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How to write strong essay body paragraphs (with examples)

In this blog post, we'll discuss how to write clear, convincing essay body paragraphs using many examples. We'll also be writing paragraphs together. By the end, you'll have a good understanding of how to write a strong essay body for any topic.

Table of Contents

Introduction, how to structure a body paragraph, creating an outline for our essay body, 1. a strong thesis statment takes a stand, 2. a strong thesis statement allows for debate, 3. a strong thesis statement is specific, writing the first essay body paragraph, how not to write a body paragraph, writing the second essay body paragraph.

After writing a great introduction to our essay, let's make our case in the body paragraphs. These are where we will present our arguments, back them up with evidence, and, in most cases, refute counterarguments. Introductions are very similar across the various types of essays. For example, an argumentative essay's introduction will be near identical to an introduction written for an expository essay. In contrast, the body paragraphs are structured differently depending on the type of essay.

In an expository essay, we are investigating an idea or analyzing the circumstances of a case. In contrast, we want to make compelling points with an argumentative essay to convince readers to agree with us.

The most straightforward technique to make an argument is to provide context first, then make a general point, and lastly back that point up in the following sentences. Not starting with your idea directly but giving context first is crucial in constructing a clear and easy-to-follow paragraph.

How to ideally structure a body paragraph:

• Provide context
• Make your thesis statement
• Support that argument

Now that we have the ideal structure for an argumentative essay, the best step to proceed is to outline the subsequent paragraphs. For the outline, we'll be writing one sentence that is simple in wording and describes the argument that we'll make in that paragraph concisely. Why are we doing that? An outline does more than give you a structure to work off of in the following essay body, thereby saving you time. It also helps you not to repeat yourself or, even worse, to accidentally contradict yourself later on.

While working on the outline, remember that revising your initial topic sentences is completely normal. They do not need to be flawless. Starting the outline with those thoughts can help accelerate writing the entire essay and can be very beneficial in avoiding writer's block.

For the essay body, we'll be proceeding with the topic we've written an introduction for in the previous article - the dangers of social media on society.

These are the main points I would like to make in the essay body regarding the dangers of social media:

Amplification of one's existing beliefs

Skewed comparisons

What makes a polished thesis statement?

Now that we've got our main points, let's create our outline for the body by writing one clear and straightforward topic sentence (which is the same as a thesis statement) for each idea. How do we write a great topic sentence? First, take a look at the three characteristics of a strong thesis statement.

Consider this thesis statement:

'While social media can have some negative effects, it can also be used positively.'

What stand does it take? Which negative and positive aspects does the author mean? While this one:

'Because social media is linked to a rise in mental health problems, it poses a danger to users.'

takes a clear stand and is very precise about the object of discussion.

If your thesis statement is not arguable, then your paper will not likely be enjoyable to read. Consider this thesis statement:

'Lots of people around the globe use social media.'

It does not allow for much discussion at all. Even if you were to argue that more or fewer people are using it on this planet, that wouldn't make for a very compelling argument.

'Although social media has numerous benefits, its various risks, including cyberbullying and possible addiction, mostly outweigh its benefits.'

Whether or not you consider this statement true, it allows for much more discussion than the previous one. It provides a basis for an engaging, thought-provoking paper by taking a position that you can discuss.

A thesis statement is one sentence that clearly states what you will discuss in that paragraph. It should give an overview of the main points you will discuss and show how these relate to your topic. For example, if you were to examine the rapid growth of social media, consider this thesis statement:

'There are many reasons for the rise in social media usage.'

That thesis statement is weak for two reasons. First, depending on the length of your essay, you might need to narrow your focus because the "rise in social media usage" can be a large and broad topic you cannot address adequately in a few pages. Secondly, the term "many reasons" is vague and does not give the reader an idea of what you will discuss in your paper.

In contrast, consider this thesis statement:

'The rise in social media usage is due to the increasing popularity of platforms like Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to connect with friends and share information effortlessly.'

Why is this better? Not only does it abide by the first two rules by allowing for debate and taking a stand, but this statement also narrows the subject down and identifies significant reasons for the increasing popularity of social media.

In conclusion : A strong thesis statement takes a clear stand, allows for discussion, and is specific.

Let's make use of how to write a good thopic sentence and put it into practise for our two main points from before. This is what good topic sentences could look like:

Echo chambers facilitated by social media promote political segregation in society.

Applied to the second argument:

Viewing other people's lives online through a distorted lens can lead to feelings of envy and inadequacy, as well as unrealistic expectations about one's life.

These topic sentences will be a very convenient structure for the whole body of our essay. Let's build out the first body paragraph, then closely examine how we did it so you can apply it to your essay.

Example: First body paragraph

If social media users mostly see content that reaffirms their existing beliefs, it can create an "echo chamber" effect. The echo chamber effect describes the user's limited exposure to diverse perspectives, making it challenging to examine those beliefs critically, thereby contributing to society's political polarization. This polarization emerges from social media becoming increasingly based on algorithms, which cater content to users based on their past interactions on the site. Further contributing to this shared narrative is the very nature of social media, allowing politically like-minded individuals to connect (Sunstein, 2018). Consequently, exposure to only one side of the argument can make it very difficult to see the other side's perspective, marginalizing opposing viewpoints. The entrenchment of one's beliefs by constant reaffirmation and amplification of political ideas results in segregation along partisan lines.

Sunstein, C. R (2018). #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

In the first sentence, we provide context for the argument that we are about to make. Then, in the second sentence, we clearly state the topic we are addressing (social media contributing to political polarization).

Our topic sentence tells readers that a detailed discussion of the echo chamber effect and its consequences is coming next. All the following sentences, which make up most of the paragraph, either a) explain or b) support this point.

Finally, we answer the questions about how social media facilitates the echo chamber effect and the consequences. Try implementing the same structure in your essay body paragraph to allow for a logical and cohesive argument.

These paragraphs should be focused, so don't incorporate multiple arguments into one. Squeezing ideas into a single paragraph makes it challenging for readers to follow your reasoning. Instead, reserve each body paragraph for a single statement to be discussed and only switch to the next section once you feel that you thoroughly explained and supported your topic sentence.

Let's look at an example that might seem appropriate initially but should be modified.

Negative example: Try identifying the main argument

Over the past decade, social media platforms have become increasingly popular methods of communication and networking. However, these platforms' algorithmic nature fosters echo chambers or online spaces where users only encounter information that reinforces their existing beliefs. This echo chamber effect can lead to a lack of understanding or empathy for those with different perspectives and can even amplify the effects of confirmation bias. The same principle of one-sided exposure to opinions can be abstracted and applied to the biased subjection to lifestyles we see on social media. The constant exposure to these highly-curated and often unrealistic portrayals of other people's lives can lead us to believe that our own lives are inadequate in comparison. These feelings of inadequacy can be especially harmful to young people, who are still developing their sense of self.

Let's analyze this essay paragraph. Introducing the topic sentence by stating the social functions of social media is very useful because it provides context for the following argument. Naming those functions in the first sentence also allows for a smooth transition by contrasting the initial sentence ("However, ...") with the topic sentence. Also, the topic sentence abides by our three rules for creating a strong thesis statement:

• Taking a clear stand: algorithms are substantial contributors to the echo chamber effect
• Allowing for debate: there is literature rejecting this claim
• Being specific: analyzing a specific cause of the effect (algorithms).

So, where's the problem with this body paragraph?

It begins with what seems like a single argument (social media algorithms contributing to the echo chamber effect). Yet after addressing the consequences of the echo-chamber effect right after the thesis sentence, the author applies the same principle to a whole different topic. At the end of the paragraph, the reader is probably feeling confused. What was the paragraph trying to achieve in the first place?

We should place the second idea of being exposed to curated lifestyles in a separate section instead of shoehorning it into the end of the first one. All sentences following the thesis statement should either explain it or provide evidence (refuting counterarguments falls into this category, too).

With our first body paragraph done and having seen an example of what to avoid, let's take the topic of being exposed to curated lifestyles through social media and construct a separate body paragraph for it. We have already provided sufficient context for the reader to follow our argument, so it is unnecessary for this particular paragraph.

Body paragraph 2

Another cause for social media's destructiveness is the users' inclination to only share the highlights of their lives on social media, consequently distorting our perceptions of reality. A highly filtered view of their life leads to feelings of envy and inadequacy, as well as a distorted understanding of what is considered ordinary (Liu et al., 2018). In addition, frequent social media use is linked to decreased self-esteem and body satisfaction (Perloff, 2014). One way social media can provide a curated view of people's lives is through filters, making photos look more radiant, shadier, more or less saturated, and similar. Further, editing tools allow people to fundamentally change how their photos and videos look before sharing them, allowing for inserting or removing certain parts of the image. Editing tools give people considerable control over how their photos and videos look before sharing them, thereby facilitating the curation of one's online persona.

Perloff, R.M. Social Media Effects on Young Women's Body Image Concerns: Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research. Sex Roles 71, 363–377 (2014).

Liu, Hongbo & Wu, Laurie & Li, Xiang. (2018). Social Media Envy: How Experience Sharing on Social Networking Sites Drives Millennials' Aspirational Tourism Consumption. Journal of Travel Research. 58. 10.1177/0047287518761615.

Dr. Jacob Neumann put it this way in his book A professors guide to writing essays: 'If you've written strong and clear topic sentences, you're well on your way to creating focused paragraphs.'

