TRANSCRIPT: Drafting Introductions, Body Paragraphs & Conclusions

Speaker: Stewart Erlich

Drafting Introductions, Body Paragraphs & Conclusions 

STEWART ERLICH: My name is Stewart Erlich. I have a bachelor's degree in English and a master's degree in English education. I've been teaching composition, writing, and reading at the post-secondary level for over 20 years.

My philosophy about reading and writing is that they are essential practices of communication and that we all can and should work to improve our ability to read and write—no matter what our level of experience or education—because we all have unique ideas and insights to share. And being able to share them with precision and clarity leads to better communication, better opportunities, better relationships, and better lives.

If you're starting an essay in the drafting stage—you're at the computer and you're starting to type before you've done anything—I'm going to suggest that you don't do that, and that you spend some more time getting your ideas together. I'm also going to suggest that by this point, you have sort of a working thesis—a working point—that you're going to use to organize your essay.

Once you've gotten all that stuff together, we can talk about drafting. And that's what we're going to do today.

When we get to drafting an essay, there are two ways to think about it. One is that the most important part of the essay is sort of the meat, the stuff in the middle—and that's what we're going to call the body of the essay. And then the other part we'll talk about is the frame of the essay—the stuff that goes at the beginning and at the end—so the reader has a sense of how to get in and how to get out of your idea.

So that’s what we’ll begin with. We’ll begin with the body of the essay. We’ll start in the middle because that’s the most important part.

When we talk about the body of the essay, the most important thing to remember is that the whole reason to write a paper is to support a point—to support a thesis. So when we look at the body of an essay, it’s important to think about how we can write paragraphs that support the thesis, that support the point you’re trying to make. Anything that doesn’t support your thesis probably doesn’t belong in the body paragraphs.

As you think about how to organize the body of your essay, and how to organize each paragraph that will be in the middle of the paper—in the meat of your essay—what I’d like you to think about is:

How do these paragraphs support the point you’re trying to make?

That’s regardless of whether you’re writing a narrative, telling a story, writing an argumentative essay, or an informative one. Regardless of the point you’re trying to make, all the paragraphs should support your thesis. And if they don’t, they might be really good—but they might not belong in that paper.

Body Paragraphs

When we look at body paragraphs in the paper, when we look at the way that we can structure each of those paragraphs in the middle of your paper, we can think about each body paragraph as almost being like a mini essay within your essay. Each body paragraph is going to have a little bit of a structure too, just like the whole essay has a structure.

So when we look at the whole essay in general, we usually talk about introduction, body, and conclusion, and that's how the whole essay is organized. So each body paragraph has an internal structure that's very similar. It has a beginning, an introductory sentence maybe that we can call a topic sentence. It has a middle, which is the body of your little paragraph, and it has a conclusion which might be either a way to wrap up or summarize the point you're trying to make or it might transition to the next point you're going to make.

So when we think about the internal structure of each body paragraph, we can think about it like topic sentence, supporting details or body, and concluding sentence.

Example 1 – Body

So here's an example of a body paragraph that has some of that internal structure we're talking about. It starts with a topic sentence, it moves to supporting details or a body, and then it ends with a concluding sentence.

Imagine this is from an essay about singers, about the best singers of all time. Here we go:

Frank Sinatra was one of the best crooners who ever lived. We're going to call that our topic sentence. By the way, it introduces the topic of the paragraph. And everything else in that paragraph is going to support that sentence.

He had a vocal style that managed to sound both relaxed and emotional. Moreover, he knew just how to bend notes to create a melancholy and a hopeful mood all at once. And finally, he had an intimacy that allowed him to connect with his audience so that his listeners felt like he was singing directly to them.

We're going to call those last three that were just read the body, the supporting details that support the fact that Frank Sinatra was one of the best crooners who ever lived.

And here's the last sentence: Clearly, Frank Sinatra had a style that will always be remembered. In that last sentence, we're not adding any more detail, we're just concluding the point that we were making in that paragraph.

