Format for a 9 Essay

Format for "9" Essays

(Jane Shaffer, an advanced placement student, found that papers with the highest grades generally followed this format. You might wish to follow this suggested format until you are comfortable with your own style.)

Introduction

Includes thesis – usually the first or last sentence

Paragraph contains more than forty words

Has three or more sentences including the thesis

Body

Has two or more paragraphs

Each paragraph contains on the average of 11 sentences

Each paragraph contains 125 or more words

Concluding Paragraph

Has 40 or more words

Shows insight

Repeats the ideas of the thesis in a new way

Gives a finished feeling (draws a conclusion)

Each paragraph is generally structured in the following way

  1. Topic sentence – refers to thesis found in introduction
  2. Concrete detail sentence #1 shows support for the topic sentence (For Example…)
  3. Commentary
  4. Commentary
  5. Concrete detail sentence #2 shows support for the topic sentence (In addition…)
  6. Commentary
  7. Commentary
  8. Concrete detail sentence #3 shows support for the topic sentence (Furthermore…)
  9. Commentary
  10. Commentary
  11. Concluding sentence – sums up the paragraph