Discovering the Basic Elements of a First Draft

If you have been using the information in this chapter step by step to help you develop an assignment, you already have both a formal topic outline and a formal sentence outline to direct your writing. Knowing what a first draft looks like will help you make the creative leap from the outline to the first draft. A first draft should include the following elements:

• An introduction that piques the audience’s interest, tells what the essay is about, and motivates readers to keep reading.
• A thesis statement that presents the main point, or controlling idea, of the entire piece of writing.
• A topic sentence in each paragraph that states the main idea of the paragraph and implies how that main idea connects to the thesis statement.
• Supporting sentences in each paragraph that develop or explain the topic sentence. These can be specific facts, examples, anecdotes, or other details that elaborate on the topic sentence.
• A conclusion that reinforces the thesis statement and leaves the audience with a feeling of completion.

These elements follow the standard five-paragraph essay format you probably first encountered in high school. This basic format is valid for most essays you will write in college, even much longer ones.