As we work on drafting essays, we’re also developing our basic writing skills, so here are some paragraphing tips to make this more explicit. Dunleavy’s Medium article explains aspects of organizing paragraphs as well. The tips below will help you improve your transitions, reduce wordiness, and so on. In addition to Dunleavy’s recommendations, here are some exercises to try as you draft revise your final essay:
Concision. Pick ~5 sentences that you find particularly repetitive or wordy and practice choosing the best possible word(s) to condense that sentence. For example:
Due to the fact that → Because
In order to → To
I came to realize → I realized
In the event that → If
During the course of → During
Regardless of the fact that → Although
For the simple reason that → Because
More examples can be found here, at the Writing Clear & Concise Sentences page at UIS, along with ways to cut repetition, omit unnecessary adverbs, and so on.
Transition Sentences. You’ll want to avoid “listing” when paragraphing your ideas—that is, where you start each paragraph with “Another” or “One more” or “An example” instead of demonstrating a clear and necessary connection back to your claim. Use the first sentences of each paragraph to convey to your reader the “sub-claim” of that paragraph, the smaller idea you’re trying to get across and how it relates back to your claim and/or to the previous paragraph. If the paragraph introduces a secondary source, that first sentence should tell me all the important citational context (e.g., author name, article title, article argument, maybe even the field that the author works in). If you were to take the first sentence of each paragraph and make an outline, that outline should form a quick blueprint of your essay (minus the details and analytical work, of course). You may want to try this outline to see if your transition sentences work for you.
Organization. To go with the above, UNC has this handout on how to reorganize your drafts, including the says/does reverse outlining we’ve been doing all semester and other strategies like listing and visualizing.
Sample Student Essays. Rely on what others have done! We’ll be reading two sample student essays in this course but there are tons of examples at The Morningside Review, the journal of student writing published by the Undergraduate Writing Program. If the organization, structure, and style of source incorporation is working in a sample student essay, don’t be afraid to use that skeleton and outfit it with your words, your voice, your particular study.
Don’t be afraid to Google! Meaning, if you’re not sure a group of words sounds right together, Google it in quotes to see if it’s commonly used (e.g., “WORD WORD WORD”). If you don’t know an author’s field of research, Google them to find out. If you don’t know an author’s pronouns, Google it. If you don’t understand a certain phrase in a secondary source, Google it to see how it’s used elsewhere. If you don’t know the year of publication of a source, Google it.
Essay Length. As always, the word lengths are guidelines, not hard requirements, but they do indicate that most successful essays take at minimum that long for a student to thoroughly satisfy the assignment parameters. Plan accordingly.
Works Cited. Refer to Purdue OWL for information on how to correctly cite your sources, in-text and at the end of your paper. You never need to memorize these rules—just know where to find good guidance, and keep that guide handy.
