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Understanding Structure

The dictionary defines structure as “something that has been built.” A house needs a structure to hold up the walls and the roof. Writing also needs a structure to “hold up” the ideas.

Creating Three Main Parts

Writing is built part by part, starting with the beginning. It continues with the middle part and finishes with the ending. This is a basic rule of structure, no matter what kind of writing you are doing—a paragraph, an essay, or even a story. You must always include all three parts to form a complete piece of writing.

Beginning 🟪 

The beginning of a paragraph is the topic sentence. This sentence names the topic and states what you plan to say about it.

The beginning paragraph of an essay includes a lead sentence that names the topic and gets the reader’s interest. The other sentences build up to the focus or thesis statement, which tells what you plan to say about the topic. Here are four ways to write a lead sentence: