12 Essay Features: Read Me!
Things You Should Already Know
Here are a few key highlights that you have already read about, or should have. To make sure you have a solid foundation, you should review this chapter before every essay. You do not need to complete the activities in this chapter, they are meant as a refresher.
It’s important to remember that there are certain features that all of these styles or methods have in common:
- A clear thesis statement usually provided at the beginning of the essay
- Clear and logical transitions
- Focused body paragraphs with evidence and support
- Appropriate format and style if you use source material
- A conclusion that expands upon your thesis and summarizes evidence
- Clear writing that follows standard conventions for things like grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Stating Your Thesis
Most traditional research essays will require some kind of explicitly stated thesis. This means you should state your thesis clearly and directly for your readers. A thesis is a statement of purpose, one to two sentences long, about your research, that is often presented at the beginning of your essay to prepare your audience for the content of your whole research paper. Your thesis is often presented at the end of your introductory paragraph or paragraphs.
Your thesis statement should state your topic and, in a persuasive research essay, state your assertion about that topic. You should avoid simply “announcing” your thesis and should work to make it engaging. A good thesis will answer the “so what?” question your audience might have about your research paper. A good thesis statement will tell your readers what your research paper will be about and, specifically, why it is important.
You should avoid thesis statements that simply announce your purpose. For example, in a research paper on health care reform, you should avoid a thesis statement like this:
AVOID!
Instead, a good thesis statement on health care reform in the United States would be more specific and make a point that will help establish a clear purpose and focus for your essay. It might look something like this:
Example
Example
Implying Your Thesis
Not all research papers will require an explicitly stated thesis. Some research papers in some fields will simply require a strong focus. You can maintain a strong focus in your essay without an explicitly stated thesis by thinking about an implied thesis for your research paper. With an implied thesis, your point is never stated directly, but your paper does have a clear focus or point. Even if you’re not stating your thesis directly, you should keep your implied thesis in mind as you write. All papers require a specific focus, and a good research paper will maintain that focus throughout.
If you’re unsure about whether you should use an explicit thesis or simply maintain a clear focus without an explicit thesis, be sure to ask your instructor. In English 101, you should use an explicit thesis statement to make it clear you know how to use one.
Placement of Thesis Statements
A thesis statement is usually the last sentence of the first paragraph of a paper. It is also customary to restate the main idea of your paper in the conclusion so that the paper leaves a clear impression on the reader.
Topic Sentences
So, thesis statements tell us the goals of the entire writing assignment and topic sentences tell us the goal of a particular paragraph. Essentially, the CEO is the thesis statement and the topic sentences are the managers. Let’s use a quick cheeseburger method to see how topic sentences work:
Linking Paragraphs: Transitions
| Transition Words | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Place | Idea | Summarizing |
| Before long | On the patio | Another reason | Finally |
| Later that day | In the kitchen | Also | In conclusion |
| Late last night | At the cottage | In addition | To conclude |
| The next day | In the backyard | For example | To summarize |
| After a while | When we went to the store | To illustrate | In summary |
| Meanwhile | Nearby | For instance | To sum up |
| Sometimes | Adjacent to | Likewise | In short |
| Following | Wherever | However | As you can see |
| Subsequently | Opposite to | In contrast | For all of those reasons |
Transitions are words or phrases that indicate linkages in ideas. When writing, you need to lead your readers from one idea to the next, showing how those ideas are logically linked. Transition words and phrases help you keep your paragraphs and groups of paragraphs logically connected for a reader. Writers often check their transitions during the revising stage of the writing process.
