Simple Introduction to the five paragraph essay

Last summer I went to live with my cousin on his boat. The first few weeks were amazing, we visited a lot of cool places. As we crossed the ocean we got stuck in a storm. I didn't like it much after that, I was afraid that something bad might happen again. But the rest of the vacation on his boat went by smoothly.

My cousin took me on a tour of islands and sea ports. I can honestly say that I've never imagined that I would be exploring jungles, but I did, my cousin let me cut through the trees with a machete. Although on our next stop he kept me far away from them, we got to listen to a local sing a beautiful song about the flowers, and the trees. At firsts I didn't want to eat any of the foods because they looked so weird, but lately I've been craving all the exotic flavors I now know exist. It was wonderful sailing on that boat from little paradise to little paradise.

I hate storms when I'm on land, I never knew how scary they were on the sea. One night I woke up, and the boat was rocking so bad I felt sick. My cousin came down and helped me into a life jacket, and told me that we were in a storm. I told him I didn't like storms; he tried to reassure me that everything would be okay as he got up to take care of the boat. Luckily my cousin has been sailing for a long time and the storm wasn't as bad as I thought it was, because we made it out in one piece.

From that night on I wore my life jacket wherever we went; I thought that something awful would happened at any time. My cousin asked me if I wanted to take a plane back home, but I still wanted to travel. So for the rest of the vacation we went from small island to small island were there wasn't a lot of water between them in case we had to dodge for cover. While we did that my cousin taught me how to sail his boat, he thought that once I knew how to work it I wouldn't be as afraid. And you know what, he was right, so we headed out for one last great trip before I had to go home.

Last summer I got to be a temporary sailor, and it was great fun. I know people that I never thought I would meet, people who don't have blenders, or anything like that. Then I got tossed head on into one of my greatest fears, and though it wasn't that fun I got through it. Not only did I get through it, but with the help of my cousin I conquered it. Now I'm getting ready for our next voyage into the sea.

This is not the only format for an essay, and it's not the best, but it will open your eyes to learning about essay structure, and then on to research papers which can be twenty pages long. In my example essay, which I titled My cousin the sailor and me, I went the simplest route that I could, but you need to put as much original, specific detail into your paper as possible.



My cousin the sailor and me is a fictional account of what I did last summer. I didn't want to be too detailed or quote any outside material because it will only complicate things. I did not do any major editing on it because this is my rough draft. So what does this essay have? It has five paragraphs; an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

The introduction paragraph begins with a sentence that states your topic or thesis. The three sentences that follow give three facts or reasons in support of the topic. And the final sentence of the introduction, in a simple essay, essentially restates the topic in a different way.



The body paragraphs come next. Each paragraph has a topic sentence, three sentences in support of the topic, and a conclusion. The topic of each body paragraph corresponds to one of the three facts listed in the introduction, it is helpful that the order they come in is the same as well. In each body paragraph the conclusions restate the topic of each individual paragraph as well.



The conclusion summarizes in five sentences what the essay was about. It lists everything you just went over but using different words. It has a topic sentence, which is what the whole paper was about, mine was: Last summer I got to be a temporary sailor, and it was great fun. which essentially reminds you that Last summer I went to live with my cousin on his boat. Then the next three sentences revamp the three facts that are the topics of the body paragraphs. Finally when you get to the conclusion it says the same thing as its topic sentence but not in the same words.

Essays like this one tend to have paragraphs with five to seven sentences. Check with a teacher to know the minimum number of sentences so that you can organize you paper accordingly. After you get the rough draft done, start on the next draft. You are not done after the essay you just darted down, give it some space, go and get a snack. Then come back, and read it to see how smoothly it goes. If you reach a snag of text that seems clunky, or odd make a note and move on. Mark all areas that seem rough. Now go through and check for spelling, and grammar mistakes. Also use this time to check citations, and names of famous figures or movies to see if you got them right. It might be helpful to use different color pens or pencils for this so that you can distinguish between different types of notes quickly.