In Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay
The Essay Format Every Student Should Master and Remember
Nov 3, 2009
The five-paragraph essay is a popular writing technique that teachers often teach to students as a way to help them pass state-mandated standardized tests. However, once in college, writing instructors often encourage students to abandon the five-paragraph format in order to write longer, more mature papers.
Obviously, when college students must write twenty page papers in order to satisfy course requirements, the five-paragraph format will not suffice. However, students need not abandon the five-paragraph essay altogether, as it will serve them well in a variety of writing situations.
The Essay Test
Most students are taught the five-paragraph essay format in high school as a quick way to organize and produce a coherent essay that will satisfy state-mandated tests. Unfortunately for students, essay tests don’t always end after high school. Many universities have mandatory writing exams during the junior or senior year. Additionally, students will likely not escape college without seeing an essay question or two on a course exam. The organizational skills that students learned in order to assemble a five-paragraph essay will serve them well when having to quickly arrange their thoughts in a short amount of time during an exam.
Essays and Graduate School
Some college students will want to continue their academic careers by going to graduate school. Whether they go straight from their undergraduate studies or later on after having started a job, students will have to submit a statement of intent with a graduate application (such a statement lets the graduate school or department know why a student desires to pursue an advanced degree). The statement of intent is meant to be a short, focused essay and, once again, the skills that a student has learned writing five-paragraph essays will serve her well.
Starting with the Five-Paragraph Essay
As mentioned earlier, students obviously cannot satisfy a long paper requirement with a five-paragraph essay (unless they write five very long – and probably not very coherent – paragraphs). However, the basic five-paragraph essay structure can be a good place for students to start when faced with a long research paper. Students can begin writing their papers strictly from what they know, without using any research, using the five-paragraph essay structure or a modified version (perhaps adding four topics to be covered in four body paragraphs instead of the traditional three). Then students can expand the original essay based on information from their research sources.
While many college instructors struggle to move students beyond the five-paragraph essay format that they learned in high school, students often cling to the format as safe and easy. Teachers should encourage students to retain their knowledge of the five-paragraph essay, letting them know that they will still be able to use the technique in certain writing circumstances and can use it as a building block for longer essays.
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