Page 102 - 2021-bfw-shea-all-2e

might have four or fourteen, or any other number in between or beyond, depending on
5
the complexity of your argument, and the amount of personal experience you are
including. This is not to say that there are no guidelines at all for how you make your
argument. The body of your essay is the place where you prove the thesis that you
wrote earlier. How you go about organizing the body of your essay is up to you, but here
are a few possibilities, probably in the order of increasing complexity, challenge, and
sophistication:

Changing the World
• Organize by reason: With this approach, you would go through each of your main
reasons for supporting your position, usually starting with your strongest reason and
addressing the main counterargument last. Each reason would be a separate paragraph.
• Organize by counterargument: With this approach, your entire essay is organized
by the arguments against your thesis. In each separate paragraph, you raise an
objection to your claim and refute it.
• Organize by problem and solution: With this approach, you would describe the
problem that your topic raises by documenting your own personal experiences with
the issue and maybe supplementing it with additional sources; then you would offer
a solution to the problem, which is your main claim. You might have one or more
paragraphs about the problem and then an equal number about the proposed solution.

activity Organizing Your Essay
Sketch out an outline that the body of your essay could take. Where will you likely
include your personal experiences? Where will you probably address the
counterarguments, the ideas of those who might think differently about your claim.
Discuss with a partner about why you chose this particular approach and what the
benefits and challenges of this structure might be.

Step 3. Drafting the Essay

At this point in the workshop, you all have all of the pieces in place to begin drafting
your essay. This step will walk you through some of the factors to consider when you
are writing your body paragraphs, as well as ideas to help you with starting and ending
your essay.

Writing Body Paragraphs

In Chapter 4 we introduced a common structure for paragraphs, which we described
with three key terms: Point, Evidence, Commentary (p. 000). Essentially, each of your
body paragraphs will have a topic sentence that identifies a component of your claim
(sometimes at the very beginning of the paragraph, sometimes embedded within it),
86
86
Copyright © Bedford/St. Martin’s. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
Distributed by BFW Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.

sheaall2e_24428_ch05_002_095.indd 86 09/07/20 5:30 PM