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What are the parts of an essay, how do i write an introduction, how do i write the body of my essay, how do i write the conclusion, how do i create a reference list, how do i improve my essay.

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• Introduction
• Each is made up of one or several paragraphs.
• The purpose of this section is to introduce the topic and why it matters, identify the specific focus of the paper, and indicate how the paper will be organized.
• To keep from being too broad or vague, try to incorporate a keyword from your title in the first sentence.
• For example, you might tell readers that the issue is part of an important debate or provide a statistic explaining how many people are affected.  
• Defining your terms is particularly important if there are several possible meanings or interpretations of the term.
• Try to frame this as a statement of your focus. This is also known as a purpose statement, thesis argument, or hypothesis.
• The purpose of this section is to provide information and arguments that follow logically from the main point you identified in your introduction. 
• Identify the main ideas that support and develop your paper’s main point.
• For longer essays, you may be required to use subheadings to label your sections.
• Point: Provide a topic sentence that identifies the topic of the paragraph.
• Proof: Give evidence or examples that develop and explain the topic (e.g., these may come from your sources).
• Significance: Conclude the paragraph with sentence that tells the reader how your paragraph supports the main point of your essay.
• The purpose of this section is to summarize the main points of the essay and identify the broader significance of the topic or issue.
• Remind the reader of the main point of your essay (without restating it word-for-word).
• Summarize the key ideas that supported your main point. (Note: No new information or evidence should be introduced in the conclusion.) 
• Suggest next steps, future research, or recommendations.
• Answer the question “Why should readers care?” (implications, significance).
• Find out what style guide you are required to follow (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) and follow the guidelines to create a reference list (may be called a bibliography or works cited).
• Be sure to include citations in the text when you refer to sources within your essay.
• Cite Your Sources - University of Guelph
• Read assignment instructions carefully and refer to them throughout the writing process.
• e.g., describe, evaluate, analyze, explain, argue, trace, outline, synthesize, compare, contrast, critique.
• For longer essays, you may find it helpful to work on a section at a time, approaching each section as a “mini-essay.”
• Make sure every paragraph, example, and sentence directly supports your main point.
• Aim for 5-8 sentences or ¾ page.
• Visit your instructor or TA during office hours to talk about your approach to the assignment.
• Leave yourself time to revise your essay before submitting.
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How to Write an Essay/Parts

Parts of an Essay — Traditionally, it has been taught that a formal essay consists of three parts: the introductory paragraph or introduction, the body paragraphs, and the concluding paragraph. An essay does not need to be this simple, but it is a good starting point.

Introductory Paragraph [ edit | edit source ]

The introductory paragraph accomplishes three purposes: it captures the reader’s interest, it suggests the importance of the essay’s topic, and it ends with a thesis sentence. Often, the thesis sentence states a claim that consists of two or more related points. For example, a thesis might read:

You are telling the reader what you think are the most important points which need to be addressed in your essay. For this reason, you need to relate the introduction directly to the question or topic. A strong thesis is essential to a good essay, as each paragraph of your essay should be related back to your thesis or else deleted. Thus, the thesis establishes the key foundation for your essay. A strong thesis not only states an idea but also uses solid examples to back it up. A weak thesis might be:

As an alternative, a strong thesis for the same topic would be:

Then, you could separate your body paragraphs into three sections: one explaining the open-source nature of the project, one explaining the variety and depth of information, and a final one using studies to confirm that Wikipedia is indeed as accurate as other encyclopedias.

Tips [ edit | edit source ]

Often, writing an introductory paragraph is the most difficult part of writing an essay. Facing a blank page can be daunting. Here are some suggestions for getting started. First, determine the context in which you want to place your topic. In other words, identify an overarching category in which you would place your topic, and then introduce your topic as a case-in-point.

For example, if you are writing about dogs, you may begin by speaking about friends, dogs being an example of a very good friend. Alternatively, you can begin with a sentence on selective breeding, dogs being an example of extensive selective breeding. You can also begin with a sentence on means of protection, dogs being an example of a good way to stay safe. The context is the starting point for your introductory paragraph. The topic or thesis sentence is the ending point. Once the starting point and ending point are determined, it will be much easier to connect these points with the narrative of the opening paragraph.

A good thesis statement, for example, if you are writing about dogs being very good friends, you could put:

Here, X, Y, and Z would be the topics explained in your body paragraphs. In the format of one such instance, X would be the topic of the second paragraph, Y would be the topic of the third paragraph, and Z would be the topic of the fourth paragraph, followed by a conclusion, in which you would summarize the thesis statement.

Example [ edit | edit source ]

Identifying a context can help shape the topic or thesis. Here, the writer decided to write about dogs. Then, the writer selected friends as the context, dogs being good examples of friends. This shaped the topic and narrowed the focus to dogs as friends . This would make writing the remainder of the essay much easier because it allows the writer to focus on aspects of dogs that make them good friends.

Body Paragraphs [ edit | edit source ]

Each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence. If the thesis contains multiple points or assertions, each body paragraph should support or justify them, preferably in the order the assertions originally stated in the thesis. Thus, the topic sentence for the first body paragraph will refer to the first point in the thesis sentence and the topic sentence for the second body paragraph will refer to the second point in the thesis sentence. Generally, if the thesis sentence contains three related points, there should be three body paragraphs, though you should base the number of paragraphs on the number of supporting points needed.

If the core topic of the essay is the format of college essays, the thesis sentence might read:

The topic sentence for the first body paragraph might read:

Sequentially, the topic sentence for the second body paragraph might read:

And the topic sentence for the third body paragraph might read:

Every body paragraph uses specific details, such as anecdotes, comparisons and contrasts, definitions, examples, expert opinions, explanations, facts, and statistics to support and develop the claim that its topic sentence makes.

When writing an essay for a class assignment, make sure to follow your teacher or professor’s suggestions. Most teachers will reward creativity and thoughtful organization over dogmatic adherence to a prescribed structure. Many will not. If you are not sure how your teacher will respond to a specific structure, ask.

Organizing your essay around the thesis sentence should begin with arranging the supporting elements to justify the assertion put forth in the thesis sentence. Not all thesis sentences will, or should, lay out each of the points you will cover in your essay. In the example introductory paragraph on dogs, the thesis sentence reads, “There is no friend truer than a dog.” Here, it is the task of the body paragraphs to justify or prove the truth of this assertion, as the writer did not specify what points they would cover. The writer may next ask what characteristics dogs have that make them true friends. Each characteristic may be the topic of a body paragraph. Loyalty, companionship, protection, and assistance are all terms that the writer could apply to dogs as friends. Note that if the writer puts dogs in a different context, for example, working dogs, the thesis might be different, and they would be focusing on other aspects of dogs.

It is often effective to end a body paragraph with a sentence that rationalizes its presence in the essay. Ending a body paragraph without some sense of closure may cause the thought to sound incomplete.

Each body paragraph is something like a miniature essay in that they each need an introductory sentence that sounds important and interesting, and that they each need a good closing sentence in order to produce a smooth transition between one point and the next. Body paragraphs can be long or short. It depends on the idea you want to develop in your paragraph. Depending on the specific style of the essay, you may be able to use very short paragraphs to signal a change of subject or to explain how the rest of the essay is organized.

Do not spend too long on any one point. Providing extensive background may interest some readers, but others would find it tiresome. Keep in mind that the main importance of an essay is to provide a basic background on a subject and, hopefully, to spark enough interest to induce further reading.

The above example is a bit free-flowing and the writer intended it to be persuasive. The second paragraph combines various attributes of dogs including protection and companionship. Here is when doing a little research can also help. Imagine how much more effective the last statement would be if the writer cited some specific statistics and backed them up with a reliable reference.

Concluding Paragraph [ edit | edit source ]

The concluding paragraph usually restates the thesis and leaves the reader something about the topic to think about. If appropriate, it may also issue a call to act, inviting the reader to take a specific course of action with regard to the points that the essay presented.

Aristotle suggested that speakers and, by extension, writers should tell their audience what they are going to say, say it, and then tell them what they have said. The three-part essay model, consisting of an introductory paragraph, several body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph, follows this strategy.

As with all writing, it is important to know your audience. All writing is persuasive, and if you write with your audience in mind, it will make your argument much more persuasive to that particular audience. When writing for a class assignment, the audience is your teacher. Depending on the assignment, the point of the essay may have nothing to do with the assigned topic. In most class assignments, the purpose is to persuade your teacher that you have a good grasp of grammar and spelling, that you can organize your thoughts in a comprehensive manner, and, perhaps, that you are capable of following instructions and adhering to some dogmatic formula the teacher regards as an essay. It is much easier to persuade your teacher that you have these capabilities if you can make your essay interesting to read at the same time. Place yourself in your teacher’s position and try to imagine reading one formulaic essay after another. If you want yours to stand out, capture your teacher’s attention and make your essay interesting, funny, or compelling.

