The Foremost Thing You Should Know About How To Structure An Essay

Structuring is a process of proper organization of any text. The better structure your text has – the more chances of better results you have for this assignment. The skill of making a good organization will help you not only in the course of your studies but also further during your career pass. This skill signifies your professional approach and the ability to organize thoughts effectively.

Still, to create a proper structure for the future text, you should keep in mind many things. We will guide you to explore such.

Pre-structuring Stage of Writing

Any good scheme for a text emerges from your clarity about the content of your future text. So, before developing the scheme of a future text, you should decide clearly what ideas you want to reflect in a ready paper. This brainstorming should be done simultaneously or after you have researched a topic but before your writing. 

We suggest you not to neglect this stage. If you do so, you risk wasting your time further. When you get the first draft of your paper, it can appear deficient, among others, due to the poor structuring.

So, you should think thoroughly about the main idea of your writing and its thesis statement. It will form the basis of the future structure. This is related not only to the direct formulation at the beginning of your text. This statement will also determine all subsequent content of an essay and its structure, respectively.

When you have the principal statement with the main idea you want to bring to the reader’s attention, list all other suggestions. These sentences should explore the main idea and be logically related to each other. When you only preliminary outline the scheme of an essay, don’t focus too much on organizing thoughts. This may restrain you. Just list freely all logically-related statements. Still, such should be coherent with your initial thesis statement.

It is also wise to mark certain ideas you consider as appropriate but don’t know how to include your text at the moment. They may be valuable and, perhaps, you will find a way how to describe such later. Still, in the course of structuring, these auxiliary ideas may distract you. So, you should list all ideas you have, highlight those that will form the future structure, and mark other ideas that will be used for extra inspiration. When you have outlined all ideas, start organizing them.

To arrange these sentences, you may use a separate paper or special tools, like mindmaps. If you prefer a paper form, simply draw a scheme where the first will be your principal statement and, afterward, indicate all other statements. Build it like a tree of ideas. This approach will ensure all important ideas are fixed. Still, using a paper has one deficiency. You will likely need to redraft this scheme at all if you want to change something. Mind maping can solve this problem. Such tools are interactive and enable you to build your trees of ideas and amend such at any time. Reassure that all-important points are included in the scheme of a text. Then, start working on it more precisely.

Classical approach for structuring an essay

We have for you one tested approach to structuring. It is easy, convenient, and generally acceptable. Still, at this point, you should be aware of the content each part should have to organize all ideas properly. Here is what kind of structure we suggest you rely on:

Introduction 

Draft this part of a text nearly perfectly. This is important because any reader decides exactly at the beginning of how much time he/she is ready to devote to this text. This is the specifics of our brain. You cannot do anything with that. But, you can consider this peculiarity. So, make your draft 100 % to the point. Include there a good hook with interesting info about the subject. This can be a controversial statement, a part of related statistics data, and similar things that sound unusual and can interest your reader from the first lines. Also, make sure you have prepared a good transition to the principal statement of a text. Yes, this hook should be related to your statement. The next thing to ensure is a transition sentence to the first paragraph of a text. Generally speaking, your task in this part is helping your reviewer to form a good impression and interest in the subject of your drafting. Reaffirm also at this point that it is easy to understand from your introduction what this text will be about. So, here is your checklist for the introduction:

• interest the future reviewer from the first words;
• overview your main opinion and form the context of subsequent drafting;
• show from the nearly start that you have prepared a lot of logical and careful work;
• pass smoothly to the subsequent part of a text;
• write in a manner that will make your reader keep his/her interest (concisely, to the point, and intriguing a little bit).

Yes, emphasize especially this part of an essay. It is very important in the course of drafting.

The Main Part of an Essay 

This part is the longest one and usually comprises of 3 smaller parts. It is important to write in a manner ensuring that all such paragraphs are interrelated with each other. They should also align with the expressed first thesis statement. To ensure this, here is one exercise for checking yourself. If you keep in mind that one imaginary line connects all parts of the body of a text, you can make the overall drafting easier and more effective. It is always better to devote the first paragraphs to the strongest ideas and the subsequent – to the less strong. 

For drafting each paragraph of your text, you can apply various approaches:

1. Place an argument at the beginning of a paragraph and expand it then. Indicate pieces of evidence supporting this statement. Put the transition sentence to the next part of a text.
2. Place the transition phrase that links this paragraph with the previous one. Indicate the argument you want to speak about in this part. Describe your point of view along with indicating pieces of evidence.
3. Make your assumption. Describe such, indicate supporting pieces of evidence, and write the already reaffirmed statement of a paragraph (previously, it has been expressed as your assumption).

For a short piece of writing and beginners, suggest you apply the first approach. Make sure your ready writing complies with this short checklist:

• one paragraph expands one idea only;
• coherent paragraphs;
• logical transitions from one point to another;
• concise text; 
• informative content;
• the main idea of drafting is expressed maximally.

Conclusion

This last part of a text should summarize the previous content. It should appear as already reaffirmed. In this part, avoid indicating any new points. If you have got some fresh and strong ideas, think about how to rewrite some previous parts of a text to include them smoothly.

Here is your checklist for drafting the conclusion of a text:

• related and linked to the previous part of your text;
• restates and reaffirms previous content;
• brief and strong;
• contains a good closing sentence;
• if applicable, describes the practical application of findings in the field.

Final words

Structuring is essential for the effective drafting of any kind of essay. You may simply follow the classical approach of dividing your content into three logically related parts: its intro, the main body of a text, and the conclusion of an essay. Make sure all these parts are logically and smoothly connected. For achieving this, imagine a line connecting these parts. Make sure your content is to the point in any part of an essay.