The five-paragraph essay is a standard format taught in schools to organize thoughts logically and support a thesis. It consists of an introduction with a thesis statement, three body paragraphs with examples, and a conclusion. While some standardized tests use this format, colleges expect more advanced writing skills.
The five-paragraph essay is often the standard taught essay for middle and high school students. In many cases, schools teach the five-paragraph essay format even earlier, in the upper grades of elementary school. The principle behind this type of essay is that it helps organize thoughts logically and leads to a well-supported thesis.
The five-paragraph essay is organized into three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction should include a thesis statement, which is the main theme or main topic you want the essay to pursue. A strong thesis statement is much easier to sustain, and a missing thesis statement will mean that the essay has no definite direction. You should be able to reduce the topic of the essay to a coherent sentence.
This can easily be done when topics are given in question form. Generally the thesis can simply reorder the question into a declarative form. For example, the question before you might be: Was Mark Twain against slavery? This could translate into a statement: Mark Twain was against slavery, or Mark Twain supported slavery.
The first paragraph also lists the three points that will serve as examples or expand on your theme. So for our essay on Mark Twain, a thesis statement might be followed by: Huck Finn shows the injustice of slavery, the fear that the slave should go south, and the ignorance in which most slaves were held .
The three paragraphs of the body will then follow, and each will take up one of these three statements with the appropriate cited examples. Each body paragraph should ideally be five to seven sentences long and should work on only one topic. This is often confusing for students as they find they have more of what they want to say, perhaps about “the injustice of slavery.” If an essay requester wants the student to stay rigidly in five paragraph form, they may need to simply take the essentials to prove the point and forget about using other examples.
The fifth paragraph of the essay ends with a conclusion. The conclusion briefly restates the thesis, may touch on the examples a bit more, and then perhaps makes a statement about how the thesis might affect the world now, or you personally. It could end with a question, which is intended to provoke further reflection on the thesis. The conclusion should not include the words “In conclusion,” as these are considered tired beyond use, and the writer should acknowledge that most people will notice that the fifth paragraph is their conclusion.
Some standardized tests are based on the five-paragraph essay. These include many high school exit exams, the SAT portion of the essay, the CBEST, and the Writing English Proficiency Test (WEPT), which many college or sophomores take.
However, most colleges expect students to be past the five-paragraph essay format. The intro, body, and conclusion essay format will remain, but will not be limited to a five-paragraph format. This can cause confusion for students who learned the five-paragraph essay, but haven’t learned how to write a longer essay. High school “A” students may find themselves writing “C” papers in college because they didn’t go beyond the format. Earning the help of an instructor to start writing longer articles may soon have just as good writing in college, with more emphasis on the body of the essay which could include far more than three paragraphs.
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