Analisis

Organizing An Essay

Often student writers are taught short-term solutions to the problem of organizing an essay. The most common short-term essay is the "five-paragraph essay" format. The five-paragraph essay uses the following organization:

1. Introduction--Background and thesis
2. First Body Paragraph--The first reason why the thesis is true
3. Second Body Paragraph--Thesecond reason why the thesis is true
4. Third Body Paragraph--The third reason why the thesis is true
5. Conclusion--Recap of essay

It is important to understand that the five-paragraph essay is not necessarily bad. However, most student writers are led to believe or falsely believe that all essays must follow the five-paragraph essay format. Just a little thought makes clear that format isvery limiting and limited and does not provide an adequate organization for many types of writing assignments. That is why I have crossed-out the description of the five-paragraph essay, so that you won't make the mistake of thinking that it is the best way to organize your essays.

Instead, student writers should see that the form of an essay (its organization) needs to match the purpose of theessay. To begin with, we should look at one of the most common tasks student writers are asked to perform and the one of the organizational strategies effective for this task.
Explaining Cause and Effect

Often writers are asked to explain how certain conditions or events are related to the occurrence of other conditions or events. When a writer argues that "one thing leads to another," he orshe is making a cause-and-effect argument. For example, in an Economics class, students might be asked to explain the impact of increasing oil prices on the nation’s economy. Inherent in the question is the assumption that increasing oil prices is a cause, which produces specific effects in the rest of the economy. So, higher oil prices produce higher gasoline prices raising the cost of shippinggoods. Higher oil prices produce higher jet fuel costs raising the cost of travel, and so on. "Higher oil prices" is the cause, and increased shipping costs and travel expenses are among the effects.

Writing tasks involving cause and effect analysis usually take one of two forms: explaining how a known cause produces specific effects; explaining how specific effects are produced by a previouslyunknown cause (which the writer has discovered). The second type of analysis is commonly referred to as root-cause analysis. The first type of analysis is what the technology and privacy topic requires.

To argue that certain conditions will lead to other conditions (that the loss of privacy will lead to something else), first the writer needs to define clearly what those conditions are, andthen the writer needs to make clear how those conditions lead to other conditions. Finally, the writer needs to explain what this cause-and-effect relationship means. This type of essay then has five parts (not paragraphs!), with each part corresponding to a specific task the writer needs to perform, and each part consisting of one or more paragraphs.


Essay Part Scope Purpose (not allnecessary for every essay)
Introduction General

* Background for the topic
* Setting out the issues
* Focusing the argument—the purpose of the essay

Description of the "Cause" Begins general; becomes increasingly specific

* What the specific conditions are
* Specific illustrations of these conditions
* How these specific illustrations are representative of (canstand in for) other situations

In this first part of the analysis, the writer needs to provide enough detail for the reader so the reader can understand the present situation. In addition, the writer needs to focus the description of the situation in such a way as to prepare for the "effect" that the writer is arguing for. For example, if the writer wants to argue that the loss of privacy...