5 Paragraph Essay “The Basics”

Getting Started Establish your topic: Define your audience: state your thesis or theme in one or two sentences Define your audience:  instructor fellow classmates other professionals Keep your audience in mind as you write Plan ahead:  set a time line plan for the unexpected Often a paper is best finalized when it is finished, then revised!

Getting Started Use good logic in a reasoned argument to develop the theme and/or support the thesis Make sure your spelling is correct

Paragraph One Introduce the topic! Inform the reader of your point of view!   Entice the reader to continue problems?? just get your thoughts down re-write later if needed

Paragraph Development Establish flow from paragraph to paragraph transition sentences, clauses, or words at the beginning of a paragraph connect one idea to the next topic sentence in each paragraph needs to be near the beginning avoid one and two sentence paragraphs

Paragraph Development Keep your voice active "The Academic Committee decided..." not "It was decided by..." avoid the verb "to be“ and your presentation will be effective, clear, and dynamic avoiding "to be" will also avoid the passive voice

Paragraph Development Use quotations to support your interpretations properly introduce, explain, and cite each quote block (indented) quotes should be used sparingly; they can break up the flow of your argument

Paragraph Development Continually prove your point of view throughout the essay don't drift away from the primary focus of the essay don't lapse into summary in the developing paragraphs wait until it’s time, at the conclusion

Conclusion Read your first paragraph and the theme development Summarize, then conclude your argument refer back once again to the first paragraph(s) as well as the development do the last paragraphs briefly restate the main ideas reflect the succession and importance of the arguments logically conclude their development  

Almost Done!! Edit/rewrite the first paragraph fine tune your development and conclusion.

Celebrate a job well done. Final Touches Take a day or two off! Re-read your paper with a fresh mind and a sharp pencil edit, correct, and re-write as necessary Turn in the paper (on time) Celebrate a job well done.

The End