Organizing Essays

The first sentence of a paragraph is called...

• A concluding sentence

• A topic sentence

• A piece of evidence

• An explanation

When writing an argument essay, your topic sentence should state...

• A piece of evidence that supports your reason

• One reason that supports your claim

• Your thesis statement

• A hook

After you state your topic sentence, you should...

• Ask a question to hook the reader

• Offer and explanation

• State another reason

• Introduce your first piece of evidence

After you state a piece of evidence, you should...

• Restate your reason

• Move on to your next piece of evidence

• Explain it in at least 2 sentences

• Wrap up the paragraph with a concluding sentence

In an argument essay, how many pieces of evidence should you include in each body paragraph?

• 1

• 2

• 3

• 4

In each body paragraph, how many pieces of direct text evidence (quotes from a source) should you use?

• 1

• 2

• 3

• 4

In each body paragraph, how many pieces of evidence should be a paraphrase or background knowledge?

• 1

• 2

• 3

• 4

After you introduce, state, and explain each piece of evidence in a body paragraph, what should you do?

• Write a concluding sentence

• Keep adding more evidence

• Move on to your next reason

• Write a hook

When writing a concluding sentence, what should you do? (READ CAREFULLY)

• Restate your topic sentence

• State your next reason

• Write a call to action

• Restate your topic sentence and hint at your next reason

Which of the following is the BEST example of an effective concluding sentence?

• As you can see, competitive sports are beneficial for student because there are many health benefits, and there are also social benefits.

• Clearly, competitive sports are beneficial.

• Without a doubt, competitive sports are beneficial for students because of the many health benefits.

• As explained above, there are many benefits to competitive sports.