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ESSAY EQUATION

  • An essay is a proof, not unlike geometry. The thesis is the "if," the conclusion is the "then," the points are the axioms you use to get from"If" to "then." Always put the thesis first, because the instructor has no Trouble finding it there. The instructor's opinion of your writing will be very low if it takes too long to identify the thesis.
  • An essay has three points. Two points are not enough, only being enough to establish this point as opposed to that one. Four points is too many for the reader to hold them all in mind by the time you reach the conclusion. Each point can be divided into sub-points, but the essay can only grow exponentially, and no point can be larger than any other.
  • Every concrete statement must be backed up by some piece of evidence. The relevance of each piece of evidence must be explicitly stated immediately following the evidence itself, whether or not that relevance seems obvious to you. Readers must not be allowed to interpret your evidence differently than you do. If they do, they can come to different conclusions than yours, thus defeating the purpose of the essay in the first place. You can, in the essay, tell your reader what your evidence means.
  • You must transition between all paragraphs of the essay. The transition sentence only needs to contain keywords from the previous point and the following point. Amazingly, this always works, whether or not the transition sentence actually bridges the ideas.
  • Unlike the sciences, the conclusion is not a summary of what you have proved and what it adds up to, but what the things you have proved mean to the thesis and the further statement that meaning allows you to make. If you want to base a paper on your opinion, you must right the conclusion first and then construct the proofs that support and validate your opinion. This is very difficult, and except in this instance, your opinion is irrelevant to the proof.
  • The template of the essay is as follows:

      Introduction:
    1. Thesis sentence
    2. Explanation of thesis (usually a compound sentence)
    3. Thesis sentence from point 1
    4. Thesis sentence from point 2
    5. Thesis sentence from point 3
    6. Transition to point 1

      Point One:
    1. Point one thesis
    2. Explanation of thesis
    3. Textual evidence, statistic, or quote
    4. Explanation of relevance of evidence to point or main thesis
    5. Transition to point two

    Point Two: (Same as Point One, only point two thesis and transition to point three)
    Point Three: (Same as Point One, only point three thesis and transition to conclusion

    Conclusion

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