Essay How to Guide

1. Essay How to Guide Professor Pacas

2. Introduction • Should have a hook-grab the attention of your reader. • Avoid- postulating a question in the introduction unless it is central to your argument (your reader should know what you intend to analyze by reading your introduction). Also avoid, “I propose in this paper” type statements as well. • Your introduction should close with your thesis statement.

3. Thesis Statement • Your thesis should propose the idea/argument that you will set about to prove in your paper. • Remember that it should be only one sentence and in special circumstances it could be two. • Intro and thesis need to be relevant to each other…in fact entire paper needs to be relevant and on point (importance of having an outline)

4. Body of essay • You have 3 main points of support with 2 subsections per point that should be relevant to the main point of support. • Each point of support is relevant to the overall argument that you intend to prove in your essay. • Make sure your transitions from one point to the next flow well.

5. Conclusion • Your conclusion should be a minimum of 3/4 of your final page and tie in all the points. • It should close with an idea that is very similar to your thesis statement (make sure it is the same idea but phrased differently…do not cut and paste!!!!)

6. Footnotes • Please refer to the Turabian tutorial for more information. • In this essay footnotes refer to bibliographical citations that give credit to the authors that you used for your quote(s). • They are not expansions of a thought or idea within the essay.

7. Bibliography • Your bibliography needs to include all the sources that you used to formulate your essay. • Minimum of 2 primary sources and 3 secondary sources. • If you do not have the name of an author, these are acceptable entries: ______, unknown, or anonymous.