Advice from Michael: Finding Structure and Logic

In the last few months, I’ve had several people come in looking for help with structuring their essays and creating a logical flow in their argument. Personally, this is something that I have struggled with in the past, and there are a few little tricks that helped me.

First off, try to give yourself enough time to write the paper. If you try to cram it the night before, or the day of, then you’ll just end up with a jumbled up mess that is the product of sleep deprivation. For myself, I usually end up like this:

Source

 Once you’ve allotted enough time to actually work on your essay, you can then begin to make use of some simple little tricks. Most important of these tricks is to understand the importance of the thesis statement. Your thesis statement is your paper. In it, you outline the entire argument and structure your entire essay. Everything else is based around this single little sentence. Each thesis should proclaim the overall claim of the paper, and then follow up with the three main points that you want to make in support of the claim. Those three points are your arguments for the claim you are making.

Next, you create your three body paragraphs based on these three points. Each paragraph should focus on one of these points, although these paragraphs could also reference previous paragraphs and points. Keeping this in mind, you should order these paragraphs so that they build off of each other instead of standing alone in the crowd. Finally, you conclude everything in the final paragraph without adding any new information, and don’t forget to reiterate the thesis statement. Of course, I have to clarify that more advanced essays require more complex structures than this simple three paragraph style. The basic principle is still the same, however, and a good thesis will still determine and guide the development of the entire essay.

As for the logical flow of the essay, the only advice I can offer is to think about it. Does it really make sense? Does your argument actually have any real pertinence to the claim you are making? If not, then feel free to change it and rewrite it. Yes, this sometimes means having to start from scratch after writing a few pages, but that is all a part of the writing process. A good way to avoid this is simply brainstorming and outlining before you begin writing. Don’t forget that while you are writing to always check to see if what you are saying matches up with the thesis.

In order to avoid having a Fry moment, be sure to give yourself plenty of time to work on the essay, think about what your arguments are carefully, and structure the essay around the almighty thesis statement. These simple little tricks should be adequate in helping you provide structure and logic to your paper.

-Michael