Writing a Five Paragraph Essay

Writing a Five Paragraph EssayThere are two ways to go about writing a five paragraph essay. One is to use the entire five-paragraph space in writing an essay, and the other is to break up the essay into different paragraphs. Which style you decide on will ultimately depend on your specific needs and the structure of your essay.What I think many people don't realize is that writing an essay is not like writing a novel or a short story. An essay has the same structure as any other long piece of written work. You can break an essay up into separate paragraphs, but the first two paragraphs still constitute the bulk of the piece. Each paragraph then becomes the focus of the piece.When writing a five paragraph essay, the essay should begin with a prologue. In a formal essay, this could be a single sentence. But in a conversation essay, it can be as brief as a line, and as long as two sentences or so. The point is that you know exactly what the readers are getting into before you open your mouth.The first paragraph contains an introduction. The introduction is the introduction to the piece. The idea or theme of the essay is introduced and your reader knows exactly what he or she is getting into. Make sure your essay contains a single sentence or so introducing the subject matter.The second paragraph is normally very close to the first. It contains a summary of the subject matter and the major points of the piece. In writing this paragraph, you should be using several different styles, such as dialogue, description, or trivia. The general purpose is to explain and demonstrate your idea.The third paragraph is usually very brief. But it is usually designed to answer a question. If your reader asks 'what is my thesis,' then the answer is in the second paragraph. If the answer is simply 'the way we live now is outdated,' then in the third paragraph it will tell you why. But if you explain why the way we live now is outdated, you can even provide a thesis statement, if you want.The fourth paragraph is probably the longest of the five paragraphs. It goes into detail about a single idea. It's intended to provide support for a point or thesis statement from the first paragraph. You might even have a chapter or two built around your single idea.Finally, the fifth paragraph, which is often the last paragraph of the piece, is where you go into a little more detail about that single idea you introduced in the first paragraph. It usually goes into a short anecdote, example, quote, or case study. In this final paragraph, you usually provide a conclusion that helps support your argument.