2.3: Structuring Your Essay- the Introduction, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusion

Starting with the ancient Greeks, most western cultures have conceptualized the world along a logical, linear path. We like stories that have a beginning (where everything is introduced), a middle (where most of the conflict and character development occurs), and an end (where everything is wrapped up). Essays follow the same basic path. The Introduction spells out the thesis, the Body of the essay elaborates and develops the ideas in the thesis, and the Conclusion wraps up the points covered, re-emphasizes the main idea, and concludes the essay. While this structure can seem a little mechanical, it’s patterned after the way most of us think. When that pattern is disrupted, we quickly become confused. If you’ve ever seen a movie or read a book with an unconventional structure—it begins in the middle or the whole story is told in flashback— you’re probably familiar with this. However, while those unique structures can be fascinating and create a unique experience, when writing an essay, clarity and purpose are much more important. Careful attention to structure and “what goes where” helps your reader follow along from the main idea to its supporting points to the conclusion, which can be especially helpful when dealing with unfamiliar concepts.

Basic Essay Structure

Once you have settled on your paper’s topic, narrowed that down and decided on your main points, pictured an audience, and decided on the rhetorical approach you want to take with your paper, you’ll need an overall idea of what a college paper should look like. In the broadest terms, it needs to have an Introduction, a Main Body, and a Conclusion. You may have heard the term “5-paragraph essay” in the past. This is a common structure in which the Introduction consists of one paragraph, the body has three paragraphs, and the conclusion takes up the final paragraph. There is nothing wrong with that structure, but you will often find that you need more than three body paragraphs (especially in longer or more complicated papers) and, sometimes, fewer than three paragraphs; thus, it’s a good idea not to fall into the habit of always imagining exactly three main points for every writing assignment. Depending on your topic, there may be two good main ideas, or there may be thirty.

The Introduction is usually the first paragraph of your paper (although much longer papers may have longer introductions). Its purpose is to tell your readers the general subject of your paper and what you plan to say about that subject. It’s a preview of the rest of the paper, so it can give the reader a taste of the ideas you will explain in more detail in the main body. This is also the place for you to give readers a reason to care about your ideas. For instance, you can tell a story that illustrates some aspect of your paper—either from your own experience or from the text you plan to discuss. Or, you can provide the background of your topic: why does this situation exist? To whom does it matter?

A Fun Fact about Introductions: It’s easier if you write this part of your paper last. While it’s the first part your reader will see, it’s much easier to get it to say what you want if you have already written the main part of the paper. That way, there is no danger that the paper will not fulfill the promise of the thesis statement or lose its focus.

The largest section of your paper will be the Main Body. This section is made up of all the paragraphs that show why your thesis statement makes sense. Each body paragraph should contain a single idea that is made clear in a topic sentence, which is usually the first sentence but could also appear elsewhere in the paragraph. When someone reads your paper, the topic sentence should be clear to them as the idea around which everything else in that paragraph is arranged. In addition to the topic sentence, the paragraph should give examples and details that show what you mean.

Sample Structure for a Body Paragraph:

1. A transition from the previous paragraph
2. Topic sentence
3. General idea
4. Supporting example of, evidence for, or detailed explanation of that idea
5. Second general idea
6. Supporting example of, evidence for, or detailed explanation of that idea (repeat steps 3-6 as needed)
7. Closing sentence, which may include a transition to the next paragraph.

The last section of your paper is the Conclusion. Here is where you wrap up your ideas. This is a good place to restate your thesis and remind your reader that you have shown what the paper set out to show. The Conclusion can be a mirror image of the Introduction, briefly restating the evidence the paper gives in proving its case, but it can also look to the future. How would your community be different if people agreed with your ideas? What benefits would they gain? Do not introduce new information in the Conclusion, but it is fine to ask your readers to imagine the results of your recommendations, if you have any.

It is a good idea to include a transition from the main body of the paper, and the most common transition is “In conclusion.” However, there are many, many more interesting ways to lead into this final paragraph. Try variations like these:

• “As should be clear by this point,”
• “Given these points,”
• “On the whole,”
• “By and large,”
• “In summary,”

For more help, see this video the basics of essay structure from Full Sail University.

Beyond these grand purposes for essays, there are several structures you might choose to inform or persuade. We call these the “rhetorical modes,” and you’ll find a much more extensive discussion of them in Section II. For now, as you are just beginning to think about the structure of your paper, you just need to know the basics.

The most common rhetorical modes are these:

• Narration: A narrative is just a story, a way of telling “what happened.” Some ideas are easier to understand if you place them into a chronological order. Stories and films use this technique, of course, but so does historical writing. Narrative does not need to mean fiction; it can be a relating of a sequence of events.
• Description: This technique uses sensory details to create a picture in your reader’s mind. Use description to highlight a person, place, or event.
• Illustration: This word just means “example.” If you want to write about an abstract idea, sometimes it helps your readers understand you better if you give them concrete examples of that idea in action.
• Comparison/Contrast: Comparison shows how two items are similar to each other, whereas contrast shows how they differ from each other. A clear discussion of two items’ similarities or differences can be useful when you want to show that one is a better choice of action, or a superior product or idea.
• Cause/Effect: As opposed to narration, which merely shows the order of events of some situation, cause and effect can show why one happened after another.
• Classification/Division: This technique can take a broad concept and divide it into smaller parts that are easier to understand (division) or can take a lot of small items and show what they all have in common (classification).
• Process: A process essay looks at some complex system or sequence of events and breaks them down into clear steps. A set of instructions, such as a recipe, is a form of process essay.
• Definition: We often use terms, such as “person,” in ways that help us make arguments about them. The dictionary can help with very basic definitions, but a dictionary is a descriptive tool: it seeks to explain how a word is used in a linguistic community. It does not say everything that matters about those ideas, or even end arguments about them. The dictionary, for example, will tell you that a person is both a human being and a corporation; legally, this is true, but people still argue as to whether it should be true. Furthermore, dictionaries provide several possible definitions for words; your job is to choose the best one and then give examples to further explain how you want your audience to understand the term or concept.

In addition to the modes, there are two other kinds of essays that commonly appear as writing assignments. The first is called the persuasive (or argument) paper; as its name suggests, its chief purpose is to present and support a claim with the goal of persuading an audience to at least consider, if not accept, your point of view on the subject. These papers often incorporate information from outside sources in addition to your attentive thinking and reasoning. You will write at least one persuasion paper in your Comp I classes; just about everything you write in Comp II will be a paper of this nature.

The other kind is a synthesis paper. These papers require you to read two or more sources (and, often, think about your own life as its events might relate to what you find in those readings. Then, similar to a chemistry experiment when you combine two chemicals or heat up a liquid or a solid to see what happens, you will write a paper in which you make a new kind of knowledge by combining your insights about these readings with your own thinking. Some of our Comp I instructors will ask you to write this kind of paper; as for Comp II, a good way to think about the research project you’ll be required to write is that it is in its essence a big, relatively complex (because it will involve several sources) synthesis paper.

For more help, see this video for a more in-depth introduction to the rhetorical modes.