Or, "Why I stopped worrying and learned to love my essay."
An essay is much easier to construct if you view it as a series of components. Remember, for this class you are writing argumentative essays, so the structure is designed organize your essay into a strong argument.
This is anything, that is PG-13, which will get your reader's attention and sets up the essay. You can use stories, startling facts, statistics, or quotations. This should be more than just a sentence or two. Click here for more info on Attention Getting Devices.
Here you answer the question. If the topic were: "Should sex education be taught in public schools? Why or Why Not?" Your thesis would be: "Sex education should be taught in schools." Be as simple and as straightforward as possible with this as you want to be certain the reader knows your position.
Here you briefly list the three reasons why your thesis is true. This previews your body paragraphs. For the preceding example, your preview may read: "Sex education should be taught in schools to lower the teen pregnancy rate, to combat S.T.D.s, and to fully educate students." Note that, in this instance, the Thesis and Preview are combined into one sentence.
You will construct a solid paragraph which completely covers each of your three reasons why. These paragraphs should each contain a Concrete Example. Click here for more info on Paragraph Construction.
This final paragraph will contain three items:
Using this format, the construction of your essay should be simple and effective.