Breaking Down the Essay

On this page, we are walking you through the writing phase step-by-step. We will provide you with instructions, examples, and curated lists of resources to utilize as you work on your own essay projects. Please, do not use any of our examples within your papers; that would be plagiarism unless they are properly cited and sourced.

I'll Take Examples for 200, Alex...

In order to demonstrate how to write an argument, we are going to take apart an NPR Throughline episode call "Zombies" to showcase the different parts of an essay. The episode is not the perfect example of a traditional college essay, but we will discuss why some of their methods are not to be mirrored while explaining how each example functions within the writing process. When we have pulled directly from the transcript of the episode, we will mark those passages with quotation marks.

The Breakdown

For convenience, we have separated each section out so that students can find the exact issue they are searching for help in solving. If you're not sure what you need help with most, we also have this page laid out in it's entirety, and can be found here: Breaking Down the Essay: The Whole Shebang.

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Creating an Argument

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Outlining

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Forming a Thesis

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Active vs. Passive Voice

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Topic Sentences

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Paragraph Structure

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Introductions: Not Your Average Starting Point

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Writing Conclusions

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General Writing Resources