Here are some example transition words to help as you transition both within paragraphs and from one paragraph to the next.
| Transition Word / Phrase: | Shows: |
| and, also, again | More of the same type of information is coming; information expands on the same general idea. |
| but, or, however, in contrast | Different information is coming, information that may counteract what was just said. |
| as a result, consequently, therefore | Information that is coming is a logical outgrowth of the ideas just presented. |
| for example, to illustrate | The information coming will present a specific instance, or present a concrete example of an abstract idea. |
| particularly important, note that | The information coming emphasizes the importance of an idea. |
| in conclusion | The writing is ending. |
Paragraphing: MEAL Plan
When it’s time to draft your essay and bring your content together for your audience, you will be working to build strong paragraphs. Your paragraphs in a research paper will focus on presenting the information you found in your source material and commenting on or analyzing that information. It’s not enough to simply present the information in your body paragraphs and move on. You want to give that information a purpose and connect it to your main idea or thesis statement.
Duke University coined a term called the “MEAL Plan” that provides an effective structure for paragraphs in an academic research paper. Select the pluses to learn what each letter stands for.
Here are the same terms with examples:
MLA Formatting: The Basics
Papers constructed according to MLA guidelines should adhere to the following elements:
- Double-space all of the text of your paper, and use a clear font, such as Times New Roman or Courier 12-point font.
- Use one-inch margins on all sides, and indent the first line of a paragraph one half-inch from the left margin.
- List your name, your instructor’s name, the course, and the date in the upper left-hand corner of the first page. This is your heading. There is no cover page.
- Type a header in the upper right-hand corner with your last name, a space, and then a page number. Pages should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin.
- Provide in-text citations for all quoted, paraphrased, and summarized information in your paper.
- Include a Works Cited page at the end of your paper that gives full bibliographic information for each item cited in your paper.
- If you use endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page
- Your Works Cited page at the end of your project should line up with the in-text citations in the body of your essay.
If you need more information, check the chapter on MLA Style.
Conclusions
A satisfying conclusion allows your reader to finish your paper with a clear understanding of the points you made and possibly even a new perspective on the topic.
Any single paper might have a number of conclusions, but as the writer, you must consider who the reader is and the conclusion you want them to reach. For example, is your reader relatively new to your topic? If so, you may want to restate your main points for emphasis as a way of starting the conclusion. (Don’t literally use the same sentence(s) as in your introduction but come up with a comparable way of restating your thesis.) You’ll want to smoothly conclude by showing the judgment you have reached is, in fact, reasonable.
Just restating your thesis isn’t enough. Ideally, you have just taken your reader through a strong, clear argument in which you have provided evidence for your perspective. You want to conclude by pointing out the importance or worthiness of your topic and argument. You could describe how the world would be different, or people’s lives changed if they ascribed to your perspective, plan, or idea.
You might also point out the limitations of the present understanding of your topic, suggest or recommend future action, study, or research that needs to be done.
If you have written a persuasive paper, hopefully, your readers will be convinced by what you have had to say!
20 Most Common Grammar Errors
The link below will take you outside of our book.
Have you ever had a teacher mark comma splice on your paper? Have you ever turned in your essay only to realize later that spell check “fixed” your word so that it reads defiantly when you meant to write definitely? Well, if these things have happened to you, you are not alone. These are among the most common errors beginning writers make.
Thanks to some excellent research from Andrea Lunsford and her colleagues, every few years, we get a list of the “20 Most Common Errors” beginning writers in the United States make. Every few years, Lunsford and her team of researchers examine thousands of student essays and survey hundreds of writing teachers in order to give us this list.
The good news is that most of the errors on this list are mistakes that we make when we are tired, in a hurry, and just not being good editors. So, they are easy fixes.
Once you finish reading through the 20 most common errors, you can come back here to complete the activity.
Try It Out
After completing this activity, you may download or print a completion report that summarizes your results.
Punctuation
Maybe you have heard the story about how punctuation saves lives. Clearly, there is a difference between
and
In addition to saving lives, using punctuation properly will help your writing be clean and clear and help you build your credibility as a writer.
The following link will provide you with an overview of the basic rules regarding punctuation and will give you a chance to practice using the information you have learned.
Putting It All Together
It is time to write your essay Keep this list of things to remember handy and put that paper together. You got this!
ATTRIBUTIONS
- Content Adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2020). Excelsior College. Retrieved from https://owl.excelsior.edu/ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License.
- Original Content by Christine Jones. (2021). Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License.
