How to Write a Five Paragraph Essay
Essays come in various forms, as do subjects, professors, writing styles, and graders. In order to make the best of a writing assignment, there are a few rules that can always be followed in order to find success. While you can never know exactly what a teacher will like, as long as you have proven a point, you will write a successful essay. The beauty of writing is that the power is in your hands. There is not always a "right" or "wrong" answer. You simply have to select an argument and back it up. If you do that, then your essay should be successful, regardless of whether or not it is liked.
The basic high school essay should be organized in the following five paragraph structure:
1. Introduction
2. Body Paragraph One
3. Body Paragraph Two
4. Body Paragraph Three
5. Conclusion
This list is a basic guideline by which to structure all your essays. Obviously, they can vary in length and in paragraph number. However, within the confines of this skeletal structure, is everything you will in order to write a successful essay.
Let us go piece by piece through this basic structure to examine the elements of this style.
1.Introduction
The Introduction consists of an opening line. This opening line can be a generalization about life that pertains to your topic. It can also be a quotation. Another segway into the introduction is to start it with a little anecdote (or story). By "breaking the ice" so to speak with the reader, you are luring him or her into the rest of your essay, making it accessible and intriguing. Once you have "introduced" the Introductory paragraph with a generalization, quotation, or anecdote, you can write vaguely for a few sentences or simply jump into the crust of the argument. When you feel you are ready to introduce the specific focus of the essay, then you write the thesis statement. The thesis statement should generally come at the end of the Introductory Paragraph. If you are writing about a particular book, author, or event, you should name it (in entirety) in the thesis statement. You should also list your argument with its supporting evidence in this sentence. Essentially, the thesis statement is your tagline for the essay and the final sentence of the Introduction.
2.Body Paragraph One
The Body Paragraph One should open with a transitional sentence. It should lead the reader into the first piece of evidence you use to support your thesis statement, your argument. It is essentially a mini-thesis for the paragraph. From the transitional/opening sentence, you can go on to cite evidence to support your argument. This evidence must all revolve around a single theme and should come in the form of a quotation (or factual information from a primary source). If you put too many different themes into one body paragraph, then the essay becomes confusing. Body Paragraph One will deal with one theme for your argument. You may have several pieces of evidence to support this one them, which is absolutely fine. Once you use a piece of evidence, be sure and write at least one or two sentences explaining why you use it. Then, wrap up the Body Paragraph with a mini-concluding sentence summing up only what you have discussed in that paragraph.
3.Body Paragraph Two
Body Paragraph Two should follow the exact same rules as Body Paragraph One. This time, pick the second theme in support of your thesis argument and cite evidence for it. Again, you must open this paragraph with a transitional sentence; one leading from the previous theme to the current theme.
4.Body Paragraph Three
Body Paragraph Three should follow the exact same rules as Body Paragraph One and Two. Again, you must open this paragraph with a transitional sentence; one leading from the previous theme to the current theme.
5.Conclusion
Your conclusion is a wrap-up of the entire essay. It takes your introduction and essentially says to the reader, "See, I told you so." You should be writing your conclusion with the belief that you have proven everything you have set out to prove in your essay. You are allowed to be confident here, and you are even allowed to drop little extra pieces of information that make the reader think more than you previewed in the entire paper. It is also important to have a concluding mini-thesis in this paragraph. This statement is the closing tag-line, the "see what I just did" idea in every paper. An essay can be immaculately written, organized, and researched; however, without a conclusion, the reader is left dumbfounded, frustrated, confused.
It is important to remember that this is a rough sketch by which to write your essays. If your topic is quite complicated, then you may have infinitely more evidentiary paragraphs than three. Furthermore, you can expand your individual themes, as well. You can write two or three paragraphs in support of "theme 1" (or Body Paragraph One). The most important thing to remember here is consistency. If you have two or three paragraphs in support of one piece of evidence, then you should have the same amount of paragraphs in support of all sequential facts.
Here is a diagram of the basic essay guidelines. Remember, "Body Paragraphs" simply stand for Specific Ideas for your thesis. There can be many more than simply three.
Questions
Write an essay on the following topics.
a.Political Instability; The Main Problems in Nepal
b.Opportunities and Challenges of Tourism in Nepal
c.Importance of Woman Education
d.Importance of Science and Technology in Nepal
e.Opportunities and Challenges of Globalization in Nepal
Writing Letter
1.Keep it short and to the point.
