The Body and Conclusion

Introduction

Besides the introduction, the next most important part of the essay is the body itself. This is where the preparation and organization beforehand can make the difference between a persuasive and informative work and a disjointed or confusing one. At the heart of writing, a good body is the humble paragraph. Writing good, cohesive paragraphs that transition well will move the reader forward through the text to the final part of the paper, the conclusion. This lesson will take a closer look at how to create a satisfying conclusion for an essay and at paragraph structure.

The Body. Powered by Paragraphs.

As mentioned previously, the body can best be conceptualized in terms of threes. The thesis statement is generally supported with three main arguments, which in turn are supported by three pieces of evidence each. Of course, the author is free to supply as many arguments and facts as he or she desires, but this may or may not be helpful for the reader's understanding of the thesis.

The old idiom "less is more," while it should be avoided in essay writing, is certainly applicable to essay design. Sometimes, too much information only serves to obfuscate the intent of the writing by providing more details than the reader can readily grasp and assimilate in the space of a short essay.

The means of providing adequate and well organized information is the paragraph. Just as words form sentences, sentences form paragraphs, each one of which should be considered an essay in microcosm. That is, every paragraph should be structured around one idea only. The first sentence introduces the topic to be discussed by the following sentences of the paragraph. This is called a unified paragraph; all of the sentences discuss a single topic.

Here is an example of a very brief, two sentence unified paragraph.

The Ford Motor Company, founded by Henry Ford in the early twentieth century, was the world's first automobile manufacturer. Over the years, the company has changed its designs and changed personnel, but it has always remained one of the premier automakers in the world.

The following example is not unified.

The Ford Motor Company, founded by Henry Ford in the early twentieth century, was the world's first automobile manufacturer. Now many Chevy products are being made by workers in Mexico, which has drawn the ire of many American workers.

The difference is important to note. The second paragraph is not unified and presents a difficult challenge for the reader, which was not present in the first example, namely an abrupt and extreme subject change. While most paragraphs will not suffer from this sort of severe writing problem, even subtle variations in topic can leave the reader feeling that something "is not right," It is important for the writer to stay as tightly focused as possible.

Many of the same techniques used to preplan writing the essay itself can be applied to paragraph writing. "The smooth, logical flow of a paragraph is called paragraph coherence. Write each sentence with the previous one in mind." (Eggenschweiler and Biggs, 2001) The ideas expressed by one sentence should lead naturally and ideally to the next sentence.

Making the paragraphs of the body of an essay "flow" can be achieved through a variety of methods, including using a pronoun whose antecedent is located in the previous sentence, repetition of a key word or phrase, synonyms, ordinal word patterns (first, next, then, finally, and others), as well as transitional words and phrases (such as "for example," "furthermore," "simply put," "otherwise," "however," and so forth.) (Eggenschweiler and Biggs, 2001) Whatever technique the author wishes to use, it is important to reread the paragraph and see if it makes sense and has a sense of graceful transition from one sentence to the next.