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Structuring an Academic essay
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- Coventry University (West Midlands) (CU)
A document explaining how to structure an academic essay.
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Structuring an Academic EssayWriting an essay with a clear structure helps you to:
• Make all your ideas clear.
• Discuss similar ideas together.
• Avoid including irrelevant or tangential information.
• Avoid repeating information you have already covered.
All academic essays have a similar basic structure. They begin with an
introduction, contain main ideas in the body, and end with a
conclusion.
Introductions begin with general statements and end with a specific
thesis statement. The thesis statement, which comes at the end of the
introduction, has two parts. First, it includes a ‘summary’ sentence that
gives the overall purpose of the essay (e.g. ‘This essay will
discuss/examine/consider…’). It then includes several sentences which
describe the main ideas of the essay and the order in which they will
appear (e.g. ‘First the essay will explore… . Then/Secondly it will… .
Finally/Lastly it will… .’).
The body of an essay is organised into main ideas (usually three to
four). Essays must discuss one main idea at a time. When moving on
to a new main idea within the body of the essay, use signal phrases
such as ‘first’, ‘secondly’, ‘next’ or ‘finally’, along with the key words of
the next main idea. These topic sentences make it clear to the reader
that the essay is moving from one idea to another.
Conclusions begin by restating the specific thesis statement and then
continue with more general information such as a summary of the
essay’s main points, some general recommendations, or ideas for
future research.
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