Letters involving business (personal or corporate) should be concise, factual, and focused. Try to never exceed one page or you will be in risk of losing your reader. A typical letter page will hold 350 to 450 words. If you can’t get your point across with that many words you probably haven’t done enough preparatory work. If necessary, call the recipient on the phone to clarify any fuzzy points and then use the letter just to summarize the overall situation.
2.Focus on the recipient’s needs.
While writing the letter, focus on the information requirements of your audience, the intended addressee. If you can, in your “mind’s eye” imagine the intended recipient seated across a desk or boardroom table from you while you are explaining the subject of the letter. What essential information does that person need to know through this communication? What will be their expectations when they open the letter? Have you addressed all of these?
3.Use simple and appropriate language.
Your letter should use simple straightforward language, for clarity and precision. Use short sentences and don’t let paragraphs exceed three or four sentences. As much as possible, use language and terminology familiar to the intended recipient. Do not use technical terms and acronyms without explaining them, unless you are certain that the addressee is familiar with them.
4.Re-read and revise it.
Do a first draft of the letter, and then carefully review and revise it. Put yourself in the place of the addressee. Imagine yourself receiving the letter. How would you react to it? Would it answer all of your questions? Does it deal with all of the key issues? Are the language and tone appropriate? Sometimes reading it out loud to one’s self, can be helpful. When you actually “hear” the words it is easy to tell if it “sounds” right, or not.
5.Check spelling and grammar.
A letter is a direct reflection of the person sending it, and by extension, the organization that person works for. When the final content of the letter is settled, make sure that you run it through a spelling and grammar checker. Sending a letter with obvious spelling and grammar mistakes looks sloppy and unprofessional. In such cases, the recipient can’t really be blamed for seeing this as an indication as to how you (and your organization) probably do most other things.
Above all else, your goal in all letter writing, regardless of the subject, should be to keep it short, factual, and to the point. Don't write it more than one page in length, unless there is some compelling reason to make it longer.
Studies have shown that busy business people do not like to read beyond the first page. If your letter is longer, there is a good chance it will be dumped in a "read later" pile, which often ends up never getting read.
The above basic letter writing tips are mostly common sense. Nevertheless, you would be amazed how often these very basic “rules of thumb” are not employed when people are writing letters.
Comprehension Passage
Passage No:1
Read the following passage and answer the questions
In the hospital, I was thinking about the most exceptional people I’ve known. They were the ones who kept going when others quit; the ones who found ways to do what everyone else thought couldn’t be done. They didn’t just hold down a job or work hard. They were reaching deeper inside and finding something more. They made a greater difference. I don’t believe they would have understood these words - “he held the frame so we both could see the inscription” - “the way I did.”
“I remember my parents and other adults in my hometown saying, “Study hard and work hard but don’t let your dreams get too big. If you do that, you’ll only be disappointed.’
“Learn to fit in and go along,’ they said, ‘that’s what successful people do.’ I got very good at fitting in and going along.” His voice trailed off.
“Robert, you’re going to hear the same kinds of things from people around you. They’re well-intentioned but they’re wrong. What if I hadn’t accepted it? What if everyday I had questioned yesterday’s definition of my best? What if I’d listened to my own heart instead of their words? Then I might have kept looking deeper and giving the world more of the best that was hidden inside me.”
“And if I’d done that,” he said, “more of the best would have come back tome, and to this family, and to you, Robert. But it won’t,” he said, “because I didn’t do it.”
“So this is my challenge to you-to live these words.” He handed me the frame. There was no glass in it; I ran my fingertips over the words and felt the brittle paper . “But grandfather,” I said, not wanting to disappoint him but unsure of how to accomplish what he was asking me, “maybe when I’m older...”
“Age has nothing to do with it. Every day you can learn something more about who you are and all the potential that’s hidden inside you. Every day you can choose to become more than you have been. I’m asking you straight right now.”
“But how?”
“By looking inside yourself. By testing new possibilities. By searching for what matters most to you, Robert. Few of us ever do that for ourselves. Instead, we hold our breath. We look away. We get by or go along. We defend what we have been. We say, “It’s good enough.” I pray you don’t wake up one day and say, “I’ve been living my life wrong and now it’s too late to make it right.”
