Academic writing that is worth reading never exists for its own sake. It always has an intellectually defensible purpose and targets its appeals to a particular audience. See the information on purpose and audience here.
Paragraphs
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Essays
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| Paragraph -- a collection of sentences that develops, elaborates, and explains the idea set out in the topic sentence. |
Essay -- a collection of paragraphs that uses the methods of development to support, develop, elaborate, and explain the idea set out in the thesis sentence. |
| Topic sentence -- a group of words that expresses the main idea of a paragraph. |
Thesis -- the sentence that states the main idea of an essay. See more information here. |
| Sentence -- a group of words that expresses an idea in a complete, self-contained, stand-alone thought. |
The sentences within paragraphs all relate to the topic sentence of each paragraph, which in turn relates to the essay's thesis. |
Essay Features
No essay written for this class
should ever be just a general discussion
of the topic with ideas expressed
as they occur. Neither should the
bulk of the ideas consist of a summary
of the plot. The features below supply
a different vision.
Specific Content -- Academic and professional level writing never deals solely in generalities. The content moves from the general to the specific. The essay topics direct students to go beyond generalities. How can a student be sure her or his content is specific? See the file here for the earmarks.
To see the pattern for the content paragraphs in an essay that is specific and uses direct quotations, see the page here. |
Overall
Essay Paragraph Organization --
The information within an essay's
paragraphs can be organized in
time, space or order of importance.
Each of the methods of development
uses one of the three more often
than the others.
An essay can use the eight methods of development in several ways.
• As strategies for the introduction
• In the body, one pattern can dominate
• In the body, two or more different patterns can shape the information throughout sections of the essay
• As strategies for the conclusion
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| Essay Coherence -- Coherence strategies keep the flow between paragraphs going. For tools to show how the ideas relate to one another, see the list here. |
| Essay Title -- An essay's title can help showcase its strength. See the notes here. |
| Essay Grading Criteria -- The notes here show the five criteria upon which an essay is evaluated, plus the sweetener that makes for an A paper. |
| Essay Writing Process -- The Steps for Composing an Essay on a Word Processor provide a checklist. If a student prints it out and verifies that she or he did applied all the steps on it against a hardcopy of the essay, she or he can usually head off major problems. Please see the process here and print it out.. |
Sample
Essays -- The
first three items on the Content
page in Blackboard jump to sample
essays. Each satisfies the criteria
for specific, targeted, coherent,
informative, grammatically correct
writing. The third one also satisfies
the MLA guidelines for titles,
parenthetical references and
the bibliography.
The sample essay here shows the correct format if the viewer's browser is set accordingly. It also serves as a good example of a text that has been compared to the checklist and revised accordingly. Its content also suggests that the writer felt slightly overwhelmed, but that might be the topic's fault, not the essay's. For a 5-point bonus, read the essay, grade it according to the all of the criteria here, and send a message to me in WebCT stating what grade you assigned it and why in 2-3 sentences. |
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