Expository Essay Body Paragraph Structure Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

write the body paragraphs

in the body of the essay, all the preparation up to this point comes to fruition. Each main idea that you wrote down in your diagram or outline will become one of the body paragraphs. If you had three or four main ideas, you will have three or four body paragraphs.

each body paragraph will have the same basic structure.

    start by writing down one of your main ideas, in sentence form.
if your main idea is reduces freeway congestion, you might say this: public transportation reduces freeway congestion. Next, write down each of your supporting points for that main idea, but leave four or five lines in between each point. Supporting point commuters appreciate the cost savings of taking public transportation rather than driving.

Elaboration less driving time means less maintenance expense, such as oil changes. In many cases, these savings amount to more than the cost of riding public transportation. This is not generally needed, however, and such sentences have a tendency to sound stilted, so be cautious about using them. once you have fleshed out each of your body paragraphs, one for each main point, you are ready to continue. in this lesson: on the written portion of the toefl, you will be asked to write an essay that is more than one paragraph long. Academic culture, essays need to be several paragraphs long in order for students to express their ideas clearly and for instructors to determine whether or not students understand the material.

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Knowing how to organize your ideas in such long essays is very important for academic success. Also, the basic structure of each of these paragraphs is the same as that which we have already studied. Academic essay can be divided into three basic kinds: 1 the introductory paragraph, 2 the body paragraphs, and 3 the concluding paragraph. the first paragraph of the academic essay is the one that is usually the most different from the basic paragraph that we have studied. In lessons 1 and 2, we saw that a basic paragraph had a topic sentence as its first sentence, followed by supporting sentences with supporting details, and these sometimes followed by a concluding sentence. In the multi paragraph academic essay, however, the structure is a little different. Like the basic paragraph, the introductory paragraph opens with a very general statement about the topic, and is often followed by some supporting examples, but the paragraph then finishes with a narrow statement about the topic. This narrow statement is called the main thesis. here is a short example of an introductory paragraph: throughout human history, the physical universe has often presented dangers to explorers.

For example, when primitive humans left their tribal villages to search for food and water, they risked death or injury from dangerous animals. Later, when people sailed the oceans in search of new lands for settlement or trade, many died in terrible storms. similarly, the ocean of outer space has many dangers, but it also has several unique challenges for explorers. notice how the first sentence, throughout human history, nature has often presented dangers to explorers, is a very general statment about the topic, which is dangers in exploration. However, the third sentence of the paragraph gives an example that contrasts in some way with the previous two sentences.

Then, the final sentence does something new: it introduces a specific example of the general topic. this specific topic is the main thesis of the entire essay that is, the rest of the essay will focus on this specific topic, which in this case is several unique challenges for explorers. this main thesis functions like the topic sentence of the basic paragraph, which we have studied in lessons 1 and 2. it is the most important sentence of the essay. notice how the main thesis is worded. It includes the phrase, several unique chalenges. this raises a question in the reader's mind, namely: what are these challenges? the reader will find out what some of the challenges are in the body of the essay, which we will study next.

Typically, it has three paragraphs, but it might have two paragraphs and of course it can have many more than three. Each of these paragraphs usually has a topic sentence and several supporting sentences, just like the basic paragraph we have studied. Here is an example of three body paragraphs which together continue the essay that we have started studying above: one of the challenges that is unique to space is the fact that space is a vacuum, which is a risk for various reasons.