Young as I was, I could still see the pain his regret was causing him, and even then I recognized that the gift he was giving me was as much in honesty as in the specific words he was so determined for me to hear.
“Robert, all of us are mostly unused potential. It’s up to you to become the most curious person you know and to keep asking yourself, What is my best? Keep finding more of it every day to give to the world. If you do that, I promise that more of the best than you can ever imagine - and in many ways beyond money - will come back to you.”
And it has. Despite my struggles and mistakes along the way, I have learned that there are opportunities, for each of us that exist beneath and beyond conventional thinking and self imposed limits. What my grandfather realized too late that he had not done, he challenged me to do. In this book, I pass the challenge to you.
Answer the following questions
a) Who, according to the writer, are exceptional people?
b) What, according to his parents, did ‘successful’ people do?
c) What does one need to do to “become more than you have been”?
d) Explain the phrase “looking inside yourself”.
e) What did the writer learn from his struggles and mistakes?
Passage No:2
Swami Vivekananda is a striking figure with his turban and his kindly features. On my enquiring as to the significance, if any, of his name, the Swami said, “Of the name by which I am not known, the first word is descriptive of a Sannyasin, or one who formally renounces the world, and the second is the title I assumed- as is customary with all Sannyasins – on my renunciation of the world; it signifies, literally, the bliss of discrimination.”
“And what induced you to forsake the ordinary course of the world Swami?” I asked.
“I had a deep interest in religion and philosophy from my childhood”, he replied, “and our books teach renunciation as the highest ideal to which man can aspire. It only needed the meeting with a great teacher- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to kindly in me the final determination to follow the path he himself had trod, as in him I found my highest ideal realised.”
“Then did he found a sect, which you now represent”?
“No”, replied the Swami quickly. “No, his whole life was spent in breaking down the barriers of sectarianism and dogma. He formed no sect. Quite the reverse. He advocated and strove to establish absolute freedom of thought. He was a great Yogi”.
“Then you are connected with no society or sect in this country? Neither Theosophical nor Christian Scientist, nor any other?”
“None whatever!” said the Swami in clear and impressive tones. “My teaching is my own interpretation of our ancient books, in the light which my master shed upon them. I claim no supernatural authority. Whatever in my teaching may appeal to the highest intelligence and be accepted by thinking men, the adoption of that will be my reward”. “All religions”, he continued, “have for their object the teaching either of devotion, knowledge or yoga, in a concrete form. Now the philosophy of Vedanta is the abstract science which embraces all these methods, and this is that I teach, leaving each one to apply in to his own concrete form. I refer each individual to his own experiences, and where reference is made to books, the latter are procurable, and may be studied by each one for himself. Above all, I teach no authority proceeding from hidden beings speaking through visible agents, any more than I claim learning from hidden books or manuscripts. I am the exponent of no occult societies, nor do I believe that good can come of such bodies. Truth stands on its own authority, and truth can bear the light of day.”
“Then you do not propose to form any society, Swami”? I suggested.
“None; no society whatever. I teach only the self, hidden in the heart of every individual and common to all. A harmful of strong men knowing that self and living in its light would revolutionize the world, even today, as has been the case by single strong men before, each in his day”.
“Have you just arrived from India”. I inquired.
“No,” he replied, “I represented the Hindu religion at the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893. Since then I have been travelling and lecturing in the United States. The American people have proved most interested audiences and sympathetic friends, and my work there has to take root that I must shortly return to that country”.
“And what is your attitude towards the western religions, Swami”?
“I propound a philosophy which can serve as a basic to every possible religious system in the world, and my attitude towards all of them is one of extreme - sympathy my teaching is antagonistic to none. I direct my attention to the individual, to make him strong, to teach him that he himself is divine, and I call upon men to make themselves conscious of this divinity within. That is really the ideal- conscious or unconscious – of every religion”.
Answer the following questions briefly:
a) What does Swami Vivekananda tell the interviewer regarding significance of his name?
b) What influence did Ramakrishna Paramahamsa have on Swami Vivekananda?
c) What according to Vivekananda is the philosophy of Vedanta?
d) Why had Swami Vivekananda gone to Chicago?
e) How did Vivekananda find the American audience?
f) Explain: “I direct my attention to the individual”.