They provide the basis for each paragraph's development and content, allowing you not to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the overall objective. It's crucial not to neglect that step. Apply these principles to your essay body, whatever the topic, and you'll set yourself up for the best possible results.

Sources used for creating this article

• Writing a solid thesis statement : https://www.vwu.edu/academics/academic-support/learning-center/pdfs/Thesis-Statement.pdf
• Neumann, Jacob. A professor's guide to writing essays. 2016.

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How to write an essay: Body

• What's in this guide
• Introduction
• Essay structure
• Additional resources

Body paragraphs

The essay body itself is organised into paragraphs, according to your plan. Remember that each paragraph focuses on one idea, or aspect of your topic, and should contain at least 4-5 sentences so you can deal with that idea properly.

Each body paragraph has three sections. First is the topic sentence . This lets the reader know what the paragraph is going to be about and the main point it will make. It gives the paragraph’s point straight away. Next – and largest – is the supporting sentences . These expand on the central idea, explaining it in more detail, exploring what it means, and of course giving the evidence and argument that back it up. This is where you use your research to support your argument. Then there is a concluding sentence . This restates the idea in the topic sentence, to remind the reader of your main point. It also shows how that point helps answer the question.

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“An appropriate use of paragraphs is an essential part of writing coherent and well-structured essays.” Don Shiach,   How to write essays

The main body of your essay is where you deliver your argument . Its building blocks are well structured, academic paragraphs. Each paragraph is in itself an  individual argument  and when put together they should form a clear narrative that leads the reader to the inevitability of your conclusion.

The importance of the paragraph

A good academic paragraph is a special thing. It makes a clear point, backed up by good quality academic evidence, with a clear explanation of how the evidence supports the point and why the point is relevant to your overall argument  which supports your position . When these paragraphs are put together with appropriate links, there is a logical flow that takes the reader naturally to your essay's conclusion. 

As a general rule there should be one clear key point per paragraph , otherwise your reader could become overwhelmed with evidence that supports different points and makes your argument harder to follow. If you follow the basic structure below, you will be able to build effective paragraphs and so make the main body of your essay deliver on what you say it will do in your introduction.

Paragraph structure

• A topic sentence – what is the overall point that the paragraph is making?
• Evidence that supports your point – this is usually your cited material.
• Explanation of why the point is important and how it helps with your overall argument.
• A link (if necessary) to the next paragraph (or to the previous one if coming at the beginning of the paragraph) or back to the essay question.

This is a good order to use when you are new to writing academic essays - but as you get more accomplished you can adapt it as necessary. The important thing is to make sure all of these elements are present within the paragraph.

The sections below explain more about each of these elements.

The topic sentence (Point)

This should appear early in the paragraph and is often, but not always, the first sentence.  It should clearly state the main point that you are making in the paragraph. When you are planning essays, writing down a list of your topic sentences is an excellent way to check that your argument flows well from one point to the next.

This is the evidence that backs up your topic sentence. Why do you believe what you have written in your topic sentence? The evidence is usually paraphrased or quoted material from your reading . Depending on the nature of the assignment, it could also include:

• Your own data (in a research project for example).
• Personal experiences from practice (especially for Social Care, Health Sciences and Education).
• Personal experiences from learning (in a reflective essay for example).

Any evidence from external sources should, of course, be referenced.

Explanation (analysis)

This is the part of your paragraph where you explain to your reader why the evidence supports the point and why that point is relevant to your overall argument. It is where you answer the question 'So what?'. Tell the reader how the information in the paragraph helps you answer the question and how it leads to your conclusion. Your analysis should attempt to persuade the reader that your conclusion is the correct one.

These are the parts of your paragraphs that will get you the higher marks in any marking scheme.

Links are optional but it will help your argument flow if you include them. They are sentences that help the reader understand how the parts of your argument are connected . Most commonly they come at the end of the paragraph but they can be equally effective at the beginning of the next one. Sometimes a link is split between the end of one paragraph and the beginning of the next (see the example paragraph below).

Paragraph structure video

Length of a paragraph

Academic paragraphs are usually between 200 and 300 words long (they vary more than this but it is a useful guide). The important thing is that they should be long enough to contain all the above material. Only move onto a new paragraph if you are making a new point. 

Many students make their paragraphs too short (because they are not including enough or any analysis) or too long (they are made up of several different points).

Example of an academic paragraph

Using storytelling in educational settings can enable educators to connect with their students because of inborn tendencies for humans to listen to stories.   Written languages have only existed for between 6,000 and 7,000 years (Daniels & Bright, 1995) before then, and continually ever since in many cultures, important lessons for life were passed on using the oral tradition of storytelling. These varied from simple informative tales, to help us learn how to find food or avoid danger, to more magical and miraculous stories designed to help us see how we can resolve conflict and find our place in society (Zipes, 2012). Oral storytelling traditions are still fundamental to native American culture and Rebecca Bishop, a native American public relations officer (quoted in Sorensen, 2012) believes that the physical act of storytelling is a special thing; children will automatically stop what they are doing and listen when a story is told. Professional communicators report that this continues to adulthood (Simmons, 2006; Stevenson, 2008).   This means that storytelling can be a powerful tool for connecting with students of all ages in a way that a list of bullet points in a PowerPoint presentation cannot. The emotional connection and innate, almost hardwired, need to listen when someone tells a story means that educators can teach memorable lessons in a uniquely engaging manner that is   common to all cultures. 

This cross-cultural element of storytelling can be seen when reading or listening to wisdom tales from around the world...

Key:   Topic sentence    Evidence (includes some analysis)    Analysis   Link (crosses into next paragraph)

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9.2 Writing Body Paragraphs

Learning objectives.

• Select primary support related to your thesis.
• Support your topic sentences.

If your thesis gives the reader a roadmap to your essay, then body paragraphs should closely follow that map. The reader should be able to predict what follows your introductory paragraph by simply reading the thesis statement.

The body paragraphs present the evidence you have gathered to confirm your thesis. Before you begin to support your thesis in the body, you must find information from a variety of sources that support and give credit to what you are trying to prove.

Select Primary Support for Your Thesis

Without primary support, your argument is not likely to be convincing. Primary support can be described as the major points you choose to expand on your thesis. It is the most important information you select to argue for your point of view. Each point you choose will be incorporated into the topic sentence for each body paragraph you write. Your primary supporting points are further supported by supporting details within the paragraphs.

Remember that a worthy argument is backed by examples. In order to construct a valid argument, good writers conduct lots of background research and take careful notes. They also talk to people knowledgeable about a topic in order to understand its implications before writing about it.

Identify the Characteristics of Good Primary Support

In order to fulfill the requirements of good primary support, the information you choose must meet the following standards:

• Be specific. The main points you make about your thesis and the examples you use to expand on those points need to be specific. Use specific examples to provide the evidence and to build upon your general ideas. These types of examples give your reader something narrow to focus on, and if used properly, they leave little doubt about your claim. General examples, while they convey the necessary information, are not nearly as compelling or useful in writing because they are too obvious and typical.
• Be relevant to the thesis. Primary support is considered strong when it relates directly to the thesis. Primary support should show, explain, or prove your main argument without delving into irrelevant details. When faced with lots of information that could be used to prove your thesis, you may think you need to include it all in your body paragraphs. But effective writers resist the temptation to lose focus. Choose your examples wisely by making sure they directly connect to your thesis.
• Be detailed. Remember that your thesis, while specific, should not be very detailed. The body paragraphs are where you develop the discussion that a thorough essay requires. Using detailed support shows readers that you have considered all the facts and chosen only the most precise details to enhance your point of view.

Prewrite to Identify Primary Supporting Points for a Thesis Statement

Recall that when you prewrite you essentially make a list of examples or reasons why you support your stance. Stemming from each point, you further provide details to support those reasons. After prewriting, you are then able to look back at the information and choose the most compelling pieces you will use in your body paragraphs.

Choose one of the following working thesis statements. On a separate sheet of paper, write for at least five minutes using one of the prewriting techniques you learned in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” .

• Unleashed dogs on city streets are a dangerous nuisance.
• Students cheat for many different reasons.
• Drug use among teens and young adults is a problem.
• The most important change that should occur at my college or university is ____________________________________________.

Select the Most Effective Primary Supporting Points for a Thesis Statement

After you have prewritten about your working thesis statement, you may have generated a lot of information, which may be edited out later. Remember that your primary support must be relevant to your thesis. Remind yourself of your main argument, and delete any ideas that do not directly relate to it. Omitting unrelated ideas ensures that you will use only the most convincing information in your body paragraphs. Choose at least three of only the most compelling points. These will serve as the topic sentences for your body paragraphs.

Refer to the previous exercise and select three of your most compelling reasons to support the thesis statement. Remember that the points you choose must be specific and relevant to the thesis. The statements you choose will be your primary support points, and you will later incorporate them into the topic sentences for the body paragraphs.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

When you support your thesis, you are revealing evidence. Evidence includes anything that can help support your stance. The following are the kinds of evidence you will encounter as you conduct your research:

• Facts. Facts are the best kind of evidence to use because they often cannot be disputed. They can support your stance by providing background information on or a solid foundation for your point of view. However, some facts may still need explanation. For example, the sentence “The most populated state in the United States is California” is a pure fact, but it may require some explanation to make it relevant to your specific argument.
• Judgments. Judgments are conclusions drawn from the given facts. Judgments are more credible than opinions because they are founded upon careful reasoning and examination of a topic.
• Testimony. Testimony consists of direct quotations from either an eyewitness or an expert witness. An eyewitness is someone who has direct experience with a subject; he adds authenticity to an argument based on facts. An expert witness is a person who has extensive experience with a topic. This person studies the facts and provides commentary based on either facts or judgments, or both. An expert witness adds authority and credibility to an argument.
• Personal observation. Personal observation is similar to testimony, but personal observation consists of your testimony. It reflects what you know to be true because you have experiences and have formed either opinions or judgments about them. For instance, if you are one of five children and your thesis states that being part of a large family is beneficial to a child’s social development, you could use your own experience to support your thesis.

