OK, it’s time to admit that I’ve secretly been toying with you. All of this talk about opinions and using facts to back them up has just been a bit of a sly leadup to a very important topic, but one that students, for some reason, tend to be afraid of: writing essays.
If that word scares you, it’s just because nobody has taught you the secret to how easy writing essays can be. Once you know the secret formula to writing a strong essay, AND YOU FOLLOW IT, you’ll see that writing them is actually quite easy, and you’ll have no problem getting great marks.
The hardest part is coming up with the right topic, but lucky for you, you may have already done this without knowing it. We’re going to write an argumentative essay, which is an extension of the written piece that I had you do previously. Feel free to use that topic (and a lot of what you’ve already written) for your essay!
Once you know what you’re going to write, you need to come up with a THESIS SENTENCE. This is ONE sentence that acts as a summary of your entire argument.
I started with a simple statement: Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone.
It’s an opinion statement that is easy for someone to argue with. So from there, I needed to come up with some facts that would help back my point up. Opinions are weak because they can be argued with and someone who disagrees can still be right, but facts, well, you can’t really argue with facts. Combine some strong facts with a strong opinion and you’ve got a recipe for success.
WHY is pizza the perfect meal choice? Well, I had 4 thoughts originally:
- Versatile
- Popular
- Cheap
- 4 food groups – full meal
Your essay needs to have THREE strong facts that can be explained in detail to help prove your point, so I took the 3 that I thought were the strongest and easiest to explain, and came up with a sentence for each, combining my original statement with a fact that helps prove the point:
- Pizza is such a great meal choice because it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings.
- The popularity of pizza makes it a perfect meal choice.
- Pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups.
You’ll need to write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point, so make sure that there are things that you can say about each.
Once you’ve got those figured out, and you’re sure that you can expand each point with AT LEAST 3 other sentences, you need to go back and revise your THESIS to include those points.
So my thesis became:
Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself.
That THESIS sentence goes AT THE END of the first paragraph. Don’t worry yet about what goes before it.
From there, take each of those 3 TOPIC sentences and write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point. End off each of those three BODY paragraphs by restating the first, TOPIC sentence! In total, each BODY paragraph needs to be AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES LONG. The structure of each paragraph is THE SAME.
Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself. (THESIS)
The first reason why pizza is such a great meal choice is that it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings. (TOPIC SENTENCE) Everyone from meat lovers to vegans can find a combination that will suit their preferences. Varying the toppings, sauces, cheese, and even the dough can create seemingly endless combinations, so there’s always a way to make pizza new, interesting, and enjoyable for all. It’s easy to change those toppings and combinations so a pizza meal never needs to be repetitive or boring. These combinations and possibilities help make pizza a perfect meal choice for just about everyone. (TOPIC RESTATED)
The versatility of pizza is just one of the many reasons why pizza is so popular, and that popularity makes it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) As mentioned, anyone can find a combination of ingredients and toppings to suit their needs. Since pizza is such a widely appreciated meal, you can easily make it yourself using basic ingredients, and of course can find pizza restaurants just about everywhere. Because you can make it with basic ingredients and it’s fast and easy to make, pizza is very popular. This widespread popularity proves that pizza is a great meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)
Lastly, pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups, making it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) When you look at the grains in the dough, the cheese on top, vegetables in the sauce and as toppings, and meats and alternates making frequent appearances, you can see that it is quite easy to have a balanced meal representing all of the necessary food groups. Pizza is also one of those rare meals that does not require any kind of side dish, as it is filling, enjoyable, and healthy all on its own. Since pizza is baked, not fried, and it generally contains a lot of fresh ingredients, pizza tends to be rather healthy in nature. The balanced, healthy nature further proves that pizza is the perfect meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)
The final paragraph starts with the thesis sentence again, and serves to show that you’ve proven your point. My conclusion starts like this:
The versatility, popularity, and healthy, balanced nature of pizza all combine to make it one of the most perfect meal options available. (THESIS RESTATED)
EACH PARAGRAPH SHOULD CONTAIN AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES. You will be writing five paragraphs of AT LEAST five sentences each, so your essay will be AT LEAST 25 sentences long. BUT, you’ll notice that the thesis sentence gets reused ONCE in the INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION and gets revised as a TOPIC SENTENCE at the BEGINNING AND END of each BODY paragraph, so it essentially gets used EIGHT times!