So that paragraph has an internal structure just like the whole essay has a structure. It starts with an introductory sentence or a topic sentence. It has supporting details or a body, and it ends with a concluding sentence.

Activity: Name That Sentence

Here’s another example. And this time, as you listen to this paragraph, see if you can identify the pieces. Try to identify the topic sentence, which sentences are the supporting sentences or the body, and which sentence would work as the concluding sentence. “When I first found out my family was taking a trip to Greece to see my uncle and his family I thought about asking to stay home. All of my friends were headed to summer camp, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend time with a group of strangers whose language I did not even understand. 

I just knew I was going to be surrounded by adults talking about boring things and eating weird food. The image was not what I had in mind for my summer vacation.” So see if you can identify which pieces of that paragraph work as the topic, work as the body, or the supporting details, and then which piece works as the conclusion.

Making Body Paragraphs Work

So the body of an essay, basically, is a combination of those kinds of paragraphs—paragraphs that each have an internal structure and that all support each other in helping you prove the thesis or support the thesis.

So how many body paragraphs one needs for an essay is really determined by how many points will help you get to the point you're trying to make in the whole paper, which is your thesis or your overall point.

So when we look at each body paragraph, we can think about how we want to organize them so that the reader will understand where we're going, and so that we can make the best point we can.

So how do we take each of those individual body paragraphs and combine them together to create one long internal structure so that it all makes sense at the end, and so the reader really knows where you're going and you never feel like you're taking the reader off track?

I'm going to offer two possibilities. One is a chronological organizational structure, and the other one is a point-by-point organizational structure. And both of them are good. It depends on why you're writing and the kind of paper you're trying to write.

When we look at a chronological order of your body paragraphs, usually, that works well when you're narrating—when you're telling some kind of a story. So it makes sense when you're writing a story that you want to start in the beginning and move through the story in order of events.

So let's take a look at some examples of a chronological structure.

Chronological Organization

Let's first look at a chronological organization. And let's imagine that the writer is writing about that trip to Greece, the one we were just looking at a little while ago. Imagine that the writer is trying to put that whole story together in a way that's going to make sense to the readers. And imagine that there's a thesis that says, "Going to Greece was a really great experience." And then all the body paragraphs are going to support that point.

So each body paragraph is going to be like one scene from that story, one scene from that trip. And let's look at how chronologically, in time order, in order of events, this author is going to show that organizational structure.

So here's the thesis of that paper: "Even though I was scared to go at first, the trip I took to Greece to meet my relatives proved to be amazing." That's the thesis. So that's going to appear at the end of the introduction, before the body paragraphs even begin. And that's the whole point of the paper. We're going to learn about this trip so that we can understand why, to this author, that trip was so amazing.

The first body paragraph might start with this topic sentence, which you've already heard:

"When I first found out my family was taking a trip to Greece to see my uncle and his family, I thought about asking to stay home."

So that might be the beginning, the topic sentence, of the first paragraph.

The next paragraph might start with this topic sentence:

"As I got off the plane, I was instantly hugged and kissed by a giant man with a scruffy face and a big smile."

All the details after that topic sentence would have to support maybe what that person experienced when they first got to Greece.

And you can imagine a bunch more paragraphs that each detail a scene in the story.

And then maybe the last body paragraph or the last scene of the story was something like this:

"When I boarded the plane to leave, I was crying, realizing I now knew more than I ever thought I would about my family and my history."

So each body paragraph is going to support one piece of that story until the whole story is told and the thesis is proven.

Point By Point Organization

So chronological organization works really well when you're telling a story where you want to say, first this happened, then this happened, then this happened, until the story is over. There are lots of other ways that you can build a structure in the body of an essay.

Another way that you can do it is point by point, and this works really well. You can use this in a narrative essay, but this also works really well in an argumentative or persuasive essay, in an informative essay, where each body paragraph is going to prove one point that you're trying to make.

So here's that same thesis about the trip to Greece, organized point by point rather than in chronological order. So the thesis again was, even though I was scared to go at first, the trip I took to Greece to meet my relatives proved to be amazing.