In the above example, the focus shifted slightly and talked about dogs as members of the family. Many would suggest it departs from the logical organization of the rest of the essay, and some teachers may consider it unrelated and take points away. However, contrary to the common wisdom of “tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you have said,” you may find it more interesting and persuasive to shift away from it as the writer did here, and then, in the end, return to the core point of the essay. This gives an additional effect to what an audience would otherwise consider a very boring conclusion.

• Book:How to Write an Essay

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Pasco-Hernando State College

• Parts of an Academic Essay
• The Writing Process
• Rhetorical Modes as Types of Essays
• Stylistic Considerations
• Literary Analysis Essay - Close Reading
• Unity and Coherence in Essays
• Proving the Thesis/Critical Thinking
• Appropriate Language

Test Yourself

• Essay Organization Quiz
• Sample Essay - Fairies
• Sample Essay - Modern Technology

In a way, these academic essays are like a court trial.  The attorney, whether prosecuting the case or defending it, begins with an opening statement explaining the background and telling the jury what he or she intends to prove (the thesis statement).  Then, the attorney presents witnesses for proof (the body of the paragraphs).  Lastly, the attorney presents the closing argument (concluding paragraph).

The Introduction and Thesis

There are a variety of approaches regarding the content of the introduction paragraph such as a brief outline of the proof, an anecdote, explaining key ideas, and asking a question.  In addition, some textbooks say that an introduction can be more than one paragraph.  The placement of the thesis statement is another variable depending on the instructor and/or text.  The approach used in this lesson is that an introduction paragraph gives background information leading into the thesis which is the main idea of the paper, which is stated at the end.

The background in the introductory paragraph consists of information about the circumstances of the thesis. This background information often starts in the introductory paragraph with a general statement which is then refined to the most specific sentence of the essay, the thesis. Background sentences include information about the topic and the controversy. It is important to note that in this approach, the proof for the thesis is not found in the introduction except, possibly, as part of a thesis statement which includes the key elements of the proof. Proof is presented and expanded on in the body.

Some instructors may prefer other types of content in the introduction in addition to the thesis.  It is best to check with an instructor as to whether he or she has a preference for content. Generally, the thesis must be stated in the introduction.

The thesis is the position statement. It must contain a subject and a verb and express a complete thought. It must also be defensible. This means it should be an arguable point with which people could reasonably disagree. The more focused and narrow the thesis statement, the better a paper will generally be.

If you are given a question in the instructions for your paper, the thesis statement is a one-sentence answer taking a position on the question.

If you are given a topic instead of a question, then in order to create a thesis statement, you must narrow your analysis of the topic to a specific controversial issue about the topic to take a stand. If it is not a research paper, some brainstorming (jotting down what comes to mind on the issue) should help determine a specific question.

If it is a research paper, the process begins with exploratory research which should show the various issues and controversies which should lead to the specific question.  Then, the research becomes focused on the question which in turn should lead to taking a position on the question.

These methods of determining a thesis are still answering a question. It’s just that you pose a question to answer for the thesis.  Here is an example.

Suppose, one of the topics you are given to write about is America’s National Parks. Books have been written about this subject. In fact, books have been written just about a single park. As you are thinking about it, you may realize how there is an issue about balancing between preserving the wilderness and allowing visitors. The question would then be Should visitors to America’s National Parks be regulated in order to preserve the wilderness?

One thesis might be There is no need for regulations for visiting America’s National Parks to preserve the wilderness.

 Another might be There should be reasonable regulations for visiting America’s National Parks in order to preserve the wilderness.

Finally, avoid using expressions that announce, “Now I will prove…” or “This essay is about …” Instead of telling the reader what the paper is about, a good paper simply proves the thesis in the body. Generally, you shouldn’t refer to your paper in your paper.

Here is an example of a good introduction with the thesis in red:

Not too long ago, everyday life was filled with burdensome, time-consuming chores that left little time for much more than completing these tasks.  People generally worked from their homes or within walking distance to their homes and rarely traveled far from them.  People were limited to whatever their physical capacities were.  All this changed dramatically as new technologies developed.  Modern technology has most improved our lives through convenience, efficiency, and accessibility.

Note how the background is general and leads up to the thesis.   No proof is given in the background sentences about how technology has improved lives.

Moreover, notice that the thesis in red is the last sentence of the introduction. It is a defensible statement.

A reasonable person could argue the opposite position:  Although modern technology has provided easier ways of completing some tasks, it has diminished the quality of life since people have to work too many hours to acquire these gadgets, have developed health problems as a result of excess use, and have lost focus on what is really valuable in life.

Quick Tips:

The introduction opens the essay and gives background information about the thesis.

Do not introduce your supporting points  (proof) in the introduction unless they are part of the thesis; save these for the body.

The thesis is placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.

Don’t use expressions like “this paper will be about” or “I intend to show…”

For more information on body paragraphs and supporting evidence, see Proving a Thesis – Evidence and Proving a Thesis – Logic, and Logical Fallacies and Appeals in Related Pages on the right sidebar.

Body paragraphs give proof for the thesis.  They should have one proof point per paragraph expressed in a topic sentence. The topic sentence is usually found at the beginning of each body paragraph and, like a thesis, must be a complete sentence. Each topic sentence must be directly related to and support the argument made by the thesis.

After the topic sentence, the rest of the paragraph should go on to support this one proof with examples and explanation. It is the details that support the topic sentences in the body paragraphs that make the arguments strong.

If the thesis statement stated that technology improved the quality of life, each body paragraph should begin with a reason why it has improved the quality of life.  This reason is called a  topic sentence .  Following are three examples of body paragraphs that provide support for the thesis that modern technology has improved our lives through convenience, efficiency, and accessibility:

     Almost every aspect of our lives has been improved through convenience provided by modern technology.  From the sound of music from an alarm clock in the morning to the end of the day being entertained in the convenience of our living room, our lives are improved.  The automatic coffee maker has the coffee ready at a certain time.  Cars or public transportation bring people to work where computers operate at the push of a button.  At home, there’s the convenience of washing machines and dryers, dishwashers, air conditioners, and power lawn mowers.  Modern technology has made life better with many conveniences.

     Not only has technology improved our lives through convenience, it has improved our lives through efficiency. The time saved by machines doing most of the work leaves more time for people to develop their personal goals or to just relax.  Years ago, when doing laundry could take all day, there wasn’t time left over to read or go to school or even just to take a leisurely walk.  Nowadays, people have more time and energy than ever to simply enjoy their lives and pursue their goals thanks to the efficiency of modern technology.

     Accessibility to a wide range of options has been expanded through modern technology.  Never before could people cross a continent or an ocean in an afternoon.  Travel is not the only way technology has created accessibility.  Software which types from voice commands has made using computers more accessible for school or work.  People with special needs have many new options thanks to modern technology such as special chairs or text readers.  Actually, those people who need hearing aids as a result of normal aging have access to continued communication and enjoyment of entertainment they did not previously have.  There are many ways technology has improved lives through increased accessibility.

Notice how these proof paragraphs stick to one proof point introduced in the topic sentences in red. These three paragraphs, not only support the original thesis, but go on to give details and explanations which explain the proof point in the topic sentence.

Quick Tips on Body Paragraphs

The body of your essay is where you give your main support for the thesis.

Each body paragraph should start with a Topic Sentence that is directly related to and supports the thesis statement.

Each body paragraph should also give details and explanations that further support the poof point for that paragraph.

Don’t use enumeration such as first, second, and third. The reader will know by the topic sentence that it is a new proof point.

See Proving the Thesis in Related Pages on the right sidebar for more information on proof.

The Conclusion

Instructors vary of what they expect in the conclusion; however, there is general agreement that conclusions should not introduce any new proof points, should include a restatement of the thesis, and should not contain any words such as “In conclusion.”

Some instructors want only a summary of the proof and a restatement of the thesis. Some instructors ask for a general prediction or implication of the information presented without a restatement of thesis. Still others may want to include a restatement along with a general prediction or implication of the information presents. Be sure to review assignment instructions or check with instructor.  If your assignment instructions don’t specify, just sum up the proof and restate the thesis.

Example which sums up proof and restates thesis :

Modern technology has created many conveniences in everyday from waking up to music to having coffee ready to getting to work and doing a day’s work.  The efficiency provided by technology gives people more time to enjoy life and pursue personal development, and the accessibility has broadened options for travel, school, and work.  Modern technology has improved our lives through convenience, efficiency, and accessibility.

See how the thesis statement was restated in red. The two major arguments about the possible locations proven to be incorrect were also included to remind the reader of the major proof points made in the paper.