Writing at Work

In any job where you devise a plan, you will need to support the steps that you lay out. This is an area in which you would incorporate primary support into your writing. Choosing only the most specific and relevant information to expand upon the steps will ensure that your plan appears well-thought-out and precise.

You can consult a vast pool of resources to gather support for your stance. Citing relevant information from reliable sources ensures that your reader will take you seriously and consider your assertions. Use any of the following sources for your essay: newspapers or news organization websites, magazines, encyclopedias, and scholarly journals, which are periodicals that address topics in a specialized field.

Choose Supporting Topic Sentences

Each body paragraph contains a topic sentence that states one aspect of your thesis and then expands upon it. Like the thesis statement, each topic sentence should be specific and supported by concrete details, facts, or explanations.

Each body paragraph should comprise the following elements.

topic sentence + supporting details (examples, reasons, or arguments)

As you read in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , topic sentences indicate the location and main points of the basic arguments of your essay. These sentences are vital to writing your body paragraphs because they always refer back to and support your thesis statement. Topic sentences are linked to the ideas you have introduced in your thesis, thus reminding readers what your essay is about. A paragraph without a clearly identified topic sentence may be unclear and scattered, just like an essay without a thesis statement.

Unless your teacher instructs otherwise, you should include at least three body paragraphs in your essay. A five-paragraph essay, including the introduction and conclusion, is commonly the standard for exams and essay assignments.

Consider the following the thesis statement:

Author J.D. Salinger relied primarily on his personal life and belief system as the foundation for the themes in the majority of his works.

The following topic sentence is a primary support point for the thesis. The topic sentence states exactly what the controlling idea of the paragraph is. Later, you will see the writer immediately provide support for the sentence.

Salinger, a World War II veteran, suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, a disorder that influenced themes in many of his works.

In Note 9.19 “Exercise 2” , you chose three of your most convincing points to support the thesis statement you selected from the list. Take each point and incorporate it into a topic sentence for each body paragraph.

Supporting point 1: ____________________________________________

Topic sentence: ____________________________________________

Supporting point 2: ____________________________________________

Supporting point 3: ____________________________________________

Draft Supporting Detail Sentences for Each Primary Support Sentence

After deciding which primary support points you will use as your topic sentences, you must add details to clarify and demonstrate each of those points. These supporting details provide examples, facts, or evidence that support the topic sentence.

The writer drafts possible supporting detail sentences for each primary support sentence based on the thesis statement:

Thesis statement: Unleashed dogs on city streets are a dangerous nuisance.

Supporting point 1: Dogs can scare cyclists and pedestrians.

Supporting details:

• Cyclists are forced to zigzag on the road.
• School children panic and turn wildly on their bikes.
• People who are walking at night freeze in fear.

Supporting point 2:

Loose dogs are traffic hazards.

• Dogs in the street make people swerve their cars.
• To avoid dogs, drivers run into other cars or pedestrians.
• Children coaxing dogs across busy streets create danger.

Supporting point 3: Unleashed dogs damage gardens.

• They step on flowers and vegetables.
• They destroy hedges by urinating on them.
• They mess up lawns by digging holes.

The following paragraph contains supporting detail sentences for the primary support sentence (the topic sentence), which is underlined.

Salinger, a World War II veteran, suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, a disorder that influenced the themes in many of his works. He did not hide his mental anguish over the horrors of war and once told his daughter, “You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose, no matter how long you live.” His short story “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish” details a day in the life of a WWII veteran who was recently released from an army hospital for psychiatric problems. The man acts questionably with a little girl he meets on the beach before he returns to his hotel room and commits suicide. Another short story, “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor,” is narrated by a traumatized soldier who sparks an unusual relationship with a young girl he meets before he departs to partake in D-Day. Finally, in Salinger’s only novel, The Catcher in the Rye , he continues with the theme of posttraumatic stress, though not directly related to war. From a rest home for the mentally ill, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield narrates the story of his nervous breakdown following the death of his younger brother.

Using the three topic sentences you composed for the thesis statement in Note 9.18 “Exercise 1” , draft at least three supporting details for each point.

Thesis statement: ____________________________________________

Primary supporting point 1: ____________________________________________

Supporting details: ____________________________________________

Primary supporting point 2: ____________________________________________

Primary supporting point 3: ____________________________________________

You have the option of writing your topic sentences in one of three ways. You can state it at the beginning of the body paragraph, or at the end of the paragraph, or you do not have to write it at all. This is called an implied topic sentence. An implied topic sentence lets readers form the main idea for themselves. For beginning writers, it is best to not use implied topic sentences because it makes it harder to focus your writing. Your instructor may also want to clearly identify the sentences that support your thesis. For more information on the placement of thesis statements and implied topic statements, see Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” .

Print out the first draft of your essay and use a highlighter to mark your topic sentences in the body paragraphs. Make sure they are clearly stated and accurately present your paragraphs, as well as accurately reflect your thesis. If your topic sentence contains information that does not exist in the rest of the paragraph, rewrite it to more accurately match the rest of the paragraph.

Key Takeaways

• Your body paragraphs should closely follow the path set forth by your thesis statement.
• Strong body paragraphs contain evidence that supports your thesis.
• Primary support comprises the most important points you use to support your thesis.
• Strong primary support is specific, detailed, and relevant to the thesis.
• Prewriting helps you determine your most compelling primary support.
• Evidence includes facts, judgments, testimony, and personal observation.
• Reliable sources may include newspapers, magazines, academic journals, books, encyclopedias, and firsthand testimony.
• A topic sentence presents one point of your thesis statement while the information in the rest of the paragraph supports that point.
• A body paragraph comprises a topic sentence plus supporting details.

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Traditional Academic Essays In Three Parts

Part i: the introduction.

An introduction is usually the first paragraph of your academic essay. If you’re writing a long essay, you might need 2 or 3 paragraphs to introduce your topic to your reader. A good introduction does 2 things:

• Gets the reader’s attention. You can get a reader’s attention by telling a story, providing a statistic, pointing out something strange or interesting, providing and discussing an interesting quote, etc. Be interesting and find some original angle via which to engage others in your topic.
• Provides a specific and debatable thesis statement. The thesis statement is usually just one sentence long, but it might be longer—even a whole paragraph—if the essay you’re writing is long. A good thesis statement makes a debatable point, meaning a point someone might disagree with and argue against. It also serves as a roadmap for what you argue in your paper.

Part II: The Body Paragraphs

Body paragraphs help you prove your thesis and move you along a compelling trajectory from your introduction to your conclusion. If your thesis is a simple one, you might not need a lot of body paragraphs to prove it. If it’s more complicated, you’ll need more body paragraphs. An easy way to remember the parts of a body paragraph is to think of them as the MEAT of your essay:

Main Idea. The part of a topic sentence that states the main idea of the body paragraph. All of the sentences in the paragraph connect to it. Keep in mind that main ideas are…

• like labels. They appear in the first sentence of the paragraph and tell your reader what’s inside the paragraph.
• arguable. They’re not statements of fact; they’re debatable points that you prove with evidence.
• focused. Make a specific point in each paragraph and then prove that point.

Evidence. The parts of a paragraph that prove the main idea. You might include different types of evidence in different sentences. Keep in mind that different disciplines have different ideas about what counts as evidence and they adhere to different citation styles. Examples of evidence include…

• quotations and/or paraphrases from sources.
• facts , e.g. statistics or findings from studies you’ve conducted.
• narratives and/or descriptions , e.g. of your own experiences.

Analysis. The parts of a paragraph that explain the evidence. Make sure you tie the evidence you provide back to the paragraph’s main idea. In other words, discuss the evidence.

Transition. The part of a paragraph that helps you move fluidly from the last paragraph. Transitions appear in topic sentences along with main ideas, and they look both backward and forward in order to help you connect your ideas for your reader. Don’t end paragraphs with transitions; start with them.

Keep in mind that MEAT does not occur in that order. The “ T ransition” and the “ M ain Idea” often combine to form the first sentence—the topic sentence—and then paragraphs contain multiple sentences of evidence and analysis. For example, a paragraph might look like this: TM. E. E. A. E. E. A. A.

Part III: The Conclusion

A conclusion is the last paragraph of your essay, or, if you’re writing a really long essay, you might need 2 or 3 paragraphs to conclude. A conclusion typically does one of two things—or, of course, it can do both:

• Summarizes the argument. Some instructors expect you not to say anything new in your conclusion. They just want you to restate your main points. Especially if you’ve made a long and complicated argument, it’s useful to restate your main points for your reader by the time you’ve gotten to your conclusion. If you opt to do so, keep in mind that you should use different language than you used in your introduction and your body paragraphs. The introduction and conclusion shouldn’t be the same.
• For example, your argument might be significant to studies of a certain time period .
• Alternately, it might be significant to a certain geographical region .
• Alternately still, it might influence how your readers think about the future . You might even opt to speculate about the future and/or call your readers to action in your conclusion.

