Essay Structure: By Elizabeth Abrams

Essay Structure: By Elizabeth Abrams

1. What does it mean to write an essay?

   • Means fashioning a coherent set of ideas into an argument.

2. What should an essay do?

   • They offer one idea at a time
   • They must present their ideas in the order that makes most sense to a reader.

3. The parts of an essay are related to answering 3 questions. What? How? and Why?

   • What evidence shows that the phenomenon described by your thesis is true? I
   • How does the thesis stand up to the challenge of a counterargument?
   • Why does your interpretation of a phenomenon matter to anyone beside you?

4. Now, the best thing to do an essay is mapping. Follow the next 3 steps

   • State your thesis in a sentence or two, then write another sentence saying why it's important to make that claim.
   • Begin your next sentence like this: "To be convinced by my claim, the first thing a reader needs to know is . . ."
   • Begin each of the following sentences like this: "The next thing my reader needs to know is . . ." Once again, say why, and name some evidence.

5. Finally, keep in mind the signs of trouble. As it is the case of Walk-through essays

   • Walk-through essays follow the structure of their sources rather than establishing their own. Be wary of paragraph openers that lead off with:
     • "time" words:. they suggest that the essay simply reproduces the chronology of the source text.
     • or "listing" words: simply lists example after example.

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