Example which makes a general prediction or implication of the information presented:

Modern technology has created many conveniences in everyday life from waking up to music to having coffee ready to getting to work and doing a day’s work.  The efficiency provided by technology gives people more time to enjoy life and pursue personal development, and the accessibility has broadened options for travel, school, and work.  Without it, everyday life would be filled with burdensome tasks and be limited to our neighborhood and our physical capacity. Here’s an example of a conclusion with a general prediction or implication statement with a restatement of thesis.

Modern technology has created many conveniences in everyday life from waking up to music to having coffee ready to getting to work and doing a day’s work.  The efficiency provided by technology gives people more time to enjoy life and pursue personal development, and the accessibility has broadened options for travel, school, and work.  Without it, everyday life would be filled with burdensome tasks and be limited to our neighborhood and our physical capacity. Modern technology has improved our lives through convenience, efficiency, and accessibility.

Quick Tips for Conclusions

• The conclusion brings the essay to an end and is typically the shortest paragraph.
• It is important to not introduce new ideas or information here.
• Unless otherwise specified in your assignment, just sum up the proof and restate the conclusion.
• Some instructors may want the concluding paragraph to contain a general prediction or observation implied from the information presented.
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Parts of an Essay?

Components of an Essay

An essay is a piece of writing that is written to provide information about a certain topic or simply to convince the reader. In every effective essay writing , there are three major parts: introduction , body , and essay conclusion .

• The introduction.  This is where the subject or topic is introduced. The big picture, points, and ideas are briefly written here.
• The body.  All the main ideas, topics, and subject are discussed here in details. This also includes evidence or information that support the essay.
• The conclusion.  The last part of an essay and usually summarizes the overall topic or ideas of an essay.

How to Write the Introduction Essay?

The introduction is the door to the whole essay outline . It must be convincing enough to get the attention of the readers. The following are the guidelines for writing the introduction of the essay.

• It must contain an attention-getter sentence or statement.
• The introduction must sound interesting to capture the attention of the reader.
• You can quote a statement about a topic or something related to the whole point of your essay.
• The intro must move from general to specific.
• At the end, there must be a thesis statement that gives an insight to the author’s evidence.

What Does the Body of an Essay Contain?

The body is the longest part of the essay and commonly highlights all the topics and ideas. The body must include the following:

• The evidence and supporting details of the expository essay in addition to the author’s ideas.
• A topic or sentences that link the discussion back to the thesis statement.
• The logical ordering of the ideas. The chronological of time, ideas, and evidence.
• A set of transition statements or sentences to create a good flow of the essay.
• Sufficient examples, evidence, data, and information that must be relevant to the particular topic of the essay.

The Conclusion of the Essay

The conclusion is the last part of the essay, and should:

• Emphasize on the major takeaways of the essay.
• Wrap up and summarize the essay, as well as the arguments, ideas, and points.
• Restate the main arguments in a simplified and clear manner that must be understood by the reader.
• Guarantee that the reader is left with something to think about, especially the main point of your essay.

The Elements of an Essay

• Thesis statement.  It is the main proposition of an essay. The thesis statement must be arguable that differentiates it from a fact and must be in a persuasive writing style.
• Problem or question.  The problem statements or the important issue of the essay that must be defined and described in the essay.
• Motive.  The reason for writing the essay.
• Evidence.  The facts and data or information that supports the whole essay and prove the main point of the essay.
• Analysis & reflection.  In which the writer turns the evidence into an arguable statement that provides the reader how the evidence supports, develops, or explained the essay’s thesis statement.
• Structure.  The work that the writer does to organize the idea, the series of sub-topics and sections through which it is explained and developed.

Parts of an Essay Generator

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Part One Academic Writing Essentials

Unit 3 Parts and Characteristics of a Good Paragraph

Learning Objectives

• To identify the parts of a paragraph: title, topic sentence, supporting sentences with details, concluding sentence, and transitions
• To understand how each part relates to one another within a paragraph through multiple examples
• To learn the key characteristics of a paragraph: format, unity, cohesion, and completion through multiple examples
• To practice writing each part of a paragraph with key characteristics through a variety of exercises

Read the paragraph “Missing My Childhood Days” below and do the activities that follow.

Missing My Childhood Days

          Thanks to two people and one place, my childhood was filled with fun. The first special person was my cousin Hector. I was the only child to my mom, and he was the only child to his mom. We were not lonely because we played and enjoyed family trips together. I loved playing hide and seek with him the most. The running, anticipating [1] , shouting, and laughing will always be in my memories. Secondly, I really miss my best friend Lisandra from my elementary school. Our moms were best friends, so it was easier for us to do many things together. For example, we used to explore the resorts and hotels near our homes. We imagined how we could decorate our own houses as elegantly as the hotels. Additionally, Lisandra had a little sister called Lolanda, and we loved to play with her and care for her as if she were our own baby. We fed her and sang songs to her. Even though I lost contact with Lisandra after she switched to a different school, our time together was very precious to me. Lastly, I really miss my childhood home. It was a big house with a patio decorated with pots of beautiful flowers. The house was large enough for me to ride my bike inside. There was also a pool. We had many family parties there. Playing riddles [2] by the poolside was one of the most popular games among us. Nowadays I do not have Hector and Lisandra in my life, and my childhood house has long been sold. However, I am grateful for having them all in my past because they have left me with priceless [3] memories.

By K. P. Checo (student), ESL Writing III, Harper College. U sed  with permission.

Discuss in groups:

• What are your most unforgettable childhood memories? Why are they unforgettable?
• What three areas of childhood does the author miss the most?
• What is the main idea of the above paragraph? Where do you find it in the paragraph?
• Where is the title?
• How does the author begin the paragraph?
• What is the spacing between one line to the next?
• Does each new sentence start a new line?
• What do you think a paragraph is?
• What do you like about this paragraph?
• How would you improve the paragraph?
• If you could ask the writer a question, what would you ask?

II. Definition of a Paragraph

A paragraph is a group of sentences about one main idea. The goal of a paragraph is to communicate to the readers what you think of a topic (your main idea) and why you believe this way (your supporting ideas). A paragraph also follows a certain format. Paragraph writing is the foundation [4] for all types of academic writing assignments such as essays and research papers.

III. Paragraph Format

You can see the format of a paragraph from “Missing My Childhood Days”:

• Center the title in the middle of the top line.
• Start the paragraph with indentation (a few open spaces in the beginning).
• Type or write double spaced.
• Each sentence follows the one before it without starting a new line.
• Use font size 12 if you type. (The font size may be hard for you to determine in this web-book.)

IV. Parts of a Paragraph

Understanding each part of a paragraph is an important step to good writing. One way to do this is to identify and color code each part.

Title – pink          Topic sentence – red               Supporting sentences – green

Supporting details – blue           Concluding sentence – red         Transitions – yellow

When you color code the parts, you know that

• you understand the paragraph organization.
• you are not missing any important compone n ts.
• all the parts are in the right order.
• the supporting details ( blue ) should be the longest and the most detailed.

          Thanks to two people and one place, my childhood was filled with fun. The first special person was my cousin Hector. I was the only child to my mom, and he was the only child to his mom. We were not lonely because we played and enjoyed family trips together. I loved playing hide and seek with him the most. The running, anticipating, shouting, and laughing will always be in my memories. Secondly , I really miss my best friend Lisandra from the elementary school. Our moms were best friends, so it was easier for us to do many things together. For example, we used to explore the resorts and hotels near our homes. We imagined how we could decorate our own houses as elegantly as the hotels. Additionally, Lisandra had a little sister called Lolanda, and we loved to play with her and care for her as if she were our own baby. We fed her and sang songs to her. Even though I lost contact with Lisandra after she switched to a different school, our time together was very precious to me. Lastly , I really miss my childhood home. It was a big house with a patio decorated with pots of beautiful flowers. The house was large enough for me to ride my bike inside. There was also a pool. We had many family parties there. Playing riddles by the poolside was one of the most popular games among us. Nowadays I do not have Hector and Lisandra in my life, and my childhood house has long been sold. However, I am grateful for having them all in my past because they have left me with priceless memories.

By K. P. Checo (student), ESL Writing III, Harper College. U sed with permission.

Exercise 1.  Use Paragraph “Missing My Childhood Days” as an example. Read Paragraph “Difficulties in English Writing” and identify the parts with the following colors:

Title – pink          Topic sentence – red           Supporting sentences – green

Supporting details – blue         Concluding sentence – red         Transitions – yellow

Difficulties in English Writing

          For me, writing is one of the most difficult skills to learn  in English. First, w ith writing comes spelling. Many words are pronounced the same but spelt completely differently, like flower and flour, blue and blew. I need extra effort s  to learn and remember how to spell and write them correctly. Another c hallenge I face i n English is sentence structure . There are many types of sentences in English such as  simple, compo und, and complex. Each type has its own punctuation rules. It takes a lot of hard work to understand how to build sentences effectively . Finally, grammar is challenging . My professors emphasize the importance of grammar because it plays a significant role in writing. Unfortunately, it is  also one of  the difficulties for me because  it has many , many rules and exceptions. For example, in  count  and noncount nouns unit , there are many confusing words like police and family . At first, I  thought the word “police” was singular, but in fact it is plural. In contrast, I thought the word “family” was plural, but it is singular in many situations ! Mistakes in singular and plural nouns lead to errors in verbs. Despite all these d ifficulties in spelling, sentence structure, and gramm a r , writing remains to be one of my favorite aspects of learning .

