The Preview

The preview is simply where you tell the reader what you are going to write about.  The goal of the preview is to:

1. Prepare the audience to accept the argument.
2. Reinforce the key ideas of the argument.
3. Provide an organizational pattern for the reader to follow.

For the purposes of this type of essay, your preview is simply a statement of the three "reasons why" you isolated when you answered the topic question.  The trick is to keep the individual clauses brief and parallel.  Keeping the clauses parallel means that each item in the list is constructed in the same form.

For instance, if the topic is:

What can be done to stop the drug problem?  Explain.

Since this is a policy question, our answer must set forth a plan.  The three steps of the plan could be:  "increased enforcement of laws, increased support of enforcement agencies, and decreased tolerance for offenders."  Then, the preview would be:

The drug problem can be stopped if we provide for increased enforcement of laws; increased support of enforcement agencies; and, decreased tolerance for offenders.  [notice the thesis is combined with the preview in this example]

For a question of fact, the preview would be similar.  If the topic was:

What is the worst thing you ever did?  Discuss.

The Thesis could be:

The worst thing I ever did was cheating on a final exam in second grade.

The preview could be:

It was the worst thing I ever did because it cost me my self esteem, my sense of morality, and my reputation.