Organizational Essay Structures

Organizational Essay Structures

By Barbara Villanueva

Organizational Structure

When writing an essay, it is important to select the most appropriate organizational structure for your writing. This will help the reader follow your argument.

AP Language Essays

• analyzes text in a sequential order​

​Chronological

• analyzes one or more effects from a particular cause

• analyzes the ways in which 1 or more causes lead to a particular effect

Cause- Effect

Types of Strucures

• analyzes text using the writer's definition

Definitional

• analyzes text using SUBJECT by SUBJECT

• analyzes text using POINT by POINT

Compare- Contrast

Types of Structures

Cause- Effect​

A cause-effect essay tells how one event (the cause) leads to

another event (the effect).

• In cause-effect essays, it is easy to suggest that because one event preceded another event, the former event caused the latter. Simply because one event follows another one sequentially does not

  mean that the two actions are related.

• For example, people often complain that as soon as they finish

  washing their car, it starts to rain. Obviously, washing a car does not cause rain. Writers need to be sure that the causes and effects they describe are logically connected.​

AP Language Essays

INTRODUCTION: Paragraph 1

​

​

BODY: Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3​

Paragraph 4

​

CONCLUSION: Paragraph 5

​

Cause- Effect Outlines

hook, connecting

information, thesis

​

​Effect 1

Effect 2

Effect 3

​

​restated thesis

suggestion/opinion

/prediction

​INTRODUCTION: Paragraph 1

​

​

BODY: Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3​

Paragraph 4

​

CONCLUSION: Paragraph 5

​hook, connecting

information, thesis

​

​Cause 1

Cause 2

Cause 3

​

​restated thesis

suggestion/opinion

/prediction

​This is an example of a cause- effect essay.

Chronological

AP Language Essays

Compare- Contrast

​

"A compare-and-contrast essay analyzes two subjects by either comparing them, contrasting them, or both. The purpose of writing a comparison or contrast essay is not to state the obvious but rather to illuminate subtle differences or unexpected similarities between two subjects."

​

Taken from https://www.grammarly.com/blog/compare-contrast/#:~:text=A%20compare%2Dand%2Dcontrast%20essay%20is%20a%20style%20of%20essay,other%20or%20unjustly%20lumped%20together.​

​

Subject | Subject

RhetoricalPatternCompareandContrastEssay.pdf - Google Drive

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This is an example of a compare-contrast essay.

​

Definitional

Subject | Subject

​Definition essay examples are about terms that are negotiable and cause conflict of opinions. Something undecided and arguable will make a great essay!

Definitional

INTRODUCTION: Paragraph 1

​

​

​

​

​BODY: Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

​

Paragraph 4

​

​​

​

CONCLUSION​: Paragraph 5

AP Language Essays

​Hook: anecdote, intersting facts, humorous story, personal experience

​Thesis= Topic + Definition

​

​Begin each BP with Topic Sentence​

Develop BPs in one of 3 ways:

​

1) analyze/ compare

2) exemplify/ negate

3) illustrate/ give background ​

​

​

​

​​Summarize, predict, anecdote, comparison​​

​This is an example of a definition essay.