Writing is a craft; this is the one thing my rhetoric professor stressed the most during my days in his classroom. Not only should the read be worded to be legible and entertaning; there are rules and guidelines to follow when crafting an essay. It goes through stages, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion, and there is a right way and a wrong way to do all of them.

The introduction is likely the most important paragraph. If the introduction is poor the reader may become bored or cynical in the beginning. The introduction builds up to the last sentence of itself which is the thesis. The thesis should simply mention the topics you will be covering in the body of the essay. This gives the reader an idea of what he will be commiting the next few minutes of his life to, and should also create interest in the subject matter.

The body of the essay should cover all of the points presented in the thesis in detail. Any arguments or descriptions go here. Try to stay objective, avoiding statements such as "I believe" or "you should", as they arn't as powerful rhetoricly. Whatever you state here should be presented as fact, whether it is your opinion, true or not. Just don't make any outragious clames because it will be necissary to support the argument with logic.

The conclusion is nothing but a brief restatement of the introduction but presented in a way that closes the argument instead of opening it. This is also where the writer can put his non objective ideas down.

Look, im not the best writer, and i only got Bs in my composition classes, but I did take a few things with me from the classroom. Hopefully I can be of some help to your grade. By the way, I tried to follow the rules presented here in this topic. If nothing it was at least a good exercise in rhetoric.

Last edited by ChewY; 05/28/06 06:58 PM.
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