By A. Alsalman (student), ESL Writing III, Harper College. U sed with permission.

Read the above two paragraphs again, and you can see that a good paragraph consists of:

• A title – to show the topic and catch the readers’ interest pink
• A beginning called the topic sentence – to show the main idea  red
• A middle called the supporting sentences and details – supporting sentences to explain the main idea    green ; details to explain the supporting sentences  blue
• Transitions or connecting words – to connect the ideas and guide the readers  yellow
• An ending called the concluding sentence(s) – to finish the paragraph  red

Paragraph Organization – the Hamburger Way

To make a tasty hamburger, you need to take time to get the ingredients ready and stack [5] them up carefully. Planning and organizing your ideas for a good paragraph can be very similar to making a hamburger.

• The sesame seeds on the top piece of bread is what you see as you unwrap a hamburger. It is like the title of a paragraph.
• The top piece of the bread is the first part of the hamburger. It is like the topic sentence .
• The middle part is what makes the hamburger delicious. The more ingredients you add, the tastier the hamburger is. This part is like the supporting sentences with details . More details for the paragraph will make it more interesting to read.
• You also add condiments like mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise to not only make the hamburger juicier but also help the other ingredients like tomato slices and beef patties stick together. Those condiments are like transitions .
• The last piece of the bread makes the hamburger complete. The bread is made with the same ingredients as the top piece but with a different shape. This is like the concluding sentence. It restates the topic sentence but in a different way.

Below, you are going to learn how to write each part.

V. Title of a Paragraph

A title gives the readers information about what you write in the paragraph. It usually states or implies [6] the topic of your writing.

1. A good title is often very short. Sometimes it is only one word or one phrase. It is usually not a complete sentence.

The Best Invention

The Reasons for My Mediterranean Diet

The Characteristics of a Good Boss

2. A good title catches the readers’ interest. It tells the readers about the main topic, but it does not tell everything.

 Why Not Studying Hard?

 A Long-Kept Secret

To Mask or Not to Mask

3. A good title follows capitalization and punctuation rules.

• The first letter of the first word is always capitalized.
• Do not capitalize a short preposition, an article, or a coordinating conjunction unless it is the first word.
• Never capitalize the entire title.
• Do not put a period at the end.
• Do not put quotation marks around the title.
• Do not underline the title.

Discuss each pair of the titles below and notice how the errors are corrected.

the day I arrived in Chicago  X 

The Day I Arrived in Chicago  √

THE MAKING OF A DOCTOR  X

The Making of a Doctor  √

A Very Frustrating Experience.  X

A Very Frustrating Experience  √

“Advice from My Mother”  X

Advice from My Mother  √

The Mysterious Noise   X

The Mysterious Noise  √

For more explanations and examples in capitalization, please refer to Appendix B Capitalization . ( Open Appendix B here.)

Exercise 2.  Here are the titles of some paragraphs. Do they follow the rules? Write the correct title in the box. After you finish all the titles,  you can check your answers by clicking the “Check” button.  You may retry the exercise or see all the answers.

Example : 

From my home to school                                             

Correction: From My Home to School

VI. Topic Sentence

A topic sentence is a sentence that contains the main idea of a paragraph. It is usually put in the beginning of a paragraph. A good topic sentence has two essential parts and one optional part:

• the topic of your paragraph
• the controlling idea – your attitude/opinion about the topic
• (optional but preferred) predictors – the points you are going to explain in the body of the paragraph

In each pair of topic sentences below, one contains the topic and controlling idea. The other has the topic, controlling idea, and predictors. Identify each part and discuss which topic sentence you like better. Explain your reasons.

• My writing class is important in helping me prepare for college study.
• My writing class is important in helping me prepare for college study because I learn how to plan, write, and edit my own writing.
• I enjoy three aspects of my writing class.
• I enjoy three aspects of my writing class: my professor, my classmates, and the course materials.
• Many students feel stressed out in the writing class for three reasons.
• Because of long class periods, daily homework assignments, and lots of tests, many students feel stressed out in the writing class.,
• Writing in English is very different from writing in my native language.
• Writing in English differs from writing in my nature language in style, sentence structure, and punctuation.

Rules for a good topic sentence:

1. It must be a complete sentence that contains a subject and a verb.

•  My interesting writing class (not a complete sentence)  X
•   How to improve writing skills (not a complete sentence)  X
•  My writing class is interesting for three reasons. (a complete sentence)  √
•  In my writing class, I am learning how to improve writing skills in three ways.  (a complete sentence)  √

2. It can be a positive or negative statement, not a question. If you ask a question in the beginning of the paragraph, you should answer it in the next sentence. That second sentence is the topic sentence.

• Why is learning English important? (a question)  X
•  What is the best way to improve writing skills? (a question)  X
•  Why is learning English important? It is so because good English skills benefit people in their study, work, and daily life. (The second part is the topic sentence.)  √
• What is the best way to improve writing skills? I have three suggestions for ESL students to improve writing skills. (The second part is the topic sentence.)  √

3. Narrow down your topic. General topics are difficult to focus on and write.

• Year 2020 was a difficult year for me. (too broad)  X
• The COVID pandemic in Year 2020 made it difficult for me to study. (more specific)  √
• The COVID pandemic in Year 2020 made it difficult for me to study for three reasons: my classes went totally online in March, I could no longer use the college library and the Language Lab, and the poor Internet connection at home often interrupted my study on the course Blackboard site. (more specific)  √

4. Do not make an announcement.

•  In this paragraph, I am going to talk about the disadvantages to online learning.  (an announcement)  X
•  Let me explain the disadvantages to online learning. (an announcement)  X
•  This paragraph is about the disadvantages to online learning. (an announcement)  X
• There are three disadvantages to online learning. (not an announcement)  √
• There are three disadvantages to online learning: no immediate feedback from the professors, no interactions with the classmates, and unstable Internet connection at home. (not an announcement)   √

5. Do not write a fact because your opinion (the controlling idea) is missing.

• Harper College is a community college. (a fact)  X
• My classmates come from twelve different countries. (a fact)  X
• Harper College offers the best ESL programs in Illinois in three aspects: experienced professors, free tutoring, and the Language Lab. (Controlling idea “best” is added.)  √
•  Representing twelve countries, my classmates are great resources for learning different cultures. (Controlling idea “great resources for learning different cultures” is added.)  √

Exercise 3.  Read the following topic sentences. Identify the topic, controlling idea, and predictors.  Type your answers in the boxes. When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for feedback. You may retry or see all the answers.

I miss my high school life for three reasons: friends, sports, and time for myself.

topic:   my high school life

controlling idea:   miss for three reasons               

predictors:   friends, sports, time for myself

Exercise 4. Are the following good topic sentences? If not, why not? How do you improve them?  Click “True” for good topic sentences and “False” for the wrong ones.  You will receive instant feedback after each sentence. If a topic sentence is wrong, you will see the correction and explanation in blue .

Electric cars

This is not a good topic sentence because it is not a complete sentence and the controlling idea is missing.                  

Correction:  I like electric cars  more than gas-powered cars.

VII. Supporting Ideas and Paragraph Unity

Supporting means “holding up”, just as the bridge is “holding up” the man in the image on the left . Supporting sentences are crucial in “holding up” the main idea while making your paragraphs interesting and convincing [7] . They must support or explain the main idea in the topic sentence.

A good strategy for logical supporting sentences is to predict the question the readers may ask about your topic sentence. The result of this planning is actually the paragraph outline you learned in Unit 2 The Writing Process. (Open Unit 2 here.)

Paragraph Unity

Unity comes from the verb “unite” and means “hold tight, together”. In a paragraph, it means that all the supporting sentences work together to serve the same purpose: explaining the main idea.

Imagine two bouquets of flowers. Both look beautiful and in perfect harmony within themselves. However, if one sunflower is inserted in the middle of the roses, it will look out of place because it breaks the unity of the rose bouquet.

Then how do you tell if your paragraph has unity? There are two easy ways:

• Ask yourself, “Does each supporting sentence explain the controlling idea in the topic sentence?” If yes, your paragraph has unity. If not, you need to delete or change the supporting sentence. It is helpful to circle or underline your controlling idea in the topic sentence for easier checking.
• Always make an outline of the paragraph before you write. If you come up with a new idea while drafting the paragraph, put it in your outline first and ask yourself the first question.