Handout by Dr. Liliana Naydan. Do not reproduce without permission.

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3.3: Body Paragraphs

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• Ann Inoshita, Karyl Garland, Kate Sims, Jeanne K. Tsutsui Keuma, and Tasha Williams
• University of Hawaii via University of Hawaiʻi OER

If the thesis is the roadmap for the essay, then body paragraphs should closely follow that map. The reader should be able to predict what follows an introductory paragraph by simply reading the thesis statement. The body paragraphs present the evidence the reader has gathered to support the overall thesis. Before writers begin to support the thesis within the body paragraphs, they should find information from a variety of sources that support the topic.

Select Primary Support for the Thesis

Without primary support, the argument is not likely to be convincing. Primary support can be described as the major points writers choose to expand on the thesis. It is the most important information they select to argue their chosen points of view. Each point they choose will be incorporated into the topic sentence for each body paragraph they write. The primary foundational points are further supported by evidentiary details within the paragraphs.

Identify the Characteristics of Good Primary Support

In order to fulfill the requirements of good primary support, the information writers choose must meet the following standards:

Be Specific

The main points they make about the thesis and the examples they use to expand on those points need to be specific. Writers use specific examples to provide the evidence and to build upon the general ideas. These types of examples give the reader something narrow to focus on, and, if used properly, they leave little doubt about their claim. General examples, while they convey the necessary information, are not nearly as compelling or useful in writing because they are too obvious and typical.

Be Relevant to the Thesis

Primary support is considered strong when it relates directly to the thesis. Primary support should show, explain, or prove their main argument without delving into irrelevant details. When faced with a great deal of information that could be used to prove the thesis, writers may think all the information should be included in the body paragraphs. However, effective writers resist the temptation to lose focus. Good writers choose examples wisely by making sure they directly connect to the thesis.

Add Details

The thesis, while specific, should not be very detailed. Discussion develops in the body paragraphs. Using detailed support shows readers that the writer has considered all the facts and chosen only the most precise details to enhance the point of view.

Prewrite to Identify Primary Supporting Points for a Thesis Statement

When writers brainstorm on a topic, they essentially make a list of examples or reasons they support the stance. Stemming from each point, the writer should provide details to support those reasons. After prewriting, the writer is then able to look back at the information and choose the most compelling pieces to use in writing body paragraphs.

Select the Most Effective Primary Supporting Points for a Thesis Statement

After writers have engaged in prewriting to formulate working thesis statements, they may have generated a large amount of information, which may be edited later. It is helpful to remember that primary support must be relevant to the thesis. Focusing on the main argument, any ideas that do not directly relate to it can be deleted. Omitting unrelated ideas ensures that writers will use only the most convincing information in their body paragraphs. For many first-year writing assignments, students would do well to choose at least three of the most compelling points. These will serve as the content for the topic sentences that will usually begin each of the body paragraphs.

Body Paragraph Structure

One wat to think about a body paragraph is that it, essentially, consists of three main parts: the main point or topic sentence, information and evidence that supports the main point, and an example of how the information gives foundation to the main point and the essay’s overall thesis. The three parts of a paragraph can be referred to as the following:

I = Information

E = Explanation

An Example of Abbreviated Version of P.I.E.

As a pedestrian in Hawai‘i, it is important to be aware of one’s surroundings. In 2018, 43 pedestrians died in car accidents (Gordon 3). Hawai‘i’s roadways can be dangerous, and being vigilant is necessary in order to increase pedestrian safety.

Point: As a pedestrian in Hawai‘i, it is important to be aware of your surroundings.

Information: In 2018, 43 pedestrians died in car accident.

Explanation: Hawai‘i’s roadways can be dangerous, and being vigilant is necessary to increase pedestrian safety.

Use Transitions

Transitional words and phrases help to organize an essay and improve clarity for the reader. Some examples of transitions can be found at “ Transitional Devices ,” The Purdue Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).

• Write a paragraph that contains a main point, follow-up and substantial information, and an explanation about how that information relates to the main point of the paragraph or to the overall thesis of the essay. The topic of your paragraph is up to you. What topic would you like to write about?

P: What is the main point of your paragraph?

I: What information backs up your point?

E: Explain how this information proves that your main point is correct.

Combine these three parts to form a paragraph.

Further Resources

Ashford University Writing Center: “ Essay Development: Good paragraph development: as easy as P.I.E. ” Writing resources .

Works Cited

“ 43 pedestrians died on Hawaii roadways in 2018. That’s more than the number killed in vehicles. ” HawaiiNewsNow , 3 January 2019.

Parts of this section are adapted from OER material from “ Writing Body Paragraphs “ in Writing for Success v. 1.0 (2012). Writing for Success was adapted by Saylor Academy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensor.

TOPIC SENTENCE/ In his numerous writings, Marx critiques capitalism by identifying its flaws. ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE/ By critiquing the political economy and capitalism, Marx implores his reader to think critically about their position in society and restores awareness in the proletariat class. EVIDENCE/ To Marx, capitalism is a system characterized by the “exploitation of the many by the few,” in which workers accept the exploitation of their labor and receive only harm of “alienation,” rather than true benefits ( MER 487). He writes that “labour produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces—but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty—but for the worker, deformity” (MER 73). Marx argues capitalism is a system in which the laborer is repeatedly harmed and estranged from himself, his labor, and other people, while the owner of his labor – the capitalist – receives the benefits ( MER 74). And while industry progresses, the worker “sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class” ( MER 483).  ANALYSIS OF EVIDENCE/ But while Marx critiques the political economy, he does not explicitly say “capitalism is wrong.” Rather, his close examination of the system makes its flaws obvious. Only once the working class realizes the flaws of the system, Marx believes, will they - must they - rise up against their bourgeois masters and achieve the necessary and inevitable communist revolution.

Not every paragraph will be structured exactly like this one, of course. But as you draft your own paragraphs, look for all three of these elements: topic sentence, evidence, and analysis.

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4.3: Body Paragraphs

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In a persuasive essay the body paragraphs are where the writer has the opportunity to argue his or her viewpoint. By the conclusion paragraph, the writer should convince the reader to agree with the argument of the essay. Regardless of a strong thesis, papers with weak body paragraphs fail to explain why the argument of the essay is both true and important. Body paragraphs of a persuasive essay are weak when no quotes or facts are used to support the thesis or when those used are not adequately explained. Occasionally, body paragraphs are also weak because the quotes used detract from rather than support the essay. Thus, it is essential to use appropriate support and to adequately explain your support within your body paragraphs.

In order to create a body paragraph that is properly supported and explained, it is important to understand the components that make up a strong body paragraph. The bullet points below indicate the essential components of a well-written, well-argued body paragraph.

Body Paragraph:

• Begin with a topic sentence that reflects the argument of the thesis statement.
• Support the argument with useful and informative quotes from sources such as books, journal articles, expert opinions, etc.
• Provide 1-2 sentences explaining each quote.
• Provide 1-3 sentences that indicate the significance of each quote.
• Ensure that the information provided is relevant to the thesis statement.
• End with a transition sentence which leads into the next body paragraph.

Just as your introduction must introduce the topic of your essay, the first sentence of a body paragraph must introduce the argument for that paragraph. For instance, if you were writing a body paragraph for a paper arguing that Avatar is innovative in its use of special effects, one body paragraph may begin with a topic sentence that states, “ Avatar has produced the most life-like animated characters of any movie ever created.” Following this sentence, you would go on to indicate how the movie does this by supporting this one statement. When you place this statement as the opening of your paragraph, not only does your audience know what the paragraph is going to argue, but you can also keep track of your ideas.

Following the topic sentence, you must provide some sort of fact that supports your claim. In the example of the Avatar essay, maybe you would provide a quote from a movie critic or from a prominent special effects person. After your quote or fact, you must always explain what the quote or fact is saying, stressing what you believe is most important about your fact. It is important to remember that your audience may read a quote and decide it is arguing something entirely different than what you think it is arguing. Or, maybe some or your readers think another aspect of your quote is important. If you do not explain the quote and indicate what portion of it is relevant to your argument, then your reader may become confused or may be unconvinced of your point. Consider the possible interpretations for the statement below.

Example: While I did not like the acting in the movie, I enjoyed how life-like the special effects made the animated characters in the film. Without the special effects, the acting would have been boring and the plot would have been unoriginal.

Interestingly, this statement seems to be saying two things at once - that the movie is bad and that the movie is good. On the one hand, the person seems to say that the acting and plot of the movie were both bad. However, on the other hand, the person also says that the special effects more than make up for the bad acting and unoriginal plot. Because of this tension in the quotation, if you used this quote in your Avatar paper, you would need to explain that the special effects in the movie are so good that they make boring movie exciting.

In addition to explaining what this quote is saying, you would also need to indicate why this is important to your argument. When trying to indicate the significance of a fact, it is essential to try to answer the “so what.” Image you have just finished explaining your quote to someone, and he or she has asked you “so what?” The person does not understand why you have explained this quote, not because you have not explained the quote well but because you have not told him or her why he or she needs to know what the quote means. This, the answer to the “so what,” is the significance of your paper and is essentially your argument within the body paragraphs. However, it is important to remember that generally a body paragraph will contain more than one quotation or piece of support. Thus, you must repeat the Quotation-Explanation-Significance formula several times within your body paragraph to argue the one sub-point indicated in your topic sentence. Below is an example of a properly written body paragraph.

