Behold the opening sentence or group of sentences that draws the reader’s attention using vivid imagery and action verbs. If used correctly, the second sentence or group continues the same energy as the first sentence, while gently leading the reader toward the ultimate goal of the first paragraph or group of paragraphs: pushing the reader to the thesis of the essay while getting them to buy in early to what profound thing will be stated in terms the target audience can easily understand. The thesis of the essay needs to be the essence of the entire essay compressed into a single thought, needs to define the scope of the essay, and all topics brought up should allude back to this single sentence.
The body of the essay begins with a single thought, or a topic sentence, that will then explain what the first paragraph will cover as a direct continuation of the thesis. The first paragraph of the body should carry on the argument put forward in the thesis and address and dismiss the counter-argument as early as possible. There remains a school of thought that states that essays should not necessarily be so formulaic, and that something is lost when the entirety of the argument must fit well within a mold. They argue that building an essay around an existing framework means that creativity and control over form are lost; readers will not be surprised by the things the writer has to say. However, forcing writers into constraints such as the ones outlined in this paper often times brings out more creativity than letting them be left to a framework of their own choosing. There are many specific examples of this, and a good essay lists at least one of them in their paper. According to Straighterline.com author Beth Dumbauld, focusing on and learning correct composition can help develop strong communication skills, help students perform better at school and on the job, and even save them money on their degree by preparing them for successfully writing collegiate papers.
When writing an essay, if the essayist does not focus on good composition, he or she runs into the danger of going off on tangents and losing the audience’s attention due to going outside of the scope of the thesis. When a writer sticks within the lines and the specific scope of their thesis, they are free to make a strong, structured case for their argument, with which the reader can easily follow along. Because sometimes less is more, a successful writer can often move on after sufficiently making their case for an individual point in their thesis, as long as the sub-point they are making is not likely to be a weak point due to being counter to common beliefs and common sense.
A good essay will always be able to be skimmed by a trained eye by only reading the title, the thesis and all of the topic sentences. In fact, every topic sentence should be able to be read directly after the thesis statement. This can be tested by stating the thesis statement, then saying “I know this because…” and then saying each of the topic sentences. If each one of these combinations form strong, concise thoughts by doing so, the essayist has exhibited excellent command of essay composition. Furthermore, composition can go even more granular than that.
The conclusion of the paper will always wrap things up neatly, summing up what was said and alluding back to the thesis one more time.When an author has sufficiently made his or her point on a smaller scale, he or she is now free to demonstrate the scalability of the thesis by applying it to larger concepts. By doing so, one could say that good composition does not get limited by simply essays, but it could seen on moderately larger and very larger scales. Examples of this include how chapter titles in books are a summation of the contents of the chapters, just as book titles are a summation of the entire contents of the book. The same is true for television and movies, legal documents, financial statements, and receipts you get from the drug store down the street. If a trained eye knows where to look, it will see the same structure found in well-composed essays in many things. Well-composed things like to sum up what is contained within, telling the onlooker what to expect and how it all relates to the summation provided.