If we were organizing point by point, perhaps the first paragraph would start something like this:

First of all, I met my cousin Ruth with whom I have so much in common. She has become one of my closest friends.

And the rest of that body paragraph would be all about meeting Ruth.

Maybe the next body paragraph would start like this:

Second of all, I realized how amazing my family history is. My family has fought in wars, been part of revolutions, and survived incredible hardships.

In this body paragraph, the author would write all about family history.

Maybe the next paragraph would start like this:

Finally, I learned that I want to discover more about my roots and become more involved with my own heritage.

And the supporting details after that topic sentence would be all about this author wanting to know more about their family.

So in this case, the thesis is the same, but the arrangement of the paragraphs is a little bit different. The strategy is organized around points that the person wants to make about why the trip was amazing rather than about simply what happened first, what happened next, etc.

Why Use An Introduction

So there are a few reasons why we'd write an introduction. One of them is that it presents the general topic of your paper. It allows the reader to have a sense of where you're going generally before they get into all the big stuff.

Also, and this is probably the most important reason, is that the introduction presents your thesis. It allows you to get to the place where you can say, here's the point I'm trying to make. So one of the reasons why we write an introduction is that it leads us to the thesis.

And I'm going to say—and this is a little bit up to debate—but I'm going to say that the thesis belongs at the last sentence of your introduction. Generally speaking, that's where we, as teachers, look for a thesis. It's an easy place to find where you're making your point, and readers appreciate being able to find that easily.

It's a good way for you to stay organized as well and know where you're going. If you can identify a thesis when you're writing a paper, then it's easier for you to know what you're talking about. So if you know that you're going to write an introduction paragraph that leads to your thesis, and your thesis is going to be the last sentence of that paragraph, kind of helps you stay organized and stay focused on the point you're trying to make.

3 Introduction Styles 

So we're going to look at three possibilities, three ways that you can set up your introduction. And a point I want to make first is that these are only tools and there are plenty more. And also, once we look at these strategies, we don't need to look at them in isolation. You can actually play with them a little bit and combine them. Remember, as a writer, you have options. You really don't have to—let's say we look at one strategy—you don't have to stick to that one strategy if you like some of the other ones too. You might even think about combining and playing with some strategies. But we'll present three, and then we'll talk about them a little bit.

The first strategy we want to look at is called general to specific. And as we look at general to specific, some things we can say about how to do that is that it's exactly what it sounds like. We're going to start generally. We're going to give a really broad sense of our topic. And then throughout the introduction, we're going to funnel in and get more and more specific until that last sentence where we introduce our thesis.

Here's an example of a general to specific introduction:

"Everyone goes through an experience that they will never forget. Nine years ago, I went through an experience that I will never forget. It was when my grandmother passed away, and my mother and I had to go to Colombia. That was the first time I had traveled outside of the country. Although this experience started out as a scary one, it came to be a wonderful one since I got to meet my family."

Let's look at that for a moment. Let's look at that very first sentence: "Everyone goes through an experience that they will never forget." I can't imagine a more general way to start. So when you think about how this is organized, it starts off where you don't really know where the person is going, but it's general enough that it helps the reader understand that we're going to be talking about an experience that this person couldn't forget.

And then we get a little more specific: "Nine years ago, I went through an experience that I will never forget." So we get some more information. Each sentence moves us a little bit closer to that thesis. The next sentence we get a little bit more specific: "It was when my grandmother passed away, and my mother and I had to go to Columbia." Even more specific: "That was the first time I had traveled outside of the country."

So each sentence funnels down to the thesis statement, which is the most specific point that the author is making. And by the end of this introduction, we know exactly where the author is going.

Specific To General

So that last example started generally and moved to specific. Now we're going to turn that on its head and actually look at the opposite. We're going to start specific and move to a little bit more general. We're still ending with the thesis, which is a specific point, but we're actually going to start even smaller than the thesis.

