The Five-Paragraph
Essay
An overview
The Bare Essentials
Every essay that you write must have at least
500 words (300 words for English 0098).
Each essay must have a clearly written thesis
statement.
Each essay must have five paragraphs.
Each essay is allowed a maximum of two Type
I errors.
Do NOT use “you” in your essays.
The Introduction
The purpose of the introduction is to
introduce the topic and your attitude
toward that topic to the audience.
The introduction needs to begin with an
attention-getting device to grab your
reader’s attention.
The thesis must also be included in the
introduction.
The Thesis Statement
The thesis statement needs to contain
three elements:
The topic you are writing about
Your attitude or position toward that topic
Your three points of development (or three
reasons why you feel the way you do about
the topic)
The topic
Make sure that the topic you have
chosen to write about is extremely clear
to the reader.
Having knowledge about the topic will
help you to come up with subtopics more
easily.
The attitude or position
Make it clear whether you support or oppose
the topic. If a writing prompt is in the form of a
yes/no question, do NOT answer with “maybe”
or “sometimes”.
If the prompt is not a yes/no question, be sure
to have a controlling idea for the entire essay.
Maintain a consistent point of view throughout
the essay.
The three points of
development
Choose three points that are distinct from
one another so that you do not repeat
information in two different support
paragraphs.
Choose subtopics that are somewhat
broad so that you can expand on them by
using more specific details. This will help
with the word count.
The Support Paragraphs
Support paragraphs need to contain a lot
of details and specific examples to
support your ideas.
Support paragraphs need to be
organized to parallel the thesis sentence.
Each support paragraph must have a
topic sentence to indicate the main idea
of that paragraph.
More about the support
paragraphs
Try to include at least two examples in
each support paragraph.
The support paragraphs should be the
three longest paragraphs of the essay. If
you’re running short on words and need
to add more, this is the place to do it.
Use transitions to move more smoothly
from one support paragraph to the next.
The Conclusion
Use the conclusion to restate your three
main points. This does NOT mean that
you are to repeat the thesis word for
word.
DO NOT introduce new ideas in the
conclusion.
The conclusion should NOT be longer
than your shortest support paragraph.