Organization & Structure

PART II of III

The Overall Structure of the Essay

Just as every paragraph should contain a topic sentence, every essay should contain a single, powerful, engaging thesis statement. And just as every sentence within a paragraph supports the that paragraph’s topic sentence, every paragraph in an essay must support the thesis statement.
A thesis statement is the main idea of your paper. It does two things: 1) it explains your topic and 2) it reveals your attitude toward it.

Developing a working thesis should be among your first priorities. "Working" is the operative word here; your thesis may change through the research and writing process, but it is imperative to start with a definite plan in mind. Think of your working thesis as an hypothesis that may, and probably will, undergo changes along the way.

Once you hone in on your essay’s main thesis statement, you need to decide how to organize and structure the material of your essay. Structure does not need to be dry, boring, or academic.
There are many interesting ways to structure your essay. Following are descriptions and examples of some of the basic ways of organizing your thoughts for a logical, well-ordered presentation to your readers.

Organizing and Developing Paragraphs
You can organize the paragraphs of your essay by using any of the following schemes:
· Enumeration: Follow an ordered pattern of one, two, three, etc.
· Chronology: Use time to organize an event or tell a story or describe how a process unfolds.
· Space: In descriptions, start at the top and move to the bottom, or move from left to right, inside to outside, and so on.
· General to specific or abstract to concrete: Paragraphs are easier to understand when the general statement comes first and the supporting examples, evidence, or illustrations follow.
· Order of importance: You can either begin with the most important point or you can end with it, but decide on the importance of each point within the paragraph and order your paragraphs accordingly. Remember, you want your readers to follow you to your final destination.

You can develop each paragraph by using any of these options:
· Examples, illustrations, or testimony: These clarify your meaning and help your readers connect to what you are saying in a concrete way.
· Data: Facts and statistics are an excellent way to support or illustrate your point.
· Use the rhetorical modes to develop a topic within a paragraph:
o Narration: Tell an interesting story about the topic to engage your readers’ interest.
o Comparison-Contrast: How is one topic similar or different to another?
o Definition: Provide a definition of a topic to help your readers understand what exactly you are writing about and what your major point is.
o Division and Classification: Fit your topic into a class with similar things if doing so helps to clarify it.
o Illustration: Reveal your topic through clear examples.
o Cause-Effect: What caused it to happen and what effects are the consequences?
o Argument and Persuasion: Convince your readers to think of a topic, idea, or stance in a different way by providing strong evidence of your belief.

Understanding Paragraph Clusters
Every essay can be broken down into groups of related paragraphs, called paragraph clusters. Consider this point when you notice your paragraphs may be getting too long. For example, one paragraph might cover every step in a process. But if you want to include more details in your description of the process, then each step might be better covered in a single paragraph. In describing a building, for example, the first paragraph might describe the height, the next, the materials that compose the building, and a third, the building’s location.