Advice from Michael: Tips on Starting an Essay

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Lately, I have had several students come in with no idea where to start on an assignment. Sometimes this is a result of never writing a proper academic essay in high school, and at other times they simply have always had trouble starting an essay. To help them, I always start off with the same basic advice: remember the five paragraph essay structure.

The five paragraph essay structure will not always be helpful in college writing since you will sometimes need significantly larger or shorter essays, but it is an easy way to begin developing organized thoughts. For the intro, consider what the overarching issue that is being addressed and then try narrowing that issue down into the specific thesis statement you will be arguing. Then figure out three arguments that can be made for what you want to say, and treat that as the body paragraphs. Be sure to include these arguments in the thesis statement. Finally, conclude everything, and be sure to restate the thesis without adding new information in the conclusion.

Once you get at least part of this information down, then start writing. You don’t even have to start at the intro. You can begin with one of the body paragraphs if you prefer, but getting the words and ideas down on paper tends to help the students I’ve worked with gain a stronger grasp of what they are trying to argue, and how they can argue it. As you continue along this path, the essay structure can change to include more or less paragraphs or arguments as it becomes apparent to the writer. More advice on paragraph structure and how to structure an essay can be found on the Writing Center’s online resources under “Composition and Writing in the Disciplines” at this link. However, the key to all of this is to simply trust yourself enough to start writing. Once the words start falling on the page then everything will start to get easier.

Hang in there. You’ll get it done eventually.

-Michael

Tessa on Thesis Statements

During my time at The Writing Center I’ve noticed that students often struggle with creating, understanding, and identifying thesis statements. In fact, this was once a challenge for me early in my academic career. Your thesis statement is the most important part of your paper, and identifying your thesis makes the writing process much easier. First, let’s answer the question: What is a thesis statement? Basically, the thesis states your claim or your reason for writing the paper. For example, if I was writing a paper on the benefits of a university writing center my thesis might look like this:

University writing centers offer many benefits to the student body, faculty, and the university as a whole. 

What I’ve done here is prepare my audience (the reader) for my paper. I’ve told my reader what my paper will be about and what to expect. But I’ve also obligated myself to fulfill this promise. By making this promise to the reader, I hold myself accountable to write my paper in a way that fulfills the reader’s expectations. 

Keeping my thesis in mind helps me stay focused when I write my paper. In my thesis statement, I claim that a university writing center is beneficial for students, faculty, and the whole university, so I need to make sure I address all three of my claims in the paper. One way I could to do this is by developing a paragraph for each topic: how the university writing center benefits students, how it benefits faculty, and how it benefits the entire university. By doing this, my thesis is supported by the body of my essay, and I fulfill my promise to the reader. 

Once you understand what a thesis statement is, you can better understand its mini-me, the topic sentence. The topic sentence does for the paragraph what the thesis statement does for the essay. So, for my paper on the benefits of a university writing center my topic sentence for the first body paragraph might be:

Students in all majors and disciplines and at any level of writing confidence can benefit by visiting the university’s writing center. 

This topic sentence tells my reader that this paragraph is about the ways in which students benefit from university writing centers. As writers, what we are trying to say might make sense in our head, or even when we read our paper, but it’s important to remember that our readers might need a little direction. By developing a clear thesis statement and topic sentences, we help readers understand where the paper is going, much like road signs help us navigate the road. 

For more tips on writing a thesis statement, check out the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

-Tessa