
- Revised thesis: Teenage girls who are captivated by the sexual images on MTV are conditioned to believe that a woman’s worth depends on her sensuality, a feeling that harms their self-esteem and behavior.

Key Takeaways:

Proper essays require a thesis statement to provide a specific focus and suggest how the essay will be organized.
A thesis statement is your interpretation of the subject, not the topic itself.
A strong thesis is specific, precise, forceful, confident, and is able to be demonstrated.
A strong thesis challenges readers with a point of view that can be debated and can be supported with evidence.
A weak thesis is simply a declaration of your topic or contains an obvious fact that cannot be argued.
Revise your thesis by ensuring all words are specific, all ideas are exact, and all verbs express action.

9.2: Writing Body Paragraphs

Body paragraphs should closely follow the roadmap set by the thesis statement.
The reader should be able to predict what follows the introductory paragraph by simply reading the thesis statement.
Body paragraphs present evidence to confirm the thesis.

Select Primary Support for Your Thesis

Primary support: the major points you choose to expand on your thesis.
Each point is incorporated into the topic sentence for each body paragraph.
Primary supporting point are further supported by supporting details within the paragraphs.

Characteristics of Good Primary Support:

Be specific: Main points and examples need to be specific.
- Specific examples provide evidence and build upon general ideas.
Be relevant to the thesis: Should show, explain, or prove your main argument without irrelevant details.
Be detailed: Detailed support shows readers that you have considered all the facts.

Prewriting helps identify primary supporting points for a thesis statement.
Prewriting involves making a list of examples or reasons supporting your stance.

Select the Most Effective Primary Supporting Points for a Thesis Statement

Primary support must be relevant to your thesis.
Remind yourself of your main argument and delete any ideas that do not directly relate to it.
Choose at least three of only the most compelling points.
These will serve as the topic sentences for your body paragraphs.
When you support your thesis, you are revealing evidence that helps support your stance.

Evidence includes:

Facts: Often cannot be disputed and can provide background information or a solid foundation.
- Example: "The most populated state in the United States is California."
Judgments: Conclusions drawn from the given facts based on careful reasoning and examination.
Testimony: Direct quotations from either an eyewitness or an expert witness.
- An eyewitness adds authenticity to an argument.
- An expert witness adds authority and credibility.
Personal observation: Your testimony reflects what you know to be true based on experience.

Choose Supporting Topic Sentences

Each body paragraph contains a topic sentence that states one aspect of your thesis and then expands upon it.
Topic sentences should be specific and supported by concrete details, facts, or explanations.
Topic sentences are linked to the ideas in your thesis, reminding readers what your essay is about.
A paragraph without a clearly identified topic sentence may be unclear.
A topic sentence states exactly what the controlling idea of the paragraph is.

Draft Supporting Detail Sentences for Each Primary Support Sentence

After deciding which primary support points you will use as your topic sentences, you must add details to clarify and demonstrate each of those points.
These supporting details provide examples, facts, or evidence that support the topic sentence.

Key Takeaways:

Your body paragraphs should closely follow the path set forth by your thesis statement.
Strong body paragraphs contain evidence that supports your thesis.
Primary support comprises the most important points you use to support your thesis.
Strong primary support is specific, detailed, and relevant to the thesis.
Prewriting helps you determine your most compelling primary support.
Evidence includes facts, judgments, testimony, and personal observation.
A topic sentence presents one point of your thesis statement while the information in the rest of the paragraph supports that point.
A body paragraph comprises a topic sentence plus supporting details.

9.3: Organizing Your Writing

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content.
Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest.
Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

Three ways to organize body paragraphs:

Chronological order
Order of importance
Spatial order

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft.
Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

1. Chronological Order

Chronological arrangement:
- To explain the history of an event or a topic
- To tell a story or relate an experience
- To explain how to do or to make something
- To explain the steps in a process
Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing.
Arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions.
Use words such as first, second, then, after that, later, and finally.
If you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day.

Chronological order is most appropriate for:

Writing essays containing heavy research
Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

2. Order of Importance

Order of importance:
- Persuading and convincing
- Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
- Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution
Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength.
When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.
If you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first.
Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly, almost as importantly, just as importantly, and finally.

3. Spatial Order

Spatial order:
- Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
- Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
- Writing a descriptive essay
Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space.
Create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.
The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place.
The key is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.
Transition words to include when using spatial order:
- Just to the left or just to the right
- Behind
- Between
- On the left or on the right
- Across from
- A little further down
- To the south, to the east, and so on
- A few yards away
- Turning left or turning right

Key Takeaways:

The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.

9.4: Writing Introductory and Concluding Paragraphs

An introduction serves the following purposes:
1. Establishes your voice and tone, or your attitude, toward the subject
2. Introduces the general topic of the essay
3. States the thesis that will be supported in the body paragraphs
If your introductory paragraph is dull or disjointed, your reader probably will not have much interest in continuing with the essay.

Attracting Interest in Your Introductory Paragraph

Your introduction should begin with an engaging statement devised to provoke your readers’ interest.
In the next few sentences, introduce them to your topic by stating general facts or ideas about the subject.
Moving smoothly and logically from your introductory remarks to your thesis statement can be achieved using a funnel technique.
Immediately capturing your readers’ interest increases the chances of having them read what you are about to discuss.

You can garner curiosity for your essay in a number of ways:

Appealing to their emotions
Using logic
Beginning with a provocative question or opinion
Opening with a startling statistic or surprising fact
Raising a question or series of questions
Presenting an explanation or rationalization for your essay
Opening with a relevant quotation or incident
Opening with a striking image
Including a personal anecdote

Writing a Conclusion

A conclusion that does not correspond to the rest of your essay, has loose ends, or is unorganized can unsettle your readers and raise doubts about the entire essay.

The Anatomy of a Strong Conclusion

Ideas in your conclusion must conform to the rest of your essay.
Restate your thesis at the beginning of your conclusion to assemble all the information you have explained in the body.
Repeating your thesis reminds your readers of the major arguments you have been trying to prove and also indicates that your essay is drawing to a close.
A strong conclusion also reviews your main points and emphasizes the importance of the topic.
The construction of the conclusion is similar to the introduction, in which you make general introductory statements and then present your thesis.
The difference is that in the conclusion you first paraphrase, or state in different words, your thesis and then follow up with general concluding remarks.
These sentences should progressively broaden the focus of your thesis and maneuver your readers out of the essay.
Many writers like to end their essays with a final emphatic statement to cause your readers to continue thinking about the implications of your essay.
Another powerful technique is to challenge your readers to make a change in either their thoughts or their actions.

When closing your essay, avoid the following:

Introducing new material
Contradicting your thesis
Changing your thesis
Using apologies or disclaimers

Key Takeaways:

A strong opening captures your readers’ interest and introduces them to your topic before you present your thesis statement.
An introduction should restate your thesis, review your main points, and emphasize the importance of the topic.
The funnel technique to writing the introduction begins with generalities and gradually narrows your focus until you present your thesis.
A good introduction engages people’s emotions or logic, questions or explains the subject, or provides a striking image or quotation.
Carefully chosen diction in both the introduction and conclusion prevents any confusing or boring ideas.
A conclusion that does not connect to the rest of the essay can diminish the effect of your paper.
The conclusion should remain true to your thesis statement. It is best to avoid changing your tone or your main idea and avoid introducing any new material.
Closing with a final emphatic statement provides closure for your readers and makes your essay more memorable.