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What you need to know about The Three-Body Problem before watching 3 Body Problem

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With Netflix’s 3 Body Problem imminent, you might naturally be intrigued by The Three-Body Problem , the science fiction novel by Cixin Liu.

First of all: I cannot explain why the show is 3 Body Problem and the book is The Three-Body Problem . Frankly, this decision drives me bananas. But it does make distinguishing the two in articles like this one easier, and as you’ll soon see, things are going to get complicated enough as is.

What is The Three-Body Problem about?

The simple version is that it’s a story about humanity’s first contact with an alien species. What makes it special is that it’s a very odd first contact story, centering on a wildly immersive VR video game and how it may be connected to the mysterious deaths of the world’s leading scientists. First contact is the light at the end of the story’s tunnel: read the back of the book and you know it’s coming, but how it happens is something you discover by reading.

Why is it such a big deal?

First serialized in China in 2006, The Three-Body Problem quickly racked up accolades upon its 2014 English debut, becoming the first Asian novel to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel. But unusually for such a hard sci-fi novel, The Three-Body Problem quickly escaped the orbit of speculative fiction circles and received glowing write-ups in mainstream press outlets like The New York Times , NPR , and, famously, a shoutout from President Barack Obama . Bob’s Burgers even did a Three-Body Problem episode . It was a big thing!

It’s also a work that some would call unadaptable: The Three-Body Problem has some weird shit going on in its VR game and eventually sets up a conflict that may or may not span centuries.

Remind me what you mean by ‘hard’ sci-fi.

The Three-Body Problem is a brainy book that is very committed to elaborating on the work of a lot of smart characters solving very opaque mysteries. This does not mean it’s impenetrable to people uninterested in becoming conversant in astrophysics, but it does mean there’s quite a bit of what I call “process porn,” focused primarily (but not exclusively) on existing and/or plausible technology. For the most satisfying version of that, consider films like Arrival or even Spotlight (a great movie for making spreadsheets thrilling). How well The Three-Body Problem ’s take on it works for you will depend on how much you connect with translator (and very good novelist in his own right ) Ken Liu’s interpretation of Cixin Liu’s prose.

It helps that the book begins vividly in the past, during China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s — telling a small, personal tragedy that reverberates throughout the first novel as it reaches into the present day and beyond. With that human core in place, it’s easier to get lost in The Three-Body Problem ’s trippy mysteries, and grasp their shocking consequences.

I’m looking up characters from the book and can’t find many in the show. What’s up with that?

Part of what the Netflix adaptation does is relocate a big chunk of the action from China to London, which means lots of changes that ripple outward. Characters are race- and genderbent or reworked and given different names, which makes finding one-to-one analogues for some characters very difficult. But there are very practical concerns that also needed to be addressed, according to the showrunners, and these changes account for that.

“The characters in the book are all spread out in a way, but they don’t know each other, and they don’t connect with each other. Which works really well in a novel, [where] you get inside someone’s head,” co-creator D.B. Weiss told Polygon at a recent press event. “And in television — it’s hard to think of a television show about people who don’t know each other and never meet. Television is about people who know each other, who have strong feelings about each other, interacting with other people about whom they have strong feelings. So we kind of needed to make that happen.”

How much of The Three-Body Problem will 3 Body Problem season 1 adapt?

Pardon? But what if there’s another season?

Oh, there are more books. The Three-Body Problem is the first in a trilogy, known as Remembrance of Earth’s Past. Netflix’s 3 Body Problem is actually an adaptation of the entire trilogy, folding in the novel’s two sequels — The Dark Forest and Death’s End — into its narrative. The first season of the show will cover The Three-Body Problem but will also introduce threads from later books. It’s a comprehensive adaptation, not a piecemeal one.

So you mean it’s done? There’s an end?

Yes, I do mean that. Don’t worry; while David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are most notorious for what happened when the former Game of Thrones showrunners ran out of track laid by their source material, that problem is not present here. They’re also not the only ones in charge, thanks to co-creator Alexander Woo, who has previously worked on excellent series like Manhattan and Wonderfalls . 3 Body Problem will live or die by the adaptation choices made, not for lack of material.

3 Body Problem will premiere on Netflix on March 22.

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What is '3 Body Problem'? Explaining Netflix's trippy new sci-fi and the three-body problem

The series is the first big post-"game of thrones" project from d.b. weiss and david benioff, but don't expect swords and dragons this time around. here are answers to some burning questions..

In Netflix's new series " 3 Body Problem ," science is broken.

Or so the group of physicists think when things in the world start to go ... haywire. Turns out, in this trippy, visually-stunning mindbender from the creators of " Game of Thrones ," things may not be as they seem.

The series, which serves as " the next big thing " from "Thrones" veterans D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, kicked off a bit of a commotion when it debuted Thursday on the streaming platform. You may have noticed that Netflix was a little extra with its promotion of the series on its homepage when you opened the service on Thursday.

If you weren't prepared for it, the hype may have caused some confusion. Or maybe you watched that series premiere and it's just the show itself that has you confused.

Regardless, we're hoping to answer some of your burning questions about the eight-part sci-fi epic streaming now.

Review: '3 Body Problem' is way more than 'Game of Thrones' with aliens

'House of the Dragon' Season 2: HBO releases 'dueling' trailers; premiere date announced

What is the '3 Body Problem' on Netflix?

Based on science fiction series "Remembrances of Earth's Past" by Chinese author Liu Cixin, "3 Body Problem" tells the story of a humanity confronting a terrifying cosmic threat kicked off by a fateful experiment in 1960s China.

Four years in the making, the series is the first big post-"Thrones" project from Weiss and Benioff, who inked a massive deal with Netflix and teamed up with "True Blood" and "The Terror" writer Alexander Woo to executive produce it. The series is named for the first novel in the trilogy by Cixin, who served as a consultant along with Ken Liu, who wrote the English translation of the books.

"We had in mind that we wanted to do a science fiction show, but we weren't sure which one," Benioff said in a roundtable discussion with Weiss and Woo in an inside look at episode 1 on Netflix. Cixin "created these books that are terrifying for anyone foolish enough to try to adapt them and also just made us very hungry to the possibilities."

In a review , USA TODAY critic Kelly Lawler wrote the first season "stands on its own as a huge achievement" and gave it three out of four stars.

The story begins in 1966 during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in China, where Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng) witnesses the execution of her scientist father before she is forced into labor and imprisonment. As the series debut progresses, Wenjie escapes imprisonment when the Revolution sees a use for her scientific know-how in a little search they're conducting for extraterrestrial life at a mysterious station. 

Flash forward to present day, and the group of brilliant scientists and former classmates known as the Oxford 5 are confronted with the consequences of that experiment – primarily, the murder and apparent suicides of scientists around the world. The group isn't part of that original series, but are introduced by showrunners as a means to keep the story grounded amid otherwise weighty philosophical concepts.

"Rather than dryly presenting the nuts and bolts of the physics, we show what it's doing to the people who were confronted by it," Woo said in the Netflix roundtable.

What is the three-body problem in physics?

As for the name of the show itself, it comes from the term for when three celestial objects (planets, stars, or suns that are in close proximity to each other) exert force onto each other, making the objects’ rotation chaotic and unpredictable, according to Netflix .

“As soon as you have three bodies or more that are all exerting a force on each other at the same time, then that system breaks down,” University of Cambridge associate physics professor Matt Kenzie told Netflix. “If you have three bodies or more, then the orbit becomes chaotic.”

It's a problem with no known general solution .

In the series, Netflix notes, the three-body problem comes into play via the three-sun solar system that San-Ti's planet inhabits, which contributes to stable and chaotic eras.

"When the planet revolves around one sun, it’s a stable era. When another sun snatches the planet away, it wanders in the gravitational field between the three suns, causing a chaotic era. In a chaotic era, the living conditions can become too extreme for life to exist," Netflix writes.

Other concepts in '3 Body Problem'

The show introduces plenty of seemingly outlandish concepts in just its first episode that span the metaphysical and even extraterrestrial.

Early on, it's made clear that amid the mysterious deaths of scientists, experiments in particle accelerators have been producing what should be impossible results. Hence, why viewers are reminded several times by investigator Da Shi (Benedict Wong): "Science is broken."

But it's not that simple, as the Oxford 5 start to learn. When one of them, Auggie Salazar (Eiza González) starts seeing a menacing countdown in her vision, it doesn't take long until she's confronted with a startlingly reality: The numbers aren't a neurological disorder or hallucination, but are very, very real.

And she better hope, for her sake, that they don't reach zero.

"3 Body Problem" also introduced in its first episode a metallic headset resembling a futuristic VR set that will become integral as the series progresses. When physicist Jin Cheng (Jess Wong) dons the contraption, the last thing she sees are her own eyes looking back at her before the scene opens onto a virtual environment that looks straight out of a VR game.

But as everything with this show, there's something vaguely threatening about what is unfolding within that virtual world.

As Woo said, all of this is "emblematic of the inexplicable problems that are confronting the scientists."

"They are not people to believe in the supernatural so whatever is happening ... is scary," Woo said in the roundtable.

When the first episode comes to a close, some of the characters stare up at the sky as stars begin to blink in what may be Morse Code. The development "ups the ante" and makes it clear particularly to Auggie that her countdown isn't just in her mind.

"But its arguably a lot worse if there's something else that's being witnessed by everyone else on the globe," Weiss said.