And one way that we can look at this is we can think about how some television shows are set up. I've seen some TV shows and movies that sometimes start with a kind of specific to general introduction before the plot is even developed, before any characters are introduced. The story might start off with a tiny little detail, and then the camera sort of pans out until you get more and more information.

So perhaps the show starts with a close-up shot of someone's shiny, black shoes, walking down a sidewalk, let's say. And then the camera pans out a little bit. And then you see that the shoes are attached to a man in a tuxedo, and he's walking down a street in New York City. And then the camera pans out a little bit more, and you see that the man has a red rose in his hand and a small jewelry box in his other hand. And the more the camera pans out, the more you understand the story being presented. The idea is you get more and more information as you go, and that's kind of what the specific to general introduction style is—you start with a little detail of the story, and then you pan out to give more and more information, and then you still end with the thesis.

Here's an example of a specific to general kind of introduction:

"The first thing I remembered was opening my eyes and suddenly realizing I was face down in the dirt. My head was pounding, and I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I had fallen off the horse I was riding. There have been numerous times when I've fallen off horses, but the first time had the most effect on the way I view horseback riding. When I fell off the horse, I realized that riding could be dangerous as well as fun. Falling off a horse for the first time made me realize that I had to work harder to become a better rider."

So in this case, we start off with a really specific detail. It's like the camera opens, and you see the person opening their eyes and suddenly realizing they're face down in the dirt. And then the camera pans out, and you get a little more information—her head was pounding; she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. And then the camera pans out a little more, and we see the horse. She had fallen off the horse she was riding.

She says, I had fallen off the horse I'd been riding. There have been numerous times when I've fallen off horses, but the first time had the most effect on the way I view horseback riding. We get a little more information about the author. And then at the end, we still end with the thesis—falling off a horse for the first time made me realize that I had to work harder to become a better rider. But we started with something really specific, and we moved out until we got enough information that the thesis made sense.

Contrast 

So we looked at two different ways to organize introductions—general to specific and specific to general. Let's look at one more called contrast. And it's exactly what it sounds like. You're starting with an idea that's contrasting the actual point you're trying to make in the paper. And that will make a little more sense when we look at an example.

So let's look at an example of a contrast introduction:

"I have always been embarrassed by my parents. They always seemed so loud. When they are mad, they scream. And when they are sad, they wail. I remember countless times when I tried to pretend that I was not related to them. However, after one amazing summer, my views changed dramatically. My overly emotional and sentimental parents were an embarrassment to me before I learned to appreciate my heritage on an enlightening trip to Italy."

So in this case, there's a little bit of contrast set up by this author, because in the beginning, we get a sense that this person is not so psyched about her parents. It says, "I've always been embarrassed by my parents. They always seemed so loud to me." So we get a sense in the beginning that she's going to say sort of negative things about her parents. But then it switches, and we realize that she's making the opposite point.

And it switches at the word "however." She says, "However, after one amazing summer, my views changed dramatically." And then we say, oh, okay, she's making the opposite point. She's saying that she used to feel this way, and now she feels quite differently. So she's setting up a contrast to gain our interest a little bit and set up some ways to show us that she's had some kind of a change of heart as a result of some point she's going to make in her paper.

Activity: Name That Introduction

So after looking at that introduction, you might imagine that there are two possibilities. I don't know what you came up with, but as I look at it, here's where I would go with it.

It starts off, that introduction sort of starts off, with some explanation of the author's childhood. And actually, this is me. I wrote this one. This was the paper that I wrote about a fishing trip that I took. So as I was writing this, I wanted to set up some general information about my trips fishing, and so I started off with stuff about fishing with my dad when I was a kid.

So in that regard, you might think about it as general to specific. It starts off generally with lots of fishing trips that I took, and sort of ends up at the end with a really specific trip that I took. So if you said "general to specific," you're on the right track.

There's also another way to think about this one. I start off talking about how much I love fishing, and I sort of move at the end to not really liking fishing at all. So that being said, we can also think about this introduction as establishing a contrast, because it says I used to love it, but after this thing happened, I no longer love it anymore.