Passage No: 3
Millions of men and women, thousands of leaders, a succession of social, religious and political movements - it is impossible to draw up a full list of the makers of India even on a limited 1000-year basis. “All that can be attempted here is to present a few representative names, some of them inspirational still. All of them remind us of the course we have traversed, and how we have come to where we are. Let us make a start with the best ever Indian.
Implied in Toynbee’s assessment was the deduction that Gandhi was not just an Indian phenomenon. No doubt India derived unequalled benefit from his leadership. By fitting the freedom struggle into the framework of a philosophy of justice and fairness, he achieved for India a stature that was denied to other countries, including China, that won independence around the same time. That the stature was quickly lost by the governments that came to power on the labours of Gandhi is a different matter. The decline of India did not amount to any repudiation of Gandhi. Indeed, it was seen as a consequence of the betrayal of Gandhi by his supposed followers.
The true measure of his impact on history is that it is not dependent on the successful completion of his mission in India. The others who soldiered on with him in the epic war of independence - Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel included - will be remembered for what they did in India and for India; they were essentially Indian personalities. So, for that matter, was Jinnah whose life’s work boiled down to the creation of a state on what rapidly proved to be a dubious premise.
Gandhi soared above them all because he dealt essentially with ideas and theories relevant to all mankind. Like Buddhism, Gandhism lost ground in the land out of which it evolved. But, like Buddhism, it has been embraced by distant peoples who see in its tenets the promise of a meaningful life. It was as though Gandhi’s involvement with India was merely incidental to his larger involvement with what he persistently called Truth. Raja Rao put it pithily when he wrote: “For Gandhi India was only the symbol of a universal principle. All countries were, for Gandhi, India.” When we look at him in this perspective, we realise that it was his universality, the transcendent quality of his life and thought, that made Gandhi Gandhi.
He will be greater than not just Stalin and Hitler - two characters who are rather too one-dimensional to be contrasted with the vastness that was Gandhi. Gandhi personifies the greatness of the time-honoured propo sition that Love is superior to Hatred, that Good is better than Evil. Great personages of history who based their “greatness” on Hatred and Evil, on conquests and oppression, have all gone under. The Byzantines and the Ottomans, the Mongols and the Mughals, the British and the Spanish once strode the earth as if they owned it. Today only Britain and Spain survive, and that as second-class entities confined to Europe. Alexander, the first king in history to be called“The Great,” died a lonely death as a disillusioned and defeated man at the incredible age of 33. Nothing of his greatness remains today even in his native Macedonia which is now but an appendage to the horrible tragedy of Yugoslavia.
Greatness built on murder and acquisition passes. Greatness rising out of compassion and service abides. The Buddha abides. Christ abides. The great unknown thinkers of the Upanishads abide. Gandhi carried that tradition through to our times. He might have been let down by the “Gandhians” who, armed with political power, have turned India into a mess. That too is parallel to the way quarrelling Buddhists, exploitative Christians and lately-intolerant Hindus have been letting down their preceptors. But their smallness does not detract from the true greatness of the sages who opened the path of enlightenment for them and for the world. They abide because they gave without taking. They were not men of arms. They were men of ideas. Parithranaya sadhunam, they appear from age to age. They appear to teach us that the world can be conquered, not with force, but with ideas. It was the lesson of this Millennium too - taught by the Man of the Millennium.
a) What did Gandhi achieve through his philosophy of justice and fairness?
b) How will Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel be remembered?
c) According to Raja Rao, what did Gandhi represent?
d) The author talks of two types of greatness. Which one is much appreciated and admired ?
e) What was the lesson of this millennium?
Passage No: 4
The paints used in Indian homes come with a deadly health cost. Most of the popular brands of paints contain high quantities of lead, a toxin especially dangerous for children -- says a latest study done by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Over 2008 and 2009, CSE’s Pollution Monitoring Laboratory tested these brands for their lead content. It found 72 per cent of the samples had lead much higher than the voluntary limit specified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). There is no mandatory standard for lead levels in paints in the country.
Says Sunita Narain, director, CSE: “Every moment, we are building a stock of unwanted, toxic chemicals in our bodies. Lead from our house paints is one of them. It’s deadly because it can lower children’s IQ.”
The study covered five of the six major companies in the organised sector, which control 75 per cent of the household paints market . Lead was found in 23 of the 25 samples tested. Seventy-two per cent of the samples – 18 samples -- contained lead much higher than the 1,000 ppm limit specified by the BIS. Based on this study, when CSE wrote asking companies for their plans to remove lead from paints, Asian Paints and Nerolac responded saying they were in the process of change. In 2009, CSE tested to confirm what had been done – taking samples from each of the five major companies.