Does the following paragraph outline show unity?

No, it does not show unity.  It contains irrelevant [8] ideas because they do not support the main idea “help college students”.  Here are ways to improve the outline:

• Cross out the irrelevant ideas.
• Add relevant information to support the main idea.
• In the second support, a personal example is also added to make the paragraph more interesting.
• In the third support, the new idea “manage time better” is a repetition of the second support “practice time management skills”. Therefore, it should be deleted. It is important not to repeat the same information that is already explained in other parts of the support.

Exercise 6.  Use the topic sentences below to build relevant supporting ideas. Check to make sure that all the ideas support the main idea in the topic sentence. Share your outline with your partner and discuss each other’s ideas.

Example :   

• Topic sentence: Men can often be better care givers than women.
• Topic sentence: People 18 years and older should serve two years in the military.
• Topic sentence: Chicago is the most romantic city in the U.S.
• Topic sentence: Chicago is the best place for children to visit on the weekend.

Exercise 7.  The following paragraph about a special place does not have unity.  There are four additional sentences to be deleted (not including the example). Type the numbers of the irrelevant sentences in the boxes below. When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for answers. You may also retry or see all the answers.  Sentence #4 is an example.

Types of Supporting Sentences

Good supporting sentences not only explain the main idea but also include interesting details such as

facts – numbers, general truths, scientific truths…

reasons – logical explanations…

experts’ opinion s – research findings, quotes by experts in the field…

examples – stories of well-known people, personal experiences, personal quotes…

Read Paragraph “Good Roommates” below and discuss how the writer uses the types of details. Color supporting ideas in green and the details in blue .

Good Roommates

          Having good roommates makes lives more enjoyable. First, good roommates understand each other’s need for peace and quiet after a day’s study. 1 They do not make unnecessary noises. For example, my roommate Abia and I have different class schedules. She spends the day at school, and I attend night classes. When I come back to the apartment very tired at 10 pm, she always turns down her music or speaks very softly on the phone with her friends. Moreover, good roommates share useful information. 2 Writer Barbara Dana once said, “A good roommate may be the single most important thing to have when one is away at school.” It is true because Abia’s and my families are far away. I have taken more courses at college, so I give Abia advice about classes, student clubs, and scholarships. She helps me in a different way. While I was looking for a part-time job last year, she told me about the job openings in her workplace. Finally, good roommates respect each other’s differences. 3 As the U.S. is a land of immigrants, it becomes the land of opportunities to learn different cultures and religions. I have learned about the significance of Ramadan for Abia, and she has understood the importance of Easter for me. Together, we have developed a good understanding of each other’s beliefs. In brief, good roommates help each other become more caring, supportive, and tolerant [9] . They make living easier in this complicated world.

In the first supporting details (first blue block marked with 1): personal examples of Abia and me

In the second supporting details (second blue block marked with 2): a quote by an expert, personal examples of Abia and me

In the third supporting details (third blue block marked with 3): general truth, logic, personal examples of Abia and me

Exercise 8.  Use Paragraph “Good Roommates” as an example, read Paragraph “No Capital Punishment” and discuss what types of interesting details the writer uses. Color the supporting ideas in green and the details in blue .

No Capital Punishment [10]

          Capital punishment should be banned [11] because the result cannot be changed, it is killing a life, and it does not stop the crime. First of all, the result of capital punishment is irreversible [12] ; therefore, it is important to be absolutely certain of a person’s guilt. Nevertheless, in some cases, this is simply impossible to prove a person’s guilt with 100% certainty. What if a person is wrongly charged? The death penalty will affect that person and his or her family forever. Next, capital punishment is killing. Killing people for any reason is wrong. Life is sacred, and humans do not have the right to decide the lives of others. Some people believe that capital punishment will stop criminals from committing crimes as they will be afraid to die. However, this is not the reality. Violent cases still occur daily. For instance, on the weekend of July 4 th , 2021, Chicago Sun Times reported that over 100 people were shot in Chicago and 19 of them died. That weekend was considered the deadliest and most violent in the city that year. This shows that putting criminals to death will not reduce the crime. For these reasons, death penalty should not be supported. The people and the government must find a better solution [13] to punishing the law breakers.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/7/3/22561910/chicago-weekend-shootings-july-2-5-homicide-gun-violence . Last accessed on July 10, 2021.

VIII. Transitions and Paragraph Cohesion

Cohesion focuses on the link between ideas so that they flow naturally from one to the next. When a paragraph has cohesion, ideas progress smoothly to create a connected whole.

Imagine cohesion as a waterfall cascading [14] smoothly and continuously.

There are different ways to achieve cohesion. One of them is by using transitions.

Transitions are also called connecting words . They help the writer organize thoughts and guide the readers in understanding the order of ideas clearly. Transitions are often needed not only between supporting sentences but also within them.

Compare the two paragraphs “Applying for the John & Melanie Frieburg ESL Student Scholarship” below. Which one is better? Why is it better? Underline the transitions in Paragraph 2 that you do not see in Paragraph 1.

Paragraph 1

Applying for the John & Melanie Frieburg ESL Student Scholarship

          Applying for the John & Melanie Frieburg ESL Student Scholarship online is not hard if you follow these steps. Go to the scholarship page on the Harper College website and search for this specific scholarship. Read all the information related to it: the requirements, the deadline, and the amount of the award. Fill out the application form online completely and accurately. There are twelve supplemental [15] questions including your grades and financial situation. Do you have an average grade of C? A paragraph about your educational aspiration is required. Get two recommendation letters from two people who know you well. Be sure to ask them first and give them enough time to write the letters. Proofread your application and submit before the deadline. You can always ask help from the Scholarship Office, the ESL Department, or the One Stop Center. The process is easy to follow and well worth your efforts for this special honor.

Paragraph 2

          Applying for the John & Melanie Frieburg ESL Student Scholarship online is not hard if you follow these steps. First , go to the scholarship page on the Harper College website and search for this specific scholarship. Read all the information related to it, such as the requirements, the deadline, and the amount of the award. When you are ready , fill out the application form online completely and accurately. There are twelve supplemental questions including your grades and financial situation. For example, do you have an average grade of C? A paragraph about your educational aspiration is also required. Another step is to get two recommendation letters from two people who know you well. Be sure to ask them and give them enough time to write the letters. Finally, proofread your application and submit before the deadline. At any stage of your application, you can always ask for help in the Scholarship Office, the ESL Department, or the One Stop Center. As you can see, the process is easy to follow and well worth your efforts for this special honor.

With connecting expressions like “First”, “such as”, “When you are ready”, and other underlined transitions, Paragraph 2 explains the steps much more clearly.

How are the transitions used?

•  The transition for the first supporting idea is often optional.
• “Finally” is usually used to show the last supporting idea in the body of the paragraph. It is not used right before the conclusion.
• The transition before the concluding sentence is optional.  It is actually more common without it.
• After most transitions, there is usually a comma, but this is not always true.  There are different types of transitions with different punctuation rules.  You will learn them step by step throughout the course.
• Do not overuse transitions; otherwise, the paragraph will read very unnatural. As you read and write more, you will gradually develop a sense of when a transition is or is not necessary.

Here are some common transitions:

Study Paragraph “Good Roommates” again. Notice how the three transitions ( first, moreover, finally ) connect the supporting ideas and the transition ( in brief ) is used before the concluding sentences.

Study Paragraph “No Capital Punishment” again. Notice how the transitions ( first of all, therefore, nevertheless, next, however, for instance ) are used to connect ideas between supporting ideas and within them. The transition ( for these reasons ) is placed before the concluding sentence.

Exercise 9.  Choose the appropriate transitions below and type them in the boxes to finish the paragraph about a daughter. There may be more than one correct answer, but type just one. Not all listed transitions are needed. When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for feedback. You may retry or see all the answers. The first one is an example.

first, second, next, in addition, also, furthermore, moreover, last, finally, for example, to sum up

Exercise 10.  Choose the appropriate transitions below and type them in the boxes to finish the paragraph about a life lesson. There may be more than one correct answer, but type just one. Not all listed transitions are needed. When you complete the entire exercise, you can click “Check” for feedback. You may retry or see all the answers. The first one is an example.

however, on the first Saturday, then, after crying for an hour,  while I was eating breakfast, now, at night, finally, after that, after I arrived

IX. Concluding Sentence(s)

A concluding sentence signals the end of a paragraph.

You can also write two or three sentences in this part with one or

more of the following methods:

• Restates [16] the main idea but in different words or sentence structure.
• Summarize the main points in the body of the paragraph.
• Express an opinion, make a prediction, put forth a recommendation, or ask a question related to the topic.

A conclusion must not bring up a new topic.

×     For those three reasons, I enjoy swimming the most. I will also start playing basketball next week.

