English 102

Guide to Organizing and Structuring a Scholarly Essay

The central relationship in any scholarly, research-based essay is the link between your argument and the evidence you find to support that argument. This relationship should form the foundation of your essay. Below you’ll find some notes on how to approach the construction of your essay. Make sure to talk to me if you encounter any problems in writing your essay.

Introductions:

-All scholarly essays must open with an introduction. That introduction should include pertinent information on your topic (in the case of this class, that might be information on the larger topic you’re writing about, the societal context of that topic, etc.)

-The introduction must also include your thesis statement. Your thesis should be your central argument for your essay. Make sure that the argument in your thesis is something that you can support with evidence from sources. If you’re presenting an unsupportable claim in your thesis, then your essay will not function properly.

Body Paragraphs:

-Your body paragraphs should be focused on supporting and proving your thesis statement on a point by point basis. How you break down those points is up to you, but make sure that each point in the essay is clearly set up, supported with evidence, and wrapped up before you move on to another point. If your points begin to get jumbled (if, for example, you move to a new point in the middle of a paragraph), you’ll lose the focus of your argumentation.

-In 102, it’s possible that you’ll need more than one paragraph per point that you intend to make. If that’s the case, you may not need a traditional, argumentative topic sentence for every paragraph, but it is of vital importance that you lead the reader through your essay with topic and concluding sentences as you begin and end specific points. Those topic sentences should clearly establish the argumentative points that you’re making before you begin to provide any kind of source-based evidence.

-Make sure that each point in your essay is organized logically. Don’t include extraneous information that doesn’t support the point you’re developing. If you stray off-topic, your paragraphs will suffer for it.

-You absolutely must support all arguments put forward in your essay with evidence gathered from your scholarly research. This is that key relationship I mentioned earlier. Arguments must always be followed by evidence. If you put forward an argument (“The media typically presents steroid users in a negative light”) then you must follow that argument with evidence gathered from your sources (In this case, I might provide some examples of major media outlets painting steroid users in a negative light or I might quote an expert on media issues who has conducted research to prove this point.) If you have points that you’re making that are not supported by evidence drawn from sources, then you’re not meeting the basic requirements of a research-based essay.

-Remember to cite all source material used both in-text and on the Works Cited page. Anything that is pulled from anywhere other than your own mind is from a source and should be cited. Read the document “Notes on Internal Citation” for more information on you’ll integrate your sources and how you’ll cite them in-text.

Conclusion:

-You absolutely must provide a conclusion for your essay that wraps up your arguments and leaves the reader with a sense of closure. If you have any final thoughts on your subject, insert them here, but try to avoid introducing new material (particularly new arguments) in your conclusion. Remember, your goal in a scholarly essay is to support your arguments with evidence. If you introduce new arguments or ideas in the conclusion, you won’t have time or space to support them fully.

Notes on Essay Writing:

-Avoid first and second person in scholarly writing.

-Remember that the vast majority of your source material should be paraphrased. Use quotes occasionally, when you absolutely can’t re-word something or when the original wording is important to the context of your argument. Regardless of whether you are paraphrasing or quoting, you must cite your sources in-text and on the Works Cited page.

-When you directly quote, you must mark the direct quote with quotation marks, and you must introduce the quote with a tagline. If you include material that you have pulled word-for-word from a source and you don’t have that material in quotation marks, you are plagiarizing regardless of whether or not you’ve cited the source.

-Make sure to follow all formatting specifications for MLA style. These are available on the Purdue/OWL website. On that website, there is a sample essay for you to review. Make sure that you are formatting your essay (spacing, margins, header, etc.) exactly like the sample essay.