Interviews: With Netflix series '3 Body Problem,' 'Game Of Thrones' creators try their hand at sci-fi

Cast of '3 Body Problem'

"Game of Thrones" fans will recognize a couple of familiar faces in "3 Body Problem": Liam Cunningham, who portrayed everyone's favorite former smuggler and loyal "onion knight" Davos Seaworth; and John Bradley, best known as the tenderhearted and seemingly meek Samwell Tarly.

Benioff and Weiss even brought over "Thrones" composer Ramin Djawadi for the series' score.

Here's the rest of the cast:

• Jess Hong as Jin Cheng
• John Bradley as Jack Rooney
• Zine Tseng as young Ye Wenjie
• Rosalind Chao as older Ye Wenjie
• Eiza González as Auggie Salazar
• Jovan Adepo as Saul Durand
• Alex Sharp as Will Downing
• Benedict Wong as Da Shi
• Liam Cunningham as Thomas Wade
• Marlo Kelly as Tatiana

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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‘Game of Thrones’ Creators Look Skyward for Their New Series

In an interview, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo discuss their latest fantastical epic, the alien space saga “3 Body Problem” for Netflix.

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By Chris Vognar

Reporting from Austin

The “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were finishing off their hit HBO series after an eight-season run and wondering what was next. That was when the Netflix executive Peter Friedlander approached them with a trilogy of science-fiction books by the Chinese novelist Liu Cixin called “Remembrance of Earth’s Past.”

“We knew that it won the Hugo Award, which is a big deal for us since we grew up as nerds,” Benioff said of the literary prize for science fiction. Barack Obama was also on record as a fan.

Benioff and Weiss dipped in and were intrigued by what they found: a sweeping space invasion saga that begins in 1960s China, amid the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, and involves a superior alien race that has built a rabid cultlike following on Earth. A heady mix of science and skulduggery, featuring investigations both scientific and criminal, it felt utterly unique. “So much content right now feels like, ‘Oh, here’s another forensic show, here’s another legal thriller,’ it just feels like it’s a version of something you’ve seen,” Benioff said. “This universe is a different one.”

Or, as Weiss added, “This is the universe.”

Those novels are now the core of “3 Body Problem,” a new series that Benioff and Weiss created with Alexander Woo (“True Blood”). It premiered on opening night at the South by Southwest Film Festival and arrives Thursday on Netflix. The setting has changed along the way, with most of the action unfolding in London rather than China (although the Cultural Revolution is still a key element), and the characters, most of them young and pretty, now represent several countries. But the central themes remain the same: belief, fear, discovery and an Earth imperiled by superior beings. Among the heroes are the gruff intelligence chief Thomas Wade, played by the “Thrones” veteran Liam Cunningham, and a team of five young, reluctant, Oxford-trained physicists played by John Bradley — another “Thrones” star — Jovan Adepo, Eiza González, Jess Hong and Alex Sharp. Can they save the world for their descendants?

In an interview in Austin the day of the SXSW premiere, the series creators discussed life after “Thrones,” their personal ties to “3 Body Problem” and the trick to making physics sexy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

The series is quite different from the books, particularly the settings and characters, both of which are a lot less Chinese. How did this come about?

D.B. WEISS Once the long process of acquiring the rights to the books was finished, we ended up with the rights for an English-language adaptation. So if we had kept all the characters Chinese in China, then we would’ve had a whole show set in China in English. We also thought it was really important to the nature of the story that the group of people working together to solve this problem look like the world. Obviously, there’s going to be an American involved. There’s a Chinese person who was born in China, but also the Chinese diaspora. There are people from Southwest Asia. There are people from Latin South America. It just made fundamental sense to us to broaden the scope of it, because if this happened to the world, it feels like that’s what would happen in the process of dealing with it.

“Game of Thrones” was a cultural behemoth. How did that experience inform how you approached this show?

WEISS I thought we were making a show for a lot of Dungeons and Dragons players. Of which I am one.

DAVID BENIOFF And it wasn’t a behemoth out of the gate. In case anyone from Netflix is listening: It took years for that show to become big, and they had faith in it and stuck with it. But one of the things I think we learned on “Thrones” was to hire really good people who know what they’re doing, and then make sure they understand what you’re looking for.

We’ve been talking a lot about Ramin Djawadi, our composer from “Thrones,” who’s also the composer on this show and hopefully the composer on everything we ever do. Nine times out of 10, when he delivers a cue to us, we’re like, “That’s great, Ramin.” And then the 10th time — sometimes we don’t even know exactly what’s wrong with it, it’s like, “I don’t know.” And he’ll think about it for a second and say, “Let me just take another shot at it. I get it.” And that’s rare, I think, to find someone who’s such a high-level artist who’s also that open and doesn’t get easily offended. We have a number of people like that we worked with on “Thrones” that we brought with us to this show.

How about having such a fervent fan base that wasn’t shy about what they wanted, especially down the stretch of the series?

BENIOFF It was interesting. We live in interesting times.

WEISS You want people to watch what you make, but you don’t get to control people’s reactions to what you make.

BENIOFF Not yet.

WEISS We’re working on a device. I’m sure somebody’s working on it, anyway. But until they make the device, you make the story that you want to make, if you’re lucky enough to have the backing necessary to do that, then let what happens happen.

You don’t see a lot of series that look at Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The opening struggle session sequence is terrifying.

ALEXANDER WOO It’s a part of history that is not written about in fiction very much, let alone filmed. And my family lived through it, as did the family of Derek Tsang, who directed the first two episodes. We give a lot of credit to him for bringing that to life, because he knew that it had not been filmed with this clinical eye maybe ever. He took enormous pains to have every detail of it depicted as real as it could be. I showed it to my mother, and you could see a chill coming over her, and she said, “That’s real. This is what really happened.” And she added, “Why would you show something like that? Why do you make people experience something so terrible?” But that’s how we knew we’d done our job.

“Thrones” rolled out week by week and consequently received intense, sustained attention throughout most of its seasons. What has it been like working in the binge model, with the entire first season of “3 Body Problem” dropping all at once?

WEISS That was one of the biggest changes going in, but we got our heads around it. We loved doing it the other way, but there are costs and benefits to both versions. And this one, in hindsight, might be something that’s better dropped all at once, at least the first season. Netflix has given us what we need to tell a very difficult, challenging, ambitious and not at all obvious story. And the people we have partnered with across all departments have been great. I know this sounds like some kind of a “Manchurian Candidate” thing: “Ted Sarandos [the Netflix chief executive] is the kindest, warmest, most generous, bravest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever met.”

Between your show and “Oppenheimer,” physics has become sexy. This is an unlikely development.

WOO We tried to make physics as sexy as possible. These things always come as a surprise. I don’t think anyone thought chess was sexy until “The Queen’s Gambit.” At the heart of it, it’s about people who are extraordinary at something. These are people with skills that you can’t even fathom, and there’s a kind of sex appeal to that. I think that’s what made “Oppenheimer” so fascinating and what makes the characters in our show so fascinating: They’re capable of thinking and conceiving of these things that we can’t, yet they’re still part of our world, and they still face a lot of very human challenges that the rest of us do.

The series also seems to be wrestling with some ideas about faith and belief, with a faction of earthlings seeing these aliens as godlike saviors.

BENIOFF Two characters ask in the opening 10 minutes or so, “Do you believe in God?” That’s interesting for a series that’s a science fiction show, not really a religious show. Those questions are also asked in the books, and we thought it was fascinating, that link between believing in a superior something out there and believing in the divine.

WEISS I think a lot of people who were writing religious literature or fiction 200 years ago, or in the 1700s, would have been writing science fiction in the 20th century, when the genre came into its own. The series looks at this idea of believing in something that’s so overwhelmingly superior to you, at least on the surface, that you can’t even conceive of what their motivations might be for doing what they’re doing.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of an actress in the new Netflix series “3 Body Problem.” She is Eiza González, not Gonzáles.

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‘3 Body Problem’ Star John Bradley Explains Why He Shot His Character’s Biggest Scene Three Times Over Nine Months

By Adam B. Vary

Adam B. Vary

Senior Entertainment Writer

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SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments in Season 1, Episode 3 of “ 3 Body Problem ,” currently streaming on Netflix .

It wasn’t until Bradley received the first set of scripts for “3 Body Problem,” however, that he understood that Jack had a more fundamental difference from Sam: He’s brutally murdered.

“I never got to die in ‘Game of Thrones,’” Bradley says. “Against all odds, I managed to make it all the way through.” 

Jack, alas, makes it only to Episode 3, “Destroyer of Worlds,” written by executive producer and co-showrunner Alexander Woo. Up to that episode, Jack and his friend and former Oxford classmate Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), have been captivated by a virtual reality game so radically sophisticated that it’s indistinguishable from real life. Eventually, they learn that the game is meant as a recruiting tool for a hyper-advanced alien race, the San-Ti, who are traveling to Earth with the intent to colonize the planet when they arrive in roughly 400 years. Jack and Jin meet with one of the aliens’ human allies, Tatiana (Marlo Kelly), who invites them to join an organization preparing the planet for the San-Ti’s arrival.

Jack doesn’t buy it, and Tatiana tells him he’s free to leave. When Jack arrives home in his posh mansion, though, she’s waiting for him in his bedroom, and stabs in his neck, killing him.

When Bradley first read the scene, “I didn’t quite know how to react to it,” he says. “I felt a little bit slighted.”

Bradley spoke with Variety about his character’s death, how many times he shot the scene, and the element that surprised him the most.