Exercise 11.  Compare the pairs of topic sentences and concluding sentences from the paragraphs you have studied in this unit. Then discuss in groups what method the concluding sentences use and how they relate to the topic sentences.

Paragraph “Missing My Childhood Days”

Topic sentence: Thanks to two people and one place, my childhood was filled with fun.

Concluding sentences : Nowadays I do not have Hector and Lisandra in my life, and my childhood house has long been sold. However, I am grateful for having them all in my past because they have left me with priceless memories.

The conclusion restates the main idea (they have left me with priceless memories), summarizes the three supporting points in the body (I do not have Hector and Lisandra in my life, and my childhood house has long been sold), and expresses an opinion (I am grateful for having them all in my past).   The conclusion relates to the topic sentence and explains the controlling idea very well.  

• Paragraph “Difficulties in English Writing”
• Paragraph “My Special Place”
• Paragraph “Good Roommates”
• Paragraph “No Capital Punishment”
• Paragraph “Applying for the John & Melanie Frieburg ESL Student Scholarship”
• Paragraph “My Daughter”
• Paragraph “My Valuable Life Lesson”

X. Paragraph Completion

Each paragraph explains a complete idea and needs to have a clear ending. There are several ways to check if the paragraph is complete:

• Does the paragraph have a title?
• Is the topic sentence there?
• If you have predictors in the topic sentence, are all of them explained in the body of the paragraph?
• Are there details to further explain the supporting ideas?
• Do you have a concluding sentence at the end?
• Are there proper transitions to connect ideas?

If any one part is missing, the paragraph is incomplete.

Read the following paragraph. Is it complete? If not, discuss what is missing and how you can improve the paragraph.

          Jogging is beneficial physically, mentally, and socially. First, jogging makes people physically fit. It not only strengthens the muscles and immune system but also helps to reduce weight. Thirty minutes of jogging will burn about 250 calories. Extra weight causes all kinds of health problems, and a daily run will help shed [17] the extra pounds. Besides, jogging keeps people mentally healthy by reducing their stress. Modern life is full of anxieties. Workers have project deadlines, students take tests, parents deal with family financial challenges, and all people run into relationship issues from time to time. According to many doctors, jogging can act as a stress reliever [18] , boost [19] the feel-good hormone, and distract people from daily worries. Jogging is a simple act of activity that helps people become healthier in many ways.

What is missing?

• There is no title.  Add a title, such as “The Best Exercise” or “The Benefits of Jogging”.
• The third support is missing. From the topic sentence, the readers expect to see support in three areas: physical, mental, and social. However, the writer did not discuss the “social” aspect of jogging. Therefore, the paragraph is incomplete. The writer should add some information about the social benefits of jogging. Ideas could include joining a jogging club and meeting new friends.

Exercise 12.    Use the above paragraph as an example. Is the following new one complete? If not, discuss what is missing and how you can improve the paragraph.

       Unleashed dogs are dangerous to the environment, other living beings, and even to themselves. First of all, dogs do not have minds like humans; therefore, they often do not know what proper behavior is in public. When they are not restricted by a leash, they can run and step on flowers and plants in the parks.  They may also leave their waste there if their owners are unaware of it. What’s more, dogs can frighten the pedestrians on the street. Some of them are afraid of dogs and may experience intense fear when a dog jumps at them. Dogs may also scare drivers. What if they lose control of their vehicles? Other animals like ducks and geese will also find the running and barking “strangers” threatening. Lastly, unleashed dogs are a danger to themselves. There are many hidden holes on the roads and in the parks, and dogs can easily fall into them and hurt themselves. Because dogs can also cause traffic accidents, they may be injured as well. If there is construction nearby with heavy machinery and harmful chemicals, the consequences will be deadly to the dogs.

XI. Unit Review Practice

Exercise 13. Read the following paragraph about online learning. It is based on an outline example you studied earlier in this unit. As you read, do the following:

Color code the paragraph:

Title – pink           Topic sentence – red             Supporting sentences – green  

Supporting details – blue       transitions – yellow       Concluding sentence(s) – red

 Discuss:

• Have you taken an online class? If so, have you had similar experiences as described in this paragraph?
• What types of supporting ideas and details are used to explain the main idea?
• Does the paragraph have unity?
• What types of conclusion are used?
• Is the paragraph complete?
• Is the title centered on the top line? Is the first sentence indented?
• How do you improve the paragraph?

Three Benefits of Online Classes for College Students

          Taking online classes helps college students in three significant ways. First of all, online classes provide many conveniences. Many college students have a job, and some also need to take care of their family.  When the courses are online, the students often do not have a fixed class time. As a result, they can pick any shift available at work, and they can also schedule activities with their loved ones like going to the park or even going on a vacation. For those with small children, childcare is no longer a huge issue. In addition, some college students do not own a car, but their education will not be affected because they can take classes remotely. Secondly, college students improve their time management skills. I have learned to use my time more wisely. For example, during my first semester of online class, I spent a lot of time video chatting with my friends in the beginning. My professor set all the test deadlines by midnight each Sunday, so I postponed my study till Saturday.  However, there was too much reading and practicing then, and I simply could not complete the required study to get a good grade.  In the second half of the semester, I forced myself to make a schedule for daily study time and to be more disciplined [20] in following it. I was able to finish all the materials before the test, and my grade improved. The most important skill through online learning is independent learning. Even though professors are available through office hours, emails, and live sessions, students must learn to solve problems on their own most of the times. They can do so by reading, checking dictionaries, and finding additional online learning resources from YouTube videos or the Khan Academy website. The type of “self help” foster skills in independent learning, which is essential in college study and future profession. Taking online classes is challenging, but these benefits make their experiences worthwhile.

  NSNT Practice

Go to The NSNT Free Writing Approach and Additional Weekly Prompts for Writing in Appendix A. ( Open Appendix A here. ) Choose two topics to practice the steps in the writing process, including writing a paragraph for each. You may start with the NSNT approach and then rewrite the paragraphs. Check to see that the paragraphs have all the necessary parts and that they follow the rules for format, unity, cohesion, and completion.

Vocabulary Review

The words here have appeared in this unit.  The best way to learn them is to guess the meaning of each word from the context.  Then hover your computer mouse over the number beside each word to check its meaning and part of speech. These words are also listed in the footnote area at the end of each unit.

Here, you can use the flashcards below to review these words.

• A paragraph is a group of sentences with one main idea.
• A paragraph must follow a proper format, with the title in the center of the top line and an indent in the beginning of the paragraph. All the sentences should be written/typed double spaced and follow one another without starting a new line.
• A paragraph consists of a title, a topic sentence, several supporting ideas with details, 1-2  concluding sentences, and transitions.
• Each paragraph should have all the above necessary components. If one of them is missing, the paragraph is not complete.
• A title explain the topic of the paragraph or gets the readers interested in the topic. It is centered on the first line and should follow the capitalization rules.
• A topic sentence contains the main idea of a paragraph and is usually put in the beginning. It must have a topic and a controlling idea.  It must be a complete sentence and should not be a fact or an announcement.
• Supporting sentences should be detailed and should help explain the topic sentence. If anything is irrelevant to the main idea, the paragraph will not have unity.
• A concluding sentence restates the main idea and signals the end of the paragraph. It can include an opinion, a suggestion, a recommendation, or a question that is related to the topic.
• Transitions are important in guiding the readers in understanding the information in the paragraph and providing a smooth connection between ideas.  Transitions help maintain the cohesion of a paragraph.

Media Attributions

• a group of children running and laughing outdoors © Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash
• a hamburger © Photo by amirali mirhashemian on Unsplash
• parts of a hamburger © Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash
• lots of books showing titles on shelves © Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash
• a light bulb surrounded by six circles © Pixabay
• a man sitting on a bridge over a river © Photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash
• a rose bouquet © Photo by Enrique Avendaño on Unsplash
• a sunflower bouquet © Photo by Farrinni on Unsplash
• a balcony with a table, two chairs, and some plants © Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash
• waterfall in Yellowstone National Park © Lin Cui is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• ESL Scholarship winners 2015/2016 © Lin Cui is licensed under a All Rights Reserved license
• words “THE END” on wooden pieces © Photo by Ann H from Pexels
• a checklist and a yellow pencil © Tumisu on Pixabay
• unleashed dogs on beach © Photo by Laura Stanley from Pexels
• a MacBook, a notebook, etc. on a desk © Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
• a pen writing in a notebook © Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
• a page in a dictionary © Pixabay
• anticipate: verb, wait for something to happen ↵
• riddle: noun, a game of guessing the answers ↵
• priceless: adjective, very valuable, cannot be measured by a price ↵
• foundation: noun, basis, groundwork of something more complicated ↵
• stack: verb, to pile or put one on top of another ↵
• imply: verb, say indirectly ↵
• convincing: adjective, make people believe ↵
• irrelevant: adjective, not related, having nothing to do with the main idea ↵
• tolerant: adjective, accepting differences ↵
• capital punishment, noun phrase, a type of punishment to kill a criminal ↵
• ban: verb, stop, not allowed to happen ↵
• irreversible: adjective, cannot go back to the original situation ↵
• solution: noun, the answer to a problem ↵
• cascade: verb, flow from high to low smoothly ↵
• supplemental: adjective, extra, additional ↵
• restate: verb, write again, repeat ↵
• shed: verb, get rid of ↵
• stress reliever: noun phrase, something to reduce or take away stress ↵
• boost: verb, raise, improve ↵
• disciplined: adjective, self-controlled, strict with oneself ↵

Building Academic Writing Skills Copyright © 2022 by Cui, Lin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How the Heart Works How Blood Flows through the Heart

Language switcher.

