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structure your ideas in a longer essay. Once you’ve established your thesis, you need to think about how you will move your reader through your argument. In some courses, you will be expected to provide a roadmap in your introduction that explicitly tells readers how your argument is organized. But even when you don’t provide a roadmap,
- The Basics of Essay Structure
- Chronological Structure
- Compare-And-Contrast Structure
- Problems-Methods-Solutions Structure
- Signposting to Clarify Your Structure
- Other Interesting Articles
There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body.
The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go. A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series ...
Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting. For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essaymight compare the strengths of different arguments. There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the bloc...
An essay that concerns a specific problem(practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach. This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem ...
Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows. It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas.
If you want to know more about AI tools, college essays, or fallaciesmake sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
Exercise 3. On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.
Group activity. Choose one of the topics from Self-Practice Exercise 5.4 and form a yes/no question about that topic. Then, take a survey of the people in your class to find out how they feel about the subject. Using the majority vote, ask those people to write on slips of paper the reasons for their opinion.
A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.
Exercise 1. Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.
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Sep 18, 2024 · 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.