Can you talk about how your thinking evolved about Jack’s death on the show?

I only I found out when I got the first set of scripts. At first, I was a little bit disappointed, as I think I was kind of entitled to be, in a way. I knew it was going to be eight episodes, and when I found out that I was bowing out after three, I felt a little bit slighted, and I wrestled with that for a bit.

Then I realized that if there’s one thing that David and Dan have done very well over the years, it’s deaths. They certainly know how to execute, if you’ll pardon the expression, a really good screen death. Some of the deaths in “Game of Thrones” are the moments that the audience have emotionally invested in the most. I was invested in the Red Wedding as much as anybody else. So I felt honored to be killed off by David and Dan, in the end.

How did it affect how you approached your performance?

As soon as I found out that I had three episodes before I died, I knew that I had to make the audience care that it happened. I had to create enough of an impression that that character would be missed, and would be mourned by the audience in not much screen time. I felt flattered that David and Dan thought that I was up to that job, and thought that Jack’s death would inspire a bit of a gear change in the series. After Jack dies, there’s a definite mood change.

Well, you’re essentially the Ned Stark — it’s the first major death that elevates the stakes of the show.

I’ve always wanted to feel like an everyman character that the audience can identify with and think, “As long as this character is here, we’re going to feel looked after.” As soon as Jack goes, and as soon as Ned Stark went in “Game of Thrones,” you feel a bit more alone. We feel that we don’t really have our man on the inside of this. Jack was the one person that would make you feel OK — if things got a bit weird, he’d have a sideways comment and somehow bring everything back down to earth. As soon as Jack goes, everything starts to feel a bit scarier. 

Also, they’re playing with the meta expectations of the audience’s prior knowledge of their work. They know that David and Dan didn’t kill me off in “Game of Thrones,” so they don’t think they’re going to kill me off in this.

What was the scene like to shoot?

We tried so hard to get that that scene right. We had a few goes at it. The scene that you watch now is a composite [shot on] April ’22, August ’22 and February ’23. Even I can’t tell what we shot on each of those days. They were just so determined to get it right that they just kept needing these individual pieces. So if you if you take it as an on and off thing, that scene was shot over the course of nine months.

Yeah, it very much was like that. It’s always a strange feeling when you when you have something like that, because part of you is a bit disappointed that you didn’t get it the first time. But you just welcome the opportunity to get it absolutely right.

What most surprised you about the scene?

It was only when I went in into ADR to re-record some dying breaths and gurgles and that I realized that they’d put “Karma Police” by Radiohead over it. It’s such a such a brilliant choice, just in terms of mood, but also in terms of lyrically, as somebody dies to the to the lyrics, “This is what you get when you mess with us.” That just says it all. It was worth those extra shots.

I certainly gasped when it happened – I really didn’t see it coming. How are you feeling about it now, a year after you shot it?

In the virtual reality world, you’ve seen Jack die a few times, not for real. So when you see him die for real, you don’t quite know whether to believe it or not. Of the great TV drama deaths that I’ve loved in the past, there’s always something about you that doesn’t quite want it to be true. That’s why I like the finality of this, to have him come from a poor background and then die in the bedroom of his multimillion pound house that he’s just been able to afford.

He was very poor. He’s got rich, he’s been rich for six months, and now he’s been murdered. First time I saw it, I was in bits in the ADR booth. Even though you know what’s going to happen, when you see it so expertly cut together, I just think it all came together really well. Hopefully it’s going to be one of those deaths that will stick with people and will be talked about — fingers crossed.

This interview has been edited and condensed .

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Making ‘3 Body Problem’

The "Game of Thrones" creators are back with an epic science fiction series—one of Netflix’s most expensive projects ever.

Since Game of Thrones left the air, TV execs and fans have waited to see what its showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, would do next.

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Their first Netflix project, 3 Body Problem —another epic tale with a huge cast and elaborate visual effects—is coming to the screen this month. Only this time, instead of dragons and White Walkers, there are dehydrated bodies, complicated physics and an alien invasion.

The series is one of the most expensive projects Netflix has ever attempted, with per-episode costs in the $20 million range, say people familiar with the show’s budget.

The show is based on a science-fiction series by Chinese engineer–turned-author Liu Cixin. The first book, The Three-Body Problem , was published in China in 2008 and is largely considered to have put science fiction on the map there.

The opening scene takes place during the 1960s, at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, a period when academics were persecuted and educated youth were sent to work in rural areas.

Flash forward to the present day, where top scientists seem to be killing themselves, a countdown clock suddenly appears in front of another scientist’s eyes, and a particle accelerator inexplicably stopped working. 

How these stories are connected—how the aliens come in and what a “three-body problem” even is—is part of the suspense that drives the plot.

Weiss, pictured, and Benioff, have been friends since graduate school. Less than three months after the Game of Thrones finale, they left HBO for a development deal with Netflix worth between $200 million and $300 million.

For 3 Body Problem, they teamed up a third showrunner, former “True Blood” writer Alexander Woo.

The three writers got to work in March 2020.

“It’s nerve-racking when it’s your first big thing, and it’s nerve-racking when you’ve been at it for awhile and people are like, ‘Well, do they still have it?’ ” says Benioff.

To adapt the story for television, the showrunners shuffled the order of events in the books, in some cases taking scenes from the second and third books to inform the first season.

“One of the things that attracted us to this was how terrifying it was to contemplate adapting these books, because they’re so vast,” says Benioff.

Adapting such a story for television forced the writers to be both visionary and practical. How, for example, could they be true to Liu’s science-fiction tale while making a big, broad show that won’t require viewers to have a physics degree?

While the books jump between different characters with no known connections, the writers instead revolved their plot around a group of friends known as the Oxford Five, who are connected through a physics teacher. The writers wanted the cast to be more international, too.

iza González; Jess Hong; Saamer Usmani; Jovan Adepo; Alex Sharp

Netflix’s model also led to creative opportunities. Woo says there is less pressure to end every episode on some super-dramatic high or big twist to keep viewers intrigued. “You don’t have to put artificial hooks where they don’t really belong,” Woo says.

Photos and videos: Netflix

Portraits of the Showrunners : Chantal Anderson for WSJ. Magazine

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• 3 Body Problem ’s Imagination Problem

Spoilers follow for all eight episodes of 3 Body Problem on Netflix.

It’s the end of the world as we know it in 3 Body Problem , but by the end of the season, you’ll just feel fine. The Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s novel includes the requisite elements of an alien-invasion narrative: all-powerful extraterrestrials, humanity’s greatest minds brought together to respond, their esoteric theories explained through simplistic diagrams for the science-challenged viewers among us. But the show’s system of storytelling rotates around a hollow core, its limited scope never profound enough to convince us that the human race is on the brink of extinction. It’s as if 3 Body Problem were so wary of overwhelming viewers with too much story that it preemptively held itself back, and that insufficient world-building culminates in the season’s final scene , when the bugs meant to represent humanity seem as small as the series’ imagination.

David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo’s take on The Three-Body Problem starts off by establishing that “science is broken” prompting scientists around the world to die by suicide. 3 Body Problem hyperlocalizes this catastrophe in the U.K., collapsing its scale to a couple of shadowy British government operatives (Benedict Wong’s deadpan investigator, Clarence, and Liam Cunningham’s high-ranking Wade) and the single friend group on which their investigation focuses: Auggie (Eiza González), Saul (Jovan Adepo), Jin (Jess Hong), Will (Alex Sharp), and Jack (John Bradley), a tight-knit crew of former star Oxford students mired in combative friendships and unspoken romantic tensions.

As the friends reunite to mourn their former mentor, physics professor Vera Ye, 3 Body Problem uses them to unfurl its central mystery. Jack and Jin begin playing an advanced virtual-reality game, supposedly left behind by Vera, about saving a race of people from a degenerating planet. Auggie sees a countdown whenever she opens her eyes. Saul is haunted by the atheist Vera wondering in her final moments whether God exists. Each episode reveals new ways these disparate pieces are tied together until halfway through the season, when the friends, Wade, and Clarence realize an alien race named the San-Ti are responsible for the mayhem, invited to Earth by Vera’s own mother, Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao), a Chinese woman convinced humanity was no longer worth protecting in the wake of the Cultural Revolution.

The discovery of the San-Ti and their intent to arrive on Earth in 400 years, as well Vera’s parents’ involvement with the aliens — including the murder of Jack on their behalf — nearly breaks the Oxford five apart. Saul responds with nihilistic, drug-induced disinterest, even as the San-Ti take over every screen on Earth to send humanity the message “You are bugs.” (It’s like Starship Troopers in reverse!) Jin joins Wade’s aggressive efforts to attack the San-Ti and protect the planet for their descendants. Auggie, having used her nanofiber research to help Wade murder hundreds of Wenjie’s followers to obtain critical information, can barely live with the violence of her decision. Meanwhile, lovelorn Will, dying of cancer, spends 19.5 million dollars buying a star for Jin before volunteering for the Staircase Project she’s working on with Wade, donating his brain to be rocket-launched into space, hopefully intercepting the San-Ti on their way to Earth.

