(Make sure you have written sentences that correspond to each section of your outline)
- Beginning
- Reach out to your audience (engaging hook)
- Prepare your audience (relevant background)
- Preview your argument (interrelated stages)
- Thesis statement (topic and position)
- Middle (look at each paragraph)
- Topic sentence (main idea of paragraph)
- Supporting details (concrete evidence)
- Closing statement (demonstrate proof)
- Ending
- Explain importance (why thesis matters)
- New information (extend the discussion)
- Final comments (satisfy the reader)
- Counter-argument paragraph (if used)
- Statement of the opinion that differs from yours.
- How or why this opinion makes sense.
- Rebuttal of this opinion.
- Put a * by your thesis, each topic sentence in the middle, and the first sentence of the end.
- The logical progression of these sentences should be an orderly thought process.
- Make sure your thesis clearly and directly focuses your topic and states your position.
- Make sure your stages are not three unrelated ideas but sequential steps in ONE argument.
- Make sure the last sentence of each middle paragraph DOES NOT bring up the topic of the next paragraph.
- From beginning to end, your essay should be persuasive, not a summary of events or facts.
- Make sure that each of your paragraphs is the same length.
- Sitting in the Stands: Disappointment on Graduation Day
- Telling the Boss Off: How I Learned to Stand Up to a Tyrant
- Lower Test Scores: How No Child Left Behind Leaves Every Child Behind
- Turning Our Backs on Spirit: A Defense of Senior Class Disrespect
- Let them Fight to the End: An Alternative to Our Present Form of Capital Punishment
- Keep Them Off the Roads: How to Improve DUI Law Enforcement
