Why Should Anybody Care?

In this chapter, Lunsford details the planning and drafting process for a writer to organize their ideas with either a formal outline or a rough plan. Lunsford reminds writers to be flexible during the drafting process and not to think twice about changing elements of the essay at this point in the process. Lunsford goes on to explain the qualities academic paragraphs must have these include unity, development and coherence. To obtain unity within a paragraph all sentences should relate to the topic sentence of the paragraph. When developing a paragraph it is important to switch between general and specific ideas in the paragraph, while supporting those ideas with details, evidence and examples as required. Ensuring a paragraph is coherent is crucial when developing an academic paragraph. Because readers need to be able to follow a writers ideas easily, Lunsford gives her readers a method to follow to achieve this goal. This method includes using the general to specific ideas, repetition, parallel structures, and using transition words. The author notes that this method should also be used to link paragraphs

Be sure to begin with a strong hook and include a thesis statement that lays out your main argument, supporting details, and a good conclusion.

The Little Seagull Handbook, by Richard Bullock, Michal Brody, and Francine Weinberg, is a book full of advice on the writing process. The book is divided up into sections which help’s students to easily find the topic they are searching for. Section W-4e on opening and closing paragraphs was used to improve my conclusions. I do not have a lot of trouble with conclusions, but I feel that mine do not fit as smoothly into my essays as they should. Therefore I decided that I needed to improve my conclusions. The section lists out several tactics to form a conclusion, such as, summarizing the essay, discussing implication of the essay’s argument, and giving a call to some kind of action. Reading the section has given me several ideas for how to end an essay. Now I can either plan which tactic to use ahead of time or

1. Paragraph One - Introduction (include a lead/hook, set the context for the essay, give the three main ideas, thesis statement is last sentence)

You do not need to write whole paragraphs for any of the below sections. You simply need to write complete sentences that show the basic outline of your essay. Doing this will give you a guide when writing your rough draft.

To wrap up an idea/ give final thoughts and explain the reason for the essay

3. The paper must end with a short paragraph that states a conclusion. The conclusion and thesis must be consistent.

As my ninth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Newton would say, without a good hook to start your essay, no one will ever read it. As I was taught, a hook is a crucial part in your essay because it will help grab the audience’s attention so that they will continue to be invested throughout the paper. For example, the hook could be a question or a quote about the overall topic of your essay. In my junior year, we had to do a controversial essay and I used a quote from a famous tattoo artist as my hook because I did my essay over tattoos and piercings. After the hook, the introduction begins to take form and show the audience what your essay is about. The introduction is the first thing in your essay that will tell the audience what the essay is about. The introduction paragraph should be as interesting as the initial hook and keep the audience invested in the paper. It will establish the basis of the essay and should contain the thesis statement. The thesis statement is the point in your essay where you will state the topics that the essay will contain. In high school, we were taught that the thesis should contain the three points that you will elaborate upon in your three body paragraphs: the weakest point, the middle point, and the strongest point.

The introduction of the essay must clearly focus on a thesis (an “I say”), and the body of the essay must have clear and specific examples to develop supporting points.

Conclusion 1. Restate the main points: remind you topics covered

“ In writing your thesis statement you need to think about your final paper. What is it really that you will be talking about? You need to summarize those four points that will make up the body paper”

Pin the last sentence. When the title and paragraphs you make your readers read your essay then the last sentence make the reader remember you. When a gymnast doing a balance beam routine exercise but failed on landing, then people will forget about the routine. The gymnast must "concentrate on landing," as well as the author of the

Conclusion (rephrase and restate your own words; summarize all of your ideas; convey a sense of finality)

I think the fifth to eight paragraphs are the most significant because the thesis of the

Third but not least, the conclusion provides an almost mirror image of the introduction, wrapping up the arguments with a restatement of the thesis of your essay. I call this the bottom burger bun or in other words the conclusion. Holding it all together is the bottom bun of the hamburger or the conclusion to sum up all the key points of interest. The conclusion sentence should be interesting by giving it a call to action. As you can see a hamburger is easy to make like writing is not as hard as you think. Writing is very simple to do as preparing a hamburger.