The links within an essay
When someone reads your essay, they need to be able to follow the organisation of the essay. You can help the reader follow your organisation by making clear links between your thesis statement, paragraph leaders and your conclusion.
In an essay, the thesis statement, the paragraph leaders, and the summary, and the conclusion should all be closely linked so that the essay is coherent. If you look at the thesis statement in the introduction of the essay on Reading, you’ll see that the key ideas for why people live in Reading, a family life and opportunities to study. If we then look at the paragraph leader of the first paragraph– “Reading offers the opportunity for a good work-life balance”– good work-life balance relates back to the idea of family life.
If we then look at a paragraph leader of the second paragraph– “many people also come to Reading to study at a language school or at the University”– the idea of study links back to the idea of study in the thesis statement. If we then look at the conclusion to the essay, the summary reads, “in conclusion, people live in Reading for their own individual reasons. For some people, Reading represents a lifestyle choice, and for others, it offers opportunities to study.” So the idea of lifestyle choice links back to the idea of family life, and study links back to the idea of opportunities to study.
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Previous lessons:
- The key features of academic writing
- What ideas would you include in an essay?
- Main ideas and supporting evidence in an essay
- How to organize an essay
- Analysing the organisation of an example essay