Arteries and veins link your heart to the rest of the circulatory system. Veins bring blood to your heart. Arteries take blood away from your heart. Your heart valves help control the direction the blood flows.

Heart valves

Heart valves control the flow of blood so that it moves in the right direction. The valves prevent blood from flowing backward.

The heart has four valves.

• The tricuspid valve  separates the right atrium and right ventricle.
• The mitral valve  separates the left atrium and left ventricle.
• The pulmonary valve  separates the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery.
• The aortic valve  separates the left ventricle and aorta.

The valves open and shut in time with the pumping action of your heart's chambers. The opening and closing involve a set of flaps called cusps or leaflets. The cusps open to allow blood to flow out of a chamber and close to allow the chamber to refill with blood.  Heart valve diseases  can cause backflow or slow the flow of blood through the heart.

Learn about what the valves of the heart look like and do.  Medical Animation Copyright © 2022 Nucleus Medical Media, All rights reserved .

Adding oxygen to blood

Oxygen-poor blood from the body enters your heart through two large veins called the superior and inferior vena cava. The blood enters the heart's right atrium and is pumped to your right ventricle, which in turn pumps the blood to your lungs.

The pulmonary artery then carries the oxygen-poor blood from your heart to the lungs. Your lungs add oxygen to your blood. The oxygen-rich blood returns to your heart through the pulmonary veins. Visit our  How the Lungs Work  page to learn more about what happens to the blood in the lungs.

The oxygen-rich blood from the lungs then enters the left atrium and is pumped to the left ventricle. The left ventricle generates the high pressure needed to pump the blood to your whole body through your blood vessels.

When blood leaves the heart to go to the rest of the body, it travels through a large artery called the aorta. A balloon-like bulge, called an  aortic aneurysm , can sometimes occur in the aorta.

Learn about how your heart circulates blood to your lungs and throughout your body. Medical Animation Copyright © 2022 Nucleus Medical Media, All rights reserved .

Supplying oxygen to the heart’s muscle

Like other muscles in the body, your heart needs blood to get oxygen and nutrients. Your coronary arteries supply blood to your heart. These arteries branch off from the aorta so that oxygen-rich blood is delivered to your heart as well as the rest of your body.

• The left coronary artery  delivers blood to the left side of your heart, including your left atrium and ventricle and the septum between the ventricles.
• The circumflex artery  branches off from the left coronary artery to supply blood to part of the left ventricle.
• The left anterior descending artery  also branches from the left coronary artery and provides blood to parts of both the right and left ventricles.
• The right coronary  artery provides blood to the right atrium and parts of both ventricles.
• The marginal arteries  branch from the right coronary artery and provide blood to the surface of the right atrium.
• The posterior descending artery  also branches from the right coronary artery and provides blood to the bottom of both ventricles.

Your coronary arteries supply oxygen to your body.  Medical Animation Copyright © 2022 Nucleus Medical Media, All rights reserved .

Some conditions can affect normal blood flow through these heart arteries. Examples include:

• Heart attack
• Coronary heart disease

The coronary veins return oxygen-low blood from the heart's muscles back to the right atrium so it can be pumped to the lungs. They include:

• The anterior cardiac veins
• The great cardiac vein
• The middle cardiac vein
• The small cardiac vein

Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

Collaborating for Ukrainian Children: Reflecting on the Second Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

February 2024 marks the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has had devastating impacts on children and families . More than 7 million children are affected, having experienced violence, loss of family members, displacement, and disrupted education. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been separated from their families and communities and forcibly transferred to Russian-occupied territories or deported to Russia and Belarus. The Collaborative on Global Children's Issues has compiled this resource list to provide further background on the impact of Russia's war on Ukraine's children and efforts to respond to child rights violations. The Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues is committed to supporting Ukrainian government and civil society leaders, researchers, and international stakeholders. In our efforts to ensure that the impact of Russia’s war on Ukrainian children and our collective obligations to respond are fully understood, we invite you to explore the compilation of resources, events, and work below. 

Related Events

The War Against Ukraine's Children

On February 2, 2024, the collaborative convened an event to highlight Russia’s systematic violation of child rights. Ukrainian government and civil society leaders outlined Ukrainian efforts to protect its children, and Canadian and U.S. government officials discussed measures international partners can take to support Ukraine’s future.

United Nations General Assembly Event: Fighting for the Future: Ukrainian Children in War

On September 19, 2023, a high-level event coinciding with the seventy-eighth UN General Assembly focused on tangible actions to be implemented to stop and alleviate suffering of children in Ukraine affected by Russia’s war. The event featured the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and was moderated by Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues.

The Forcible Transfer and Deportation of Ukrainian Children by Russia: Search for Solutions

In July 2023, the collaborative convened the first Washington, D.C.-based conversation on the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia. During this webinar, participants outlined the current situation, provided historical context, and discussed the response. 

Research with Impact

Supporting the Office of the President of Ukraine through the Bring Kids Back UA Task Force

Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, is honored to serve at the request of the Office of the President of Ukraine on a task force to address the forced displacement and deportation of Ukrainian children. The group of experts includes senior leaders from the humanitarian, legal, and diplomatic fields and specialists in child rights.

Learning from the Frontline

Vladyslav Havrylov is a Ukrainian historian and religious scholar based in Kyiv and a research fellow with the collaborative. His current research focuses on the forcible transfer, deportation, adoption, re-education, and militarization of Ukrainian children by Russia. Vlad's work has been featured by   Global News ,   the   Atlantic Council , and more.

GKT103: General Knowledge for Teachers – Essays

The parts of an essay.

Now that we've examined the different kinds of essays, it's important to understand how all the pieces operate. Each part of an essay plays a particular role in conveying the writer's ideas to the reader. The following resource will show you how each part pulls together to create a unified essay.

How to Write an Essay

Parts of an Essay - Traditionally, it has been taught that a formal essay consists of three parts: the introductory paragraph or introduction, the body paragraphs, and the concluding paragraph. An essay does not need to be this simple, but it is a good starting point.

Introductory Paragraph

The introductory paragraph accomplishes three purposes: it captures the reader's interest, it suggests the importance of the essay's topic, and it ends with a thesis sentence. Often, the thesis sentence states a claim that consists of two or more related points. For example, a thesis might read:

A college essay has an introductory paragraph, several body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.

You are telling the reader what you think are the most important points which need to be addressed in your essay. For this reason, you need to relate the introduction directly to the question or topic. A strong thesis is essential to a good essay, as each paragraph of your essay should be related back to your thesis or else deleted. Thus, the thesis establishes the key foundation for your essay. A strong thesis not only states an idea but also uses solid examples to back it up. A weak thesis might be:

Wikipedia is a powerful resource in many ways.

As an alternative, a strong thesis for the same topic would be:

Wikipedia is a powerful resource because it allows users with knowledge in a specific area to share their knowledge, because it allows users to quickly find information about a vast array of topics, and because studies have confirmed that it is as accurate as any other encyclopedia.

Then, you could separate your body paragraphs into three sections: one explaining the open-source nature of the project, one explaining the variety and depth of information, and a final one using studies to confirm that Wikipedia is indeed as accurate as other encyclopedias.

Often, writing an introductory paragraph is the most difficult part of writing an essay. Facing a blank page can be daunting. Here are some suggestions for getting started. First, determine the context in which you want to place your topic. In other words, identify an overarching category in which you would place your topic, and then introduce your topic as a case-in-point. For example, if you are writing about dogs, you may begin by speaking about friends, dogs being an example of a very good friend. Alternatively, you can begin with a sentence on selective breeding, dogs being an example of extensive selective breeding. You can also begin with a sentence on means of protection, dogs being an example of a good way to stay safe. The context is the starting point for your introductory paragraph. The topic or thesis sentence is the ending point. Once the starting point and ending point are determined, it will be much easier to connect these points with the narrative of the opening paragraph. A good thesis statement, for example, if you are writing about dogs being very good friends, you could put:

A dog is an example of a very good friend because of X, Y, and Z.