So if you said "general to specific" or if you said "contrast," I think there's a good argument for either one. And that's a good point to make because it really is possible for you to combine strategies. So as you look at these strategies, rather than thinking about them in isolation, think about how, as a writer, you can sort of play with them and use them to your advantage.

So in this case, you know, I think I sort of did both. So if you said either one, you're on the right track.

So now that we've talked a little bit about introductions, I think it makes sense for us to transition into the other side of the frame, which is the conclusion. It's hard to start a paper, but it's also hard to end a paper. So let's look at some strategies for doing that as well.

3 Conclusion Styles 

So we've looked at three different styles for introducing your topic. Now let's look at three styles for concluding at the end. And again, there are tons more options here. These are just three examples or three strategies if you get stuck.

I think that finishing strong is often the difference between a good paper and a great paper because what you want to do is you want to leave the reader with a sense of an accomplished purpose. And if you end too quickly, sometimes it's a funny feeling to read a paper that just ends and doesn't wrap up.

So you can think about conclusions as a final thought, a way to wrap things up, a way that helps the reader have a sense of completion and finality. So that's why we have to write a conclusion.

We'll look at three different strategies for doing that.

Recommendation 

Another kind of conclusion we can look at is the recommendation conclusion. One of the reasons we tell a story is to have an impact on the reader and maybe have that reader change as a result of the story that we're telling. And if that's the case, then we might want to recommend to the reader that they do something, that they take some kind of action, or that they are changed as a result of what we're saying.

And that could work for a narrative essay, or an argumentative, or persuasive essay, or any essay where we want our point to have a lasting impact on our reader. We want our reader to think of a call to action for themselves based on what we are sharing.

So let's take a look at an example of a recommendation conclusion. Here's a recommendation conclusion that is about a trip to Greece that we were looking at earlier:

"Going to Greece to see my family was truly a life-changing event for me. I learned more about my family and my own identity than I have at any other time in my life. If I had decided to stay home, I would have never had any idea how wonderful my family is."

And here comes the recommendation:

"I strongly suggest to others that they take advantage of any opportunity they have to connect with their roots."

So in this case, we have some summary where it's kind of going over the main points of the essay. And we're restating the thesis. But at the end here, we're making a recommendation to the reader that they take a certain action based on what they've read.

Prediction 

The last kind of conclusion strategy that we'll look at is called a prediction conclusion, where you sort of predict what might happen as a result of the information you shared in the paper. You predict what you might do as a result or what others might do. You might actually ask further questions. You might predict what your next paper might be, or what your next research project might be based on what you've done so far.

Let's look at an example of what a prediction conclusion could look like. So here's an example of a prediction conclusion about moving to Colorado. This was a paper about moving to Colorado and what that was like for this author:

"Moving to Colorado was much harder than I thought it would be. The expense, the hard work, and the time it took to adjust made the experience very difficult."

And here comes the prediction:

"In the future, I will think for a long time before making the decision to uproot myself again."

So in this example, we're getting, again, a little bit of summary. And we're coming back to the main point of the thesis. But we're also hearing about what might happen as a result of this experience. And that's sort of what a prediction conclusion is meant to do.

Introduction, Body, Conclusion

So in the last few minutes, what we've done is we've looked at the whole structure of the essay. We started with the body because that's where you have stuff to say. That's your story, or that's the point you're going to make.

And what we looked at next was the frame. How do you start it so the reader is welcomed into your ideas? And how do you end it so the reader feels supported at the end of the experience, too, and knows what your main points were?

So at this point, you've done some pre-writing. You've created some ideas. You've created a thesis to organize those ideas. And then you've drafted. You've written the paper—at least the first go.

We're going to assume that we're not done yet. Even though we've got all this stuff together, we still have quite a bit of revising to do, because often, a first draft feels like a first draft—feels like there's still some loose ends or some things we might need to add. But now, we have some general structure that we can use as our baseline, as our starting point. And from here, we can only get even better.

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