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Building an Essay

The outline below will give you a good picture of how the sample essay “Jack Russell Terriers” was built. Each paragraph introduces a new idea, but all of the ideas explain the focus statement.

You’ll also see that Mila uses key words and transitions to signal the main point in each paragraph: originally created . . . short but is muscular . . . overall temperament . . . As a hunting dog. . . . When you link your paragraphs together in this way, readers can easily follow along—which makes your essay better.