Hello and welcome my friends to the fourth lecture of our writing course.

In this lecture, our teacher will talk about the essay and its three main
parts:
I. An introductory paragraph
2. Body paragraphs
1. A concluding paragraph
The teacher's speech:
Good morning everyone. Last week, we dealt with coherence and its four
methods of making our script coherent.
What are the four ways of achieving coherence in our writing?
1. The first way involves repeating key nouns
2. The second way involves using pronouns that refer back to key
nouns.
3. The third way is to use transition signals to show how one idea is
related to the next.
4. The fourth way to achieve coherence is to arrange your sentences
in logical order.
We talked about the first three ways. Let us go to page 51 and talk about
the fourth one that discusses the arrangement of your sentences in a
logical order in order to have coherence in your composition.
Now, go to page 51

The important point to remember is to arrange your ideas in some

kind of order that is logical to a reader accustomed to the English
way of writing.
Each kind of order has its own special words and phrases to show the
relationships among the ideas. For example, in a piece of writing
using chronological order, you would expect to find a lot of time
expressions:
First, next, after that, finally, before, the last war, after 1990, since
then, in 20I0, while working on the project, etc…
To achieve any kind of order, you have to use some kinds of transition
signals. For instance, an essay that uses the chronological order has to use
many time expressions, such as first, next, after that, etc…

In a paragraph describing differences (contrast), you would find

these expressions:
the most noticeable difference, larger than, unlike, on the other hand,
in contrast, differ from
In a paragraph showing similarities (comparison), you would find
these expressions:
similarity, similarly, as expensive as, just as, just like, compare with, in
comparison
Thus, each type of writing has its own order, and this order is achieved
with the help of using some transitions that are related to the type of
writing. For example, if your essay discusses the differences between two
things, you need to use words like unlike, on the other hand, in contrast,
differ from; however, if it talks about the similarities between two things,
you are obliged to use words like , similarly, just like, compare with, in
comparison.
Now, we will move to page 100 and discuss the essay.
An essay is a group of paragraphs that discuss one main idea.
You know that the outline of a paragraph is like this:
I. Topic sentence
A. Supporting sentence 1
B. Supporting sentence 2
C. Supporting sentence 3
II. Concluding sentence
A paragraph discuses only one main idea.
The essay is just an enlargement of the paragraph:
 The topic sentence of the paragraph will be the essay's introductory
paragraph.
 The first supporting sentence of the paragraph will be the essay's
first paragraph.
 The second supporting sentence of the paragraph will be the essay's
second paragraph.
  The third supporting sentence of the paragraph will be the essay's
third paragraph.
 Finally, the concluding sentence of the paragraph will be the
essay's concluding paragraph.
Thus, it will be as in the following diagram:
As you can see, the introductory paragraph of the essay has two main
parts:
 General statements
 Thesis statement
The thesis statement of your essay will limit number of your body
paragraphs. For instance, if your thesis talks about three things, you need
to write three body paragraphs.
Go to page 100
An essay is a piece of writing several paragraphs long instead of just
one or two paragraphs. It is written about one topic, just as a
paragraph is. However, the topic of an essay is too complex to discuss
in one paragraph.
An essay has three main parts:
I. An introductory paragraph
2. A body (at least one, but usually two or more paragraphs)
1. A concluding paragraph
This is the definition of an essay. You have to recognize that although an
essay has more than one paragraph, it deals with one chief topic/idea. As
we noted earlier, an essay has three parts: an introductory paragraph, a
body, and a concluding paragraph.
Let us read something about the introductory paragraph…
The introductory paragraph consists of two parts: a few general
statements about your subject to attract your reader's attention and a
thesis statement to state the specific subdivisions of your topic and/or
the "plan" of your paper. A thesis statement for an essay is just like a
topic sentence for a paragraph: It names the specific topic and the
controlling ideas or major subdivisions of the topic.
Everything is clear…move to talk about the body paragraphs…
The body consists of one or more paragraphs. Each paragraph
develops a subdivision of your topic, so the number of paragraphs in
the body will vary with the number of subdivisions or subtopics. The
body is the longest part of the essay and can contain as many
paragraphs as necessary to support the controlling ideas of your
thesis statement. The paragraphs of the body of the essay are like the
main supporting points in a single paragraph. Furthermore, you can
organize the paragraphs in an essay just as you organize the ideas in
a paragraph, by chronological order, logical division of ideas,
comparison and contrast, etc.
So, we do not have a limited number of body paragraphs for our essay.
The number of our essay's body paragraphs hinges on the subdivisions of
our thesis statement.
The conclusion in an essay, like the concluding sentence in a
paragraph, is a summary or review of the main points discussed in
the body.
The only additional element in an essay is the linking expressions
between the paragraphs of the body. These are just like transitions
within a paragraph. You use transitions within a paragraph to
connect the ideas between two sentences. Similarly, you use
transitions between paragraphs to connect the ideas between them.
In a paragraph, we only need to use transition signals that connect
sentences within the paragraph.
However, in an essay, we need transition signals to connect sentences
within a paragraph and paragraphs within an essay.
Let us move to talk about the introductory paragraph...
The Introductory Paragraph
What are the four purposes of the introductory paragraph?
1) It introduces the topic of the essay.
2) It gives a general background of the topic.
3) It often indicates the overall "plan" of the essay.
4) It should arouse the reader's interest in the topic.
The introduction has two parts:
General statements
A thesis statement
General statements:
General statements have the following definition/functions/purposes
Introduce the topic of the essay
Give background information on the topic
Each subsequent general statement should become more specific than the
previous one and finally lead into the thesis statement.
Thesis statement
The thesis statement has the following definition/ functions/purposes
States the main topic
Often lists the subdivisions of the topic or subtopics
May indicate the method of organization of the entire paper
Is usually the last sentence in the introductory paragraph
Let us have an example; I will give you the following thesis statement:
Prejudice arises from three basic causes: childhood conditioning,
ignorance, and fear.
 What is the topic of this thesis statement?
Prejudice is the topic
 What are the subtopics?
Childhood conditioning, ignorance, and fear.
Thus, if we have the above thesis, we need to pen three body paragraphs:
 The first body paragraph should discourse childhood conditioning.
 The second body paragraph needs to discuss ignorance.
 The third body paragraph should discuss fear.
Travel to page 104
To sum up, an introductory paragraph is like a funnel: very wide at
the top, increasingly narrow in the middle, and very small at the neck
or bottom.

