1 Collect all of your notes and materials

1

Collect all of your notes and materials. Before you start to write, gather together all of the notes, books, and other materials that you will need to reference in order to answer the essay prompt effectively. Support is essential for an effective English essay, so do not try to write your essay without these materials. If you have time, read through your notes before you begin.

• Make sure that you have your outline handy as well. You can build on the outline that you created by expanding on each of the points in the order that they are listed in.

2

Include topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph. Topic sentences signal to readers what a paragraph will discuss. Start each of your paragraphs with a topic sentence so that your instructor will be able to see that your ideas progress in a clear, direct manner.^[4]

• Think of the topic sentence as a way to tell readers what you will talk about in the rest of the paragraph. You don’t need to summarize the whole paragraph in the topic sentence, just provide readers with a taste.
• For example, in a paragraph that describes Okonkwo’s rise and fall in Things Fall Apart, you might begin with something like: “Okonkwo starts out as a poor young man, but then rises to a position of wealth and status.”