Arrangement: It is the second step of the writing process after the invention in which you decide how you are going to organize your ideas. You must know the patterns of writing like narrative or descriptive, cause and effect or argumentative, and what you are going to write.
It will be simple to organize your thoughts because your
assignment calls for a specific method of development. For instance, a teacher
can ask you to describe how something works, or an exam question might require
you to identify the events that led up to an incident. If you are observant,
you will see that the exam question calls for either a narrative or a
cause-and-effect response, whereas your instructor is asking for a process
essay.
Parts of a Good Essay in the arrangement
An essay is a piece of writing that is written to convince someone of
something or to simply inform the reader about a particular topic. For the reader to be convinced or adequately informed, the essay must include
several important components to make it flow logically. The main parts
(or sections) of an essay are the intro, body, and conclusion. In a standard
short essay, five paragraphs can provide the reader with enough information in
a short amount of space. For a research paper or dissertation, however, more than five paragraphs must be present in order not to overwhelm
the reader with too much information in one paragraph.
Intro:
• Must contain an attention grabber for the reader or at least make the essay sound interesting, may begin with a quote about the particular topic
• Ensure that the intro moves from the general to the specifications regarding the topic
• Provides the reader with a “road map” of the essay in a logical order
• At the end there should be what is called a thesis statement, arguably the most important component of the intro
• The thesis statement states the aim of the paper and may give insight into the author’s examples and evidence
Includes the evidence and support of the paper in addition to the
author’s ideas. Paragraphs must include a topic sentence that relates the
discussion back to the thesis statement
Logical ordering of ideas: 3 types of order
1. Chronological order: order of time, good for narratives
2. Spatial order-good for descriptions of locations; top to bottom,
e.g.
3. Emphatic order-least important to most important; most common for
college writing
Ensure that transition sentences are present to create a good flow to
the essay
Include substantial examples and evidence to support your argument
and remember to cite, cite, cite!
Make sure each example is relevant to your particular topic
Conclusion:
This section should wrap up all of your arguments and points
Should restate the main arguments in a simplified manner
Ensure that the reader is left with something to think about,
particularly if it is an argumentative essay
Always remember to allow time to rewrite the first draft of your essay
and, then, proofread it before turning it in.