An essay outline is one of the most important parts of writing, as it offers the students a chance to organize their work. While this is one of the baselines for writing a good essay, outlines are easily overlooked especially in the class settings, where most of the students only use or indicate their use, whenever the teachers request them to. An outline is a key concept of a successful paper, as it lays out the framework for the ideas to be discussed in the essay.
For the students, there are quite a number of purposes associated with the outline, one of them being, it offers a framework within which the student will discuss their ideas. This means the student is best able to organize their ideas in a manner coherent, with the use of the outline. It is also used as a tool, to brainstorm on the ideas to be included in an essay.
At the start of the essay, developing the outline, leads to the student thinking through and evaluating parts of information they would want to include in the paper and how they are going to be ordered to make sense. Using the outline, it is also possible to establish the weakness that may be found in an essay before writing it. This is relative to the way an outline is used to breakdown an argument into the various ideas. As such, from evaluating the outline, it is easy to see the weakness in the connections. From the outline one is able to establish parts of the essay that do not have supporting evidence and thus revise them accordingly.
At the basic level, the outlines provide writers with element of organizing the ideas that they want to pass across into a coherent text. As such, the student is able to avoid writing of tangents, thus concentrating on what is important and in the right order. Relative to the element of organizing ideas into an easy to follow format, outlines also save time. When writing a paragraph essay, the student is able to concentrate on the ideas important in building the argument or simply passing the relevant information. As such, it not easy for the student to drift off into engaging with information that is not relevant to the paragraph essay they are writing.
A five-paragraph essay is composed of five main paragraphs, which are:
- an introduction,
- three body paragraphs,
- and a conclusion.
The introduction of a paragraph essay offers the readers a thematic overview of what the writer is going to dwell within the essay. The first paragraph offers the readers a narration which brings in more information on what it is that the writer is going to be discussing. This means, the first paragraph mainly dwells on literature background of the topic to be discussed in the paragraph essay. The second paragraph on the other hand proved the affirmation of the thesis statement found at the end of the introductory paragraph.
The third paragraph, then offers the readers a negation from the thesis statement. as such, it is in this paragraph the writer introduces some of the relevant information that opposes the thesis statement, through refuting or raising concerns. The last paragraph of the paragraph essay is a conclusion. This offers a summary of the argument and ties this to the thesis statement, the argument and the much larger issues.
Structure of a five-paragraph essay
The structure of a five-paragraph essay is a unique model of presenting an argument. In which case the writer introduces an argument, after which they formulate a thesis statement. Using the first body paragraph, the writer brings out the general information about what it is they want to discuss, in the second paragraph the writer supports the thesis statement. In the third paragraph, the writer then provides the negation from the thesis statement.
This is a paragraph that the writer uses to bring out the opposing views presented towards the idea they are discussing. In the conclusion, the writer is able to summarize their ideas and argument and relate them to the thesis statement. In an example, the use of electric cars can be associated with reducing environmental degradation. The introduction will give information and statistics on clean energy along with developments in the electric cars industry.
The first paragraph will also give some general information about the way electric cars can reduce pollution. In the second paragraph, the writer will have the chance to support their views and then the third paragraph will be used to review the opposing views on electric cars and pollution. This is a paragraph that will point to the various ways electric cars will harm the environment or simply refute, electric cars will reduce pollution. In the conclusion, the writer then discusses the ways electric cars will reduce pollution despite the opposing views and bring the five-paragraph essay to a close.
Writing a 5 Paragraph Essay Structure
There are two main methods of writing a paragraph essay outline, one of them is through the tradition methods of using a pen and a paper. Using a pen and paper, the writer has the freedom of brain storming on the best topics and subtopics to be included when writing the paragraph essay. The writer can write as many outlines as possible until they are able to come up with the best fitting the essay. This is however limited to the fact that, it includes the tedious work of using an eraser or starting all over again if the five-paragraph essay outline does not fit.
The other method includes the use of outlining software. There is numerous software which assist students to develop their outlines when writing paragraph essays. Some of the software includes:
- Microsoft OneNote
- Omnioutliner
- Microsoft word
- Org-Mode
- and FreeMind
These offer the student a chance to write their outline, with a chance to make corrections and update the outlines whenever they want to. These also offer the flexibility that the pen and paper method cannot offer the student. There are options to save the progress of the outline, share the outlines. Using the software, the writer is able to make changes where possible with much more ease, which further boosts productivity.
Outline for a 5 Paragraph Argumentative Essay
Introduction
- The hook
- Background
- Thesis statement
First paragraph (introduces the topic)
- Claim, topic sentence
- Evidences a
- Evidence b
- Evidence c
- Transition
Second paragraph (introduces the argument)
- Claim, topic sentence
- Evidences a
- Evidence b
- Evidence c
- Transition
Third paragraph (brings out the counter argument)
- Claim, topic sentence
- Evidences a
- Evidence b
- Evidence c
- Transition
Conclusion (the writer summarizes the main points that support the argument and tie to the thesis statement)
Outline for a 5 Paragraph Persuasive Essay
Introduction
- Hook
- Arguments
- Thesis statement
Body paragraph one
- First argument
- Supporting evidence
- Transition
Body paragraph two
- Second argument
- Supporting evidence
- Transition
Body paragraph three
- Third argument
- Supporting evidence
- Transition
Conclusion
- Summary of the main points
- Restating the thesis statement
- Making a closing statement
If you’re looking for expert assistance, consider using a buy essay writing service to help you create a well-structured five-paragraph essay with ease.