I hope all of you enjoy your free Saturday....but take some time to go through these useful steps to write an essay. As I have told you, writing is a great exercise to practice not only grammar, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation, but also to analyze a topic and put your critical thinking abilities to work.
The structure of an essay mainly consists of three different types of paragraphs:
1. The introductory paragraph which engages the reader's interest and contains the thesis statement, this is the idea you want to write about, for example "A lottery win can lead to feelings of paranoia and guilt".
2. Body paragraphs support the thesis statement. Each of these paragraphs contain a topic sentence and the supporting facts and examples, to support the example idea, we could consider the following topic sentences:
a) Many lottery winners feel useless after they quit their jobs.....
b) Friendships and family relationships often disintegrate after a lottery win....
c) Feelings of guilt are common to the newly rich.....
After each of the topic sentences you describe facts and evidence that support them.
3. The concluding paragraph re-emphasizes the main idea (thesis) and restates the main points of the essay. It brings the essay to a satisfactory close. Does evidence support your thesis statement?
Check the following link, it offers you 10 steps you should follow when writing an essay and it includes other useful information:
http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/
Here is another interesting site which you might want to explore.
http://www2.actden.com/writ_den/tips/essay/
Don't forget WRITE.....WRITE....WRITE you will find you start thinking in English!
