Academic Enrichment Services Academic Skills Unit

Structure

When you write an essay or assignment for university, it should follow the conventional structure of introduction, body, conclusion and reference list. You begin with general information (e.g. topic sentence, introduction) and move to more specific information like the shape of an inverted triangle. Your writing should be divided into paragraphs with each paragraph having a specific topic or theme that is clearly announced to the reader in the first or topic sentence. Your argument should be developed logically and connected with the points you have previously made in the writing. The following sections give you advice on:

Cohesion

Readers should move easily from one sentence of your writing to the next sentence and from one paragraph to the next. This means that your writing is cohesive (53KB |PDF) because it flows well. The reader should move from a familiar concept to a new concept so that each sentence is connected to the previous sentence and to the sentence that follows. Therefore, you should begin sentences with information that is familiar or unsurprising to your reader and you can put new information at the end of sentences.

Coherence

As well as flowing smoothly from one sentence and paragraph to the next, your writing must also make sense; that is, be about something. You must tell you reader what the topic of each sentence and paragraph is. Your topic should be announced to the reader toward the start of a sentence and then each sentence or topic in a paragraph should cohere or share a theme. When you revise or edit your writing, you could highlight the first few words of each sentence and read only these highlighted sections. The topics of your sentence sand your paragraphs should be clear when you read only these highlighted bits. If not then re-write your sentences so that the topics are located close to the start of each sentence and paragraph.

Connecting and Reporting

Connecting (53KB |PDF) words guide your reader from one point or idea to the next like signposts on streets guide drivers. As a result, they improve the cohesion or flow of your writing as the reader moves from the familiar to the unfamiliar or contrastive.
Furthermore, different verbs allow you to present the ideas and arguments of other writers while summing up your assessment of the value of those ideas and arguments. Basic verbs like ‘said’ do not contain any evaluative information whereas ‘suggested’, for example, communicates to the reader that the writer’s idea is tentative or unproven.
Links:
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/ParagraphTransitions.html

Introductions and Conclusions

Your introduction should provide some background information to the topic of your essay or assignment (e.g. a definition, a brief rationale); tell your reader what your essay or assignment will argue, present or describe (i.e. your thesis statement); and show the basic outline or structure of the writing that follows.
On the other hand, your conclusion should refer back to the thesis statement and the outline in your introduction to remind the reader how you argued, presented or described the topic. Finally, the conclusion may suggest further research that could be conducted on the topic. See Introduction and Conclusion (53KB |PDF)

Body Paragraphs

Your introduction tells the reader how your essay or assignment will be structured so the way you organise your writing into body paragraphs should reflect the outline or structure in your introduction. You should organise your writing into paragraphs. You introduce each paragraph with a topic sentence that usually connects the paragraph to the topic or theme of the previous paragraph and, moreover, tells the reader what the current paragraph is about. Each paragraph should be about one main idea and each sentence of each paragraph should flow from the previous sentence smoothly into the next sentence and should be connected to the main idea of that paragraph. You begin with a general statement in your topic sentence and add supporting evidence and arguments throughout the paragraph. If you start to move from your main idea to another related idea or argument, you should start a new paragraph.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/724/02/
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/paragraphsTOC.html

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