Academic Writing: Structure of the Five- or Six- Paragraph Academic Paper

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In spring semester, third-year students will be writing essays, using the five-paragraph essay structure. Before you can tackle this structure, you need to develop some basic skills in summarizing and paraphrasing text, skills that are integral to writing stellar papers.

But before we move on to summary and paraphrasing, you need to be familiar with the basic academic paper structure. You need to know the rationale behind writing difficult and often boring passages, for writing summaries and paraphrases can be like taking a bad tasting medicine: unpleasant but necessary for your writing and research “health.” So please bear with me.

Years ago, when I taught Academic Writing to first-year (and first-semester) American college students, I emphasized the five-paragraph research paper (for controversial topics, the six-paragraph paper) because most of my students had not written a formal paper in high school. I discovered that beginning academic writers who used this simple structure often learned academic writing techniques faster and, ultimately, often wrote better papers. Amazingly, these students were then able to move quickly on to more complicated academic structures.

You should be aware, however, that these simple structures are highly artificial; most professional writers do not limit themselves to these rudimentary forms. In fact, some academic writing instructors believe that the five-paragraph structure is too simple, but I love it because it works for students at the beginning of their academic careers. Your department was wise to include this structure in third year, second semester.

Eventually, you will move on to more complex structures, but, for now, let’s take a quick look at the five-paragraph structure:

Paragraph 1:

Introduction and thesis sentence (the main point of your essay).

Paragraph 2:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #1

Paragraph 3:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #2

Paragraph 4:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #3

Paragraph 5:

Conclusion and overall inference based on your research (in different and more forceful words).

For controversial topics/persuasive papers, you might use the six-paragraph structure:

Paragraph 1:

Introduction and thesis sentence (the main point of your essay).

Paragraph 2:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #1

Paragraph 3:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #2

Paragraph 4:

Supporting research/evidence/inferences #3

Paragraph 5:

Counterarguments (recognizing the viewpoints of those who might oppose your point of view. Rogerian theory, as postulated by Carl Rogers, famous American psychologist and writing theorist: If you recognize an opposing viewpoint and counteract/counter-argue it, you are likely to strengthen your own position.)

Paragraph 6:

Conclusion, overall inference based on your research, and restated thesis (in different and more forceful words).

For next semester, the structure for the five-paragraph academic paper may differ slightly different from what I have presented here.

I just want to offer some context for why you are practicing summarizing and paraphrasing skills*