Structure: Dividing up the Proof - Wesley's Roadmap

At every level of an academic essay—the sentence, the paragraph, the entire sequence of paragraphs—the development of your ideas has to be carefully orchestrated. Every part of your argument should be structured so that it unfolds in a logical, coherent manner, even as the essay is constantly incorporating new material. The first two tutorials in this series will help you structure your writing with paragraphs unified by topic sentences and linked together with bridge sentences. The last three tutorials address the sequencing of your paragraphs in the essay as a whole, on the premise that the argument you’re making will dictate the structure you devise. These videos deal with how to put first things first in your essay, how to sustain forward momentum, and how to complicate your thinking in order to enrich your argument. Selected paragraph exercises follow the five tutorials on essay structure, as do handouts on how to map the idea structure of an essay and how to revise a completed essay draft.