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Writing Essays
Writing is a journey. When you start out, you might have no idea where you want to go or how to get there. So, you plan. Then you follow your plan, creating a first draft. Afterward, you take a look back to see how far you’ve come. (Revise means “look at again.”) You make adjustments—adding to your itinerary, reworking parts of your trip, discarding dead ends. When you finish, you have an amazing voyage of discovery that began with a few faltering steps.
In school, the vehicle for your journey is probably an essay. Essays usually start with a paragraph that gets the reader’s attention and introduces the topic. The middle part provides information about the topic, and the final paragraph sums up the ideas. Sound familiar? That’s because an essay is just a paragraph taken a few steps farther.