Therefore, we need to start our introductory paragraph with general

statements that are related to the topic we are talking about. Then, we
need to narrow the general statements until we come to the thesis
statement.
Let us do practice (c) on page 105/106
Analyze the following thesis statements.
STEP 1. Locate the main topic and the subtopics in each of the following
thesis statements.
STEP 2. Underline the subtopics.
STEP 3. Draw a circle around the words or punctuation marks that are
used to introduce the subtopics.
For example:
Capital punishment should be abolished not only because it deprives
another person of life but also because it does not stop crime.
 The main topic:
Capital punishment should be abolished
 The subtopics:
a) Capital punishment deprives another person of life
b) Capital punishment does not stop crime.
 The words or punctuation marks that are used to introduce the
subtopics:
Not only…but also

1. Women generally live longer than men for two main reasons:
they tend to take better care of their health, and they have
better resistance to stress.

 The main topic:

Women generally live longer than men.
 The subtopics:
a) Women tend to take better care of their health
b) Women have better resistance to stress
 The words or punctuation marks that are used to introduce the
subtopics:
The colon (:).
 2. Drug and alcohol abuse among teenagers can be traced back to
the following causes: lack of parental supervision, lax
enforcement of drug laws, and the social and psychological
problems of teenagers themselves.

 The main topic:

Drug and alcohol abuse among teenagers
 The subtopics:
a) Lack of parental supervision
b) Lax enforcement of drug laws
c) The social and psychological problems of teenagers themselves
 The words or punctuation marks that are used to introduce the
subtopics:
The colon (:).
Ok, that is everything for today. See you next week…

For any questions, help, or private courses, you can contact

me via Whats'App: (0945462264)

Done by: Moussa Al-Rashed

Scanned by: Ahmad Jawad