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Using the information from this section of the Excelsior OWL on developing a clear structure for a college essay, our student has now established a plan for her essay and has created a visual to help illustrate what her final essay will look like. In the video, she discusses her introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.
After reviewing the pages on essay structure in the Online Writing Lab, I made a plan for my essay using the “traditional” essay structure with an introduction, body paragraphs with topic sentences related to my thesis, and a conclusion. The only thing that was different for me was that I had a lot more than three body paragraphs for my body. Since my essay has to be 4 to 6 pages in length, I needed to make a plan for more topic sentences. Still, the traditional structure still works very well. I just expanded on the number of body paragraphs, which everyone has to do sometimes.
Here, I modeled the sample in the Online Writing Lab to help me make a good plan and to help me visualize that plan as I draft my essay.