Outline for a Five-Paragraph Essay – Simple Guide

Without too much embellishment, we can say that the essay is the most challenging task for any student. Surely you are worried about the question of how you can correctly express your point of view in an essay, find logical arguments, and organically enter them, come up with examples? It is essential to adhere to this logic and not admit any spelling, stylistic, punctuation errors, not to go beyond a certain number of words. To answer all these questions, we posted an article about 5 paragraph essay outline and secrets to improve your writing skills.

Evaluation Criteria Essays

The teacher will evaluate your essay according to the following criteria:

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1. The solution to a communication problem.
2. Organization of the text.
3. Vocabulary.
4. Grammar.
5. Spelling and punctuation.

Before you learn about each paragraph of an essay and how to achieve excellence in writing, let’s immediately determine the document’s volume. Such a criterion as the volume is essential because you need to fit five paragraphs and, at the same time, not go beyond the limited word limit. Many educational institutions establish the volume in the range of 200-300 words. But it is not necessary to take these criteria so literally.

If you wrote 199 words, then this is acceptable, but if the teacher counts only 150 words in your text, you will not be graded. If your text exceeds the limit of over 300 words, then perhaps the teacher will read only the specified volume, and the teacher will not appreciate your efforts. Therefore, you must remember that it is better to write within the set number. No more, no less.

The Content and Structure of the Essay

First of all, you must understand that your text must correspond to the specified topic or requirements in the assignment already invented by the teacher. Your essay should be divided into paragraphs and follow the outline. To make your text look structured, you should spend an hour or more thinking about the plan. Then, based on the plan, find arguments, examples, sources of information. Behind the classic outline, your essay should contain five paragraphs.

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What Is a 5 Paragraph Essay?

Paragraphic division of the text is one of the essential conditions when writing an essay. You start a new paragraph when a new thought follows, such as a new argument. That is, if you give two different arguments in the central part: one from the text, the other from life, or two examples from the text, but different in micro themes, the essay will have the following structure:

• paragraph – thesis, comment;
• paragraph – the first argument, an example from the text;
• paragraph – the second argument, an example from the text or life;
• paragraph – discussion;
• paragraph – conclusion.

Popular Types of 5 Paragraph Essay

Unlike many other types of work, an essay is a piece of fiction. Generally speaking, all essays can be divided into two types: written at will and written as needed. The second type is when the essay is written on the instructions of the teacher. Then the student is confined to some framework in form and content. But regardless of these two types, all essays are divided according to other criteria:

1. Analytical essays. It doesn’t matter if your teacher asked you to write such an essay or decide that this direction is interesting to you. You cannot do without some creation or phenomenon. In the course of work, you also need critical thinking and the ability to find common and different features between the analyzed objects. The essay structure is simple: first, you introduce the subject of research, ask a question or thesis, then develop your thought, and assess the situation. The student must compose the thesis so that it helps you analyze the selected object and does not look like a separate sentence. In conclusion, it is enough to make arguments in favor of your opinion.
2. Critical essay. People developed this direction for the student to learn to evaluate someone else’s work. To be objective when evaluating a subject or an art, it is necessary to find both strengths and weaknesses. Or compare the two authors and what methods they used to create the work. It is better to start an essay with an introduction to introduce the reader to the object under study. You can also tell the meaning of creating the work and what the author wanted to say to the public. The student needs to analyze many evaluative elements and then explain how the work has influenced you.
3. Essay argumentation. The primary purpose of such an essay is to prove that you have an opinion on any direction, and it has a place to be. It will also help to apply the persuasion skill to this type of essay. That is, to convince the reader that your statement is true and worth listening to. Initially, in the text, you need to write your statement on the topic, and then use arguments and evidence to convince the reader to think about the question posed.
4. Essay definition. In this direction, the student needs to describe a phenomenon or object so that the reader can understand whether it is worth watching a movie or reading a book. That is, your task is to reveal the subject of research from different sides. In the first paragraph, you need to come up with a thesis and acquaint the reader with the research object, then describe in detail all the elements of the subject, content, etc. The final paragraph should contain a call to action.
5. Essay storytelling. This writing style gives the student complete freedom to express their thoughts. The student’s task is to inform, entertain, show, tell about everything the student wants. The reader should be interested in your story and see your style, tone of writing. This is to make you stand out from other writers. In such an essay, the reader wants to see a specific conflict, vivid characters, an exciting plot, an unpredictable ending. The more actively you tell the story, the more you will be remembered by your audience of readers.

Outline – Why Do You Need It?

The first thing to do when preparing to write an article or essay is to draw up an outline. You can improvise and write whatever comes to mind, but this will make it difficult for readers to understand the text and reduce your ideas’ accuracy. A structured message is much stronger and more reasoned than a continuous stream of consciousness.

The plan helps not only the author but also the reader. Thanks to the exact structure, it is easy to navigate the content, which means that the perception of information is much more comfortable. An essay outline is a list of main thoughts, arranged in a sequence that reflects the text’s logic. To draw up a plan, the entire text must be divided into micro themes, each of which is united by a particular thought and has logical completeness.

First Paragraph – Introduction

The essay contains an introduction like any other written work. When creating the first paragraph, the writer’s task is to arouse the reader’s interest in the text and hook with phrases so that your text is read to the end. In the first paragraph, it is necessary to outline the topic’s essence briefly, find a quote, or develop a thesis. Make it a goal to present the topic emotionally and vividly.

The introduction should include a summary of your understanding and approach to answering the question. It is beneficial to cover both what you intend to do in the essay and what will not be included in your essay and provide brief definitions of key terms. For example: “By gender relations, I mean the following …” However, try to keep the number of short definitions to a minimum so that it does not sound like a dictionary.

Second Paragraph – Body

Different positions on the central problem are considered and proved here. The main body consists of several paragraphs. The central part contains three paragraphs, and each of them has its purpose: thesis, argumentation, discussion. Your text content depends on how well you manage to find the arguments. If you are an aspiring essay writer, you must learn to convince the reader of the truth of the point of view and prove your position. For your words to look believable, you need to use authoritative statements, lead examples from literature or life.

Third Paragraph – Determining Your Position on the Statement

Here you can agree with the author completely, and you can partially refute a certain part of the statement or argue with the author, expressing the opposite opinion. Next, you need to reveal the meaning of the statement.

Fourth Paragraph – Argumentation

This part assumes the development of your argumentation and analysis and justification of them, based on the available data, other arguments, and positions on this issue. This is the main content of your essay, and this presents the main difficulty. It is for these purposes that subheadings are essential, based on which your argumentation is structured. This is where you must substantiate your proposed argumentation. The student should do the reasoning at two levels:

1. Theoretical level – it is based on social science knowledge: concepts, terms, contradictions, directions of scientific thought, relationships, and opinions of scientists, thinkers.
2. Here, empirical level, two options are possible: using examples from history, literature, and events in society; appeal to personal experience.

Fifth Paragraph – Conclusion

The final part of the essay may include a summary of your main arguments, but try to keep it very short. The conclusion may contain such an essential element, complementary to the essay, as an indication of your research application, not excluding the relationship with other problems. Final sentences need to add integrity to the whole picture, make the reader want to reflect on what he read.

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