By the time we get to the eighth episode, finale “Wallfacer,” that statistically impossible scheme involving a base on the moon, hundreds of nuclear bombs, and some wild math doesn’t work. Will’s ship veers so dramatically off-course that he won’t pass another star for 6,000 years. That’s not the only setback the anti-alien effort suffers: Auggie quits Wade’s team and takes her research with her, traveling to Mexico to install water-filtration systems for the needy, and Saul, chosen for a secret project affiliated with the United Nations’ Planetary Defense Council, is nearly assassinated by a San-Ti acolyte. As Jin and Saul mope by a motel pool following news of Will’s fate, Saul agrees with the San-Ti calling humans bugs — “We’re slow, we’re dumb, and we die easy” — and refuses any positivity when Clarence happens upon the pair: “Don’t give me a speech, man. I can’t take any Henry V bullshit.” But Clarence refuses to let the “two saddest-looking bastards I’ve ever seen” wallow and, in a scene that 3 Body Problem wants us to find rousing, drives Saul and Jin to a swamp on the outskirts of Cape Canaveral to prove his point.

Cicadas swarm the trio, the type of periodical brood emergence that occurs all over the East Coast; news reports had labeled the phenomenon just another nuisance to add to the “upcoming apocalypse” pile. Clarence doesn’t see them that way. He believes the bugs have qualities Saul and Jin need for their next effort to stop the San-Ti — durability, toughness. They know how to evade, persist, and survive, even as humans “spray pesticides from planes,” “put poison in the ground,” “try and sterilize ’em,” and “swat ’em, zap ’em, step on ’em,” Clarence says. As he delivers this speech matter-of-factly, the bugs zooming around, Saul and Jin steel themselves, their mouths set and eyes hardened into matching looks of determination. Bugs adapt, and humans will too.

In the scene’s concluding seconds, it switches to a wide shot with Clarence, Saul, and Jin mere silhouettes in the background and numerous bugs flying around the foreground. The humans are outnumbered, but they’re among allies. Despite Saul’s earlier sarcasm, Clarence’s speech plays out exactly like Henry V ’s “Once more unto the breach” call to arms — an animal-kingdom comparison, an appeal to shared goals — and in doing so, emphasizes 3 Body Problem ’s oversimplification. All of humanity’s hope is distilled into this trio; while Henry V had nationalism as an excuse for its small circle of interest, 3 Body Problem , in comparison, found it unnecessary to build any other nation’s response into this story about the entire world grappling with its potential end. That miscalculation ultimately undermines the show’s journey of despair and resilience.

It’s effective for 3 Body Problem to deny us information about the San-Ti, to build our fear and curiosity about what they look and act like based only on video-game renderings and foreboding conversations with Vera’s father, Mike (Jonathan Pryce). But in that absence, 3 Body Problem had an opportunity to emphasize the paranoia and panic felt by all of humanity — by children who must be taught about the San-Ti’s “Eye in the Sky” surveillance device, by astronauts monitoring for potential advance guards sent by the aliens, by employees at The Stars Our Destination, a nonprofit tasked with raising money for global defense. Forgoing that to pay exclusive attention to a teeny group of people diminishes the fear the series wants us to feel.

We need a wider lens to understand just how much is at stake. How did Wade end up in charge of the global response, who are his colleagues, and how did they get their positions? How disparate is the international response — are other countries working on their own alliances and side deals with the San-Ti? Ye sided with the aliens because of the failure of the Cultural Revolution, but what about the other revolutionary nations and regions around the world? Do they have their own versions of Ye, their own leaders who think the world might be better under the San-Ti than our current systems of imperialism and capitalism? What are regular people doing — or are they too busy trying to survive these systems to do much about their existential gloom? Have they taken a stand against the absurdity of The Stars Our Destination, which asks for philanthropy from the world’s proletariat but surely could be funded by billionaires? Where are those billionaires anyway? Going underground, A Murder at the End of the World style, or decamping to Mars, For All Mankind style? Or actually doing something to help Earth’s commoners, a scenario for which I can name no TV comparison because it’s so rare?

3 Body Problem didn’t need to zoom around the globe in every episode or deviate too much from its core crew. But relying on only quick asides — news segments about cults popping up to worship the San-Ti, brief mentions of collaboration (or lack thereof) with the European Council for Nuclear Research and Iran — deny the narrative depth and fullness. The series so fully silos off its characters that the rest of its world-building falls out of alignment and overestimates our interest in this cohort of physicists as the most superspecial people in the entire world.

One of the series’ most evocative images has nothing to do with these friends, their cloistered lives, or their repetitive intragroup tensions. In the sixth episode , after the San-Ti send their “You are bugs” transmission to Earth, Clarence comes upon a waterway flanked by streetlights in a long parallel line, a body hanging from each. They sway slightly in and out of the lights’ illumination, as if, in a moment of insect-inspired shared cognition, this group of people decided to end their lives all at once rather than face the San-Ti’s threat. It’s disturbing, vivid, only a minute or so long, and much more incisive than the series’s climactic cicadas in conveying the ramifications of the San-Ti’s existence because it’s the rare instance 3 Body Problem considers perspectives beyond those of its core characters. “Wallfacer” literally ending with three bodies meant to represent all of humankind, suggesting that their experiences are enough to communicate a whole world of feeling, is a myopic problem of the series’ own making.

More From ‘3 Body Problem’

• What’s Next for 3 Body Problem ?
• The 3 Body Problem Creators Just Want to Give You More Spectacle
• 3 Body Problem Made Rosalind Chao a Braver Performer
• vulture section lede
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• david benioff
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• The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples

Published on September 4, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays.

Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and writing in an interesting way. At university level, argumentative essays are the most common type. 

In high school and college, you will also often have to write textual analysis essays, which test your skills in close reading and interpretation.

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Table of contents

Argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, textual analysis essays, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of essays.

An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement —a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations ) and analysis.

Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic. This is the most common type of essay at college level—most papers you write will involve some kind of argumentation.

The essay is divided into an introduction, body, and conclusion:

• The introduction provides your topic and thesis statement
• The body presents your evidence and arguments
• The conclusion summarizes your argument and emphasizes its importance

The example below is a paragraph from the body of an argumentative essay about the effects of the internet on education. Mouse over it to learn more.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a topic. It doesn’t require an original argument, just a balanced and well-organized view of the topic.

Expository essays test your familiarity with a topic and your ability to organize and convey information. They are commonly assigned at high school or in exam questions at college level.

The introduction of an expository essay states your topic and provides some general background, the body presents the details, and the conclusion summarizes the information presented.

A typical body paragraph from an expository essay about the invention of the printing press is shown below. Mouse over it to learn more.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A narrative essay is one that tells a story. This is usually a story about a personal experience you had, but it may also be an imaginative exploration of something you have not experienced.

Narrative essays test your ability to build up a narrative in an engaging, well-structured way. They are much more personal and creative than other kinds of academic writing . Writing a personal statement for an application requires the same skills as a narrative essay.

A narrative essay isn’t strictly divided into introduction, body, and conclusion, but it should still begin by setting up the narrative and finish by expressing the point of the story—what you learned from your experience, or why it made an impression on you.

Mouse over the example below, a short narrative essay responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” to explore its structure.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

A descriptive essay provides a detailed sensory description of something. Like narrative essays, they allow you to be more creative than most academic writing, but they are more tightly focused than narrative essays. You might describe a specific place or object, rather than telling a whole story.

Descriptive essays test your ability to use language creatively, making striking word choices to convey a memorable picture of what you’re describing.

A descriptive essay can be quite loosely structured, though it should usually begin by introducing the object of your description and end by drawing an overall picture of it. The important thing is to use careful word choices and figurative language to create an original description of your object.

Mouse over the example below, a response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” to learn more about descriptive essays.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

Though every essay type tests your writing skills, some essays also test your ability to read carefully and critically. In a textual analysis essay, you don’t just present information on a topic, but closely analyze a text to explain how it achieves certain effects.

Rhetorical analysis

A rhetorical analysis looks at a persuasive text (e.g. a speech, an essay, a political cartoon) in terms of the rhetorical devices it uses, and evaluates their effectiveness.

The goal is not to state whether you agree with the author’s argument but to look at how they have constructed it.

The introduction of a rhetorical analysis presents the text, some background information, and your thesis statement; the body comprises the analysis itself; and the conclusion wraps up your analysis of the text, emphasizing its relevance to broader concerns.

The example below is from a rhetorical analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech . Mouse over it to learn more.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

Literary analysis

A literary analysis essay presents a close reading of a work of literature—e.g. a poem or novel—to explore the choices made by the author and how they help to convey the text’s theme. It is not simply a book report or a review, but an in-depth interpretation of the text.

Literary analysis looks at things like setting, characters, themes, and figurative language. The goal is to closely analyze what the author conveys and how.

The introduction of a literary analysis essay presents the text and background, and provides your thesis statement; the body consists of close readings of the text with quotations and analysis in support of your argument; and the conclusion emphasizes what your approach tells us about the text.

Mouse over the example below, the introduction to a literary analysis essay on Frankenstein , to learn more.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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At high school and in composition classes at university, you’ll often be told to write a specific type of essay , but you might also just be given prompts.

Look for keywords in these prompts that suggest a certain approach: The word “explain” suggests you should write an expository essay , while the word “describe” implies a descriptive essay . An argumentative essay might be prompted with the word “assess” or “argue.”

The vast majority of essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Almost all academic writing involves building up an argument, though other types of essay might be assigned in composition classes.

Essays can present arguments about all kinds of different topics. For example:

• In a literary analysis essay, you might make an argument for a specific interpretation of a text
• In a history essay, you might present an argument for the importance of a particular event
• In a politics essay, you might argue for the validity of a certain political theory

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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