Doctors refer to lead as the ‘silent epidemic’. The human body cannot process and excrete lead. Sustained and large exposure can cause serious damage. Children are especially susceptible. Lead can damage their still developing central nervous systems and brains, leading to a child performing poorly in exams or having short attention spans. Adults exposed to lead poisoning may find it difficult to concentrate or remember things, and feel pain in muscles and joints. Even extremely low levels of lead can impair foetal development
It is easy to get exposed to lead. One can pick it up by touching paint on walls and other surfaces, inhaling exhaust fumes from a vehicle, or while walking on leaded paint chips, says the CSE study.
The US Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry has declared lead level in blood exceeding 10 microgramme per decilitre as unsafe -- studies indicate that over 60 per cent of children in India may have more than this level in their blood. And paints are a key source.
It is not just paints we need to worry about. “Our households are at risk because we do not know what chemicals are in the products that we use,” points out Narain, explaining that more and more products containing toxic chemicals are in the market. For instance, detergents and cleaners have chemicals which could be toxic and banned in different countries.
“In India, we only have environmental regulations on the production – effluent standards – but not on the products that we use. The scheme for eco-labelling of detergents, started in the early 1990s, also voluntary, has completely failed, with not one product labelling ingredients or complying with its specifications. We urgently need environmental product standards in the country before our health is even more at risk because of chemicals in our households.” Says bhushan, associate director CSE
Answer the following questions:
a. What has been revealed as per the latest study done by CSE?
b. How is lead dangerous for children?
c. What action was immediately taken by CSE? What response did it get?
d. In what ways can one get exposed to lead?
e. How does Lead affects the adults?
f. What caused the failure for scheme of eco-labelling of detergents in India?
Passage No: 5
In spite of all the honours that we heaped upon him, Pasteur, as has been said,remained simple at heart. Perhaps the imagery of his boyhood days, when he drew the familiar scenes of his birthplace, and the longing to be a great artist, never wholly left him. In truth he did become a great artist, though after his sixteenth year he abandoned the brush for ever. Like every artist of worth, he put his whole soul and energy into his work, and it was this very energy that in the end wore him out. For to him, each sufferer was something more than just a case that was to be cured. He looked upon the fight against hydrophobia as a battle, and he was absorbed in his determination to win. The sight of injured children, particularly, moved him to an indescribable extent. He suffered with his patients, and yet he would not deny himself a share in that suffering. His greatest grief was when sheer physical exhaustion made him give up his active work. He retired to the estate at Villeneuve Etang, where he had his kennels for the study of rabies, and
there he passed his last summer, as his great biographer, Vallery Radot, has said, “practicing the Gospel virtues.” “He revered the faith of his fathers, “says the same writer, “and wished without
ostentation or mystery to receive its aid during his last period.” The attitude of this man to the science he had done so much to perfect can be best summed up in a sentence that he is reputed once to have uttered, concerning the materialism of many of his contemporaries in similar branches of learning to his own: “The more I contemplate the mysteries of Nature, the more my faith becomes like that of a peasant.”
But even then in retirement he loved to see his former pupils, and it was then he would reiterate his life principles: “Work, “ he would say, “never cease to work.” So well had he kept this precept that he began rapidly to sink from exhaustion. Finally on September 27, 1895, when someone leant over his bed to offer him a cup of milk, he said sadly: “I cannot, “ and with a look of perfect resignation and peace, seemed to fall asleep. He never again opened his eyes to the cares and
sufferings of a world, which he had done so much to relieve and to conquer. He was within three months of his seventy-third birthday. Thus passed, as simply as a child, the man whom the French people were to vote at a plebiscite as the greatest man that France had ever produced. Napoleon, who has always been considered the idol of France, was placed fifth. No greater tribute could have been paid to Louis Pasteur, the tanner’s son, the scientist, the man of peace, the patient worker for humanity.
Questions:
a. Even accolades and honours did not change the simple man that Pasteur was. Why?
b. How did Pasteur view those who suffered from diseases?
c. How did Pasteur engage himself in the estate?
d. What advice did he always give to his pupils?
e. How did France, the country of his birth, honor this great scientist?