Here, X, Y, and Z would be the topics explained in your body paragraphs. In the format of one such instance, X would be the topic of the second paragraph, Y would be the topic of the third paragraph, and Z would be the topic of the fourth paragraph, followed by a conclusion, in which you would summarize the thesis statement.

As we travel through our lives, we will identify many people as friends. In truth, most of these individuals are simply acquaintances. They will enter and depart from our existence as matters of mutual convenience. True friends will be there for you always. There is no friend truer than a dog.

Identifying a context can help shape the topic or thesis. Here, the writer decided to write about dogs. Then, the writer selected friends as the context, dogs being good examples of friends. This shaped the topic and narrowed the focus to dogs as friends. This would make writing the remainder of the essay much easier because it allows the writer to focus on aspects of dogs that make them good friends.

Body Paragraphs

Each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence. If the thesis contains multiple points or assertions, each body paragraph should support or justify them, preferably in the order the assertions originally stated in the thesis. Thus, the topic sentence for the first body paragraph will refer to the first point in the thesis sentence and the topic sentence for the second body paragraph will refer to the second point in the thesis sentence. Generally, if the thesis sentence contains three related points, there should be three body paragraphs, though you should base the number of paragraphs on the number of supporting points needed. If the core topic of the essay is the format of college essays, the thesis sentence might read:

The topic sentence for the first body paragraph might read:

The first paragraph of an essay is the introductory paragraph.

Sequentially, the topic sentence for the second body paragraph might read:

The introductory paragraph is followed by several body paragraphs.

And the topic sentence for the third body paragraph might read:

The college essay's final paragraph is its concluding paragraph.

Every body paragraph uses specific details, such as anecdotes, comparisons and contrasts, definitions, examples, expert opinions, explanations, facts, and statistics to support and develop the claim that its topic sentence makes.

When writing an essay for a class assignment, make sure to follow your teacher or professor's suggestions. Most teachers will reward creativity and thoughtful organization over dogmatic adherence to a prescribed structure. Many will not. If you are not sure how your teacher will respond to a specific structure, ask. Organizing your essay around the thesis sentence should begin with arranging the supporting elements to justify the assertion put forth in the thesis sentence. Not all thesis sentences will, or should, lay out each of the points you will cover in your essay. In the example introductory paragraph on dogs, the thesis sentence reads, "There is no friend truer than a dog". Here, it is the task of the body paragraphs to justify or prove the truth of this assertion, as the writer did not specify what points they would cover. The writer may next ask what characteristics dogs have that make them true friends. Each characteristic may be the topic of a body paragraph. Loyalty, companionship, protection, and assistance are all terms that the writer could apply to dogs as friends. Note that if the writer puts dogs in a different context, for example, working dogs, the thesis might be different, and they would be focusing on other aspects of dogs. It is often effective to end a body paragraph with a sentence that rationalizes its presence in the essay. Ending a body paragraph without some sense of closure may cause the thought to sound incomplete. Each body paragraph is something like a miniature essay in that they each need an introductory sentence that sounds important and interesting, and that they each need a good closing sentence in order to produce a smooth transition between one point and the next. Body paragraphs can be long or short. It depends on the idea you want to develop in your paragraph. Depending on the specific style of the essay, you may be able to use very short paragraphs to signal a change of subject or to explain how the rest of the essay is organized. Do not spend too long on any one point. Providing extensive background may interest some readers, but others would find it tiresome. Keep in mind that the main importance of an essay is to provide a basic background on a subject and, hopefully, to spark enough interest to induce further reading.

A true friend will be there for you whenever you need them. Any dog owner will say that there is nobody that will stick with you through thick and thin as much as a dog. My own dog can barely contain her joy when I come home from a hard day. Regardless of my mood, and my attitude towards her, she is always happy when I am home, and that is usually enough to make me feel better about everything.

True friends will help you when you are in need. Whether it is to protect their owner against some sort of threat or to help a blind person walk across the street, dogs are the most reliable companion a person could have. Few villains would attack a person walking a dog at night, and statistics show that homes with dogs are among the least likely to be broken into parts

The above example is a bit free-flowing and the writer intended it to be persuasive. The second paragraph combines various attributes of dogs including protection and companionship. Here is when doing a little research can also help. Imagine how much more effective the last statement would be if the writer cited some specific statistics and backed them up with a reliable reference.

Concluding Paragraph

The concluding paragraph usually restates the thesis and leaves the reader something about the topic to think about. If appropriate, it may also issue a call to act, inviting the reader to take a specific course of action with regard to the points that the essay presented. Aristotle suggested that speakers and, by extension, writers should tell their audience what they are going to say, say it, and then tell them what they have said. The three-part essay model, consisting of an introductory paragraph, several body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph, follows this strategy.

As with all writing, it is important to know your audience. All writing is persuasive, and if you write with your audience in mind, it will make your argument much more persuasive to that particular audience. When writing for a class assignment, the audience is your teacher. Depending on the assignment, the point of the essay may have nothing to do with the assigned topic. In most class assignments, the purpose is to persuade your teacher that you have a good grasp of grammar and spelling, that you can organize your thoughts in a comprehensive manner, and, perhaps, that you are capable of following instructions and adhering to some dogmatic formula the teacher regards as an essay. It is much easier to persuade your teacher that you have these capabilities if you can make your essay interesting to read at the same time. Place yourself in your teacher's position and try to imagine reading one formulaic essay after another. If you want yours to stand out, capture your teacher's attention and make your essay interesting, funny, or compelling.

It is no accident that many people consider their dogs as part of their family. Just like every other member, dogs contribute to the happiness and well-being of the home, making the burdens of caring for them well worth the effort. Dogs deserve love and respect every bit as much as they love and respect us. After all, what more can a friend be?

In the above example, the focus shifted slightly and talked about dogs as members of the family. Many would suggest it departs from the logical organization of the rest of the essay, and some teachers may consider it unrelated and take points away. However, contrary to the common wisdom of "tell them what you are going to say, say it, and then tell them what you have said," you may find it more interesting and persuasive to shift away from it as the writer did here, and then, in the end, return to the core point of the essay. This gives an additional effect to what an audience would otherwise consider a very boring conclusion.

Arizona PBS, Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation participating in Somerton El Dia de Los Ninos/ Día de los Libros Celebration April 27

Health, wellness and literacy event for the full family

Arizona PBS and the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation will visit the Somerton Community to participate in the 2024 El Dia de los Ninos / Día de los Libros Celebration on Saturday, April 27, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Full event details can be found at azpbs.org/smile .

The free event will take place at the Yuma County Somerton Library, 240 W. Canal St., Somerton, Arizona, 85350. There will be crafts and children’s book giveaways. Each attendee will also receive a “Healthy Smiles” kit with dental care items and resources to enjoy at home.

“The El Dia de Los Ninos event in Somerton is the perfect opportunity to provide oral health education and supplies to help children and their parents understand the connection between good oral health and overall health,” said Barb Kozuh, Executive Director of Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation. “We truly believe this partnership provides the education necessary to help lower the caries rate which can also decrease school absenteeism and increase overall wellness.”

“Community service is an essential part of Arizona PBS’ mission,” said Arizona PBS Senior Director of Educational Outreach Kimberly Flack. “We’re excited to continue partnering with the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation to visit communities across the state, helping educate children and families on the importance of dental care.”

Arizona PBS and the Delta Dental of Arizona Foundation’s involvement in the event is part of a statewide “Have a Healthy Smile” campaign. The campaign aims to boost family involvement in good oral health practices, focusing on the importance of brushing twice a day, changing toothbrushes regularly and visiting the dentist twice a year. For more information, watch three “Tips for Healthy Teeth” videos on our website.

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Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?

The answer involves a remarkable — and lucrative, and ridiculous — scheme to game the way we find music today.

Matt Farley has released thousands of songs with the goal of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for. Credit... Chris Buck for The New York Times

Supported by

By Brett Martin

Brett Martin is a contributing writer for the magazine. For this story, he traveled to Massachusetts to meet the writer of the song “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes.”

• Published March 31, 2024 Updated April 1, 2024

I don’t want to make this all about me, but have you heard the song “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes” ?

I guess probably not. On Spotify, “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes” has not yet accumulated enough streams to even register a tally, despite an excessive number of plays in at least one household that I can personally confirm. Even I, the titular Nice Man, didn’t hear the 1 minute 14 second song until last summer, a full 11 years after it was uploaded by an artist credited as Papa Razzi and the Photogs. I like to think this is because of a heroic lack of vanity, though it may just be evidence of very poor search skills.

Listen to this article, read by Eric Jason Martin

Open this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.

When I did stumble on “Brett Martin, You a Nice Man, Yes,” I naturally assumed it was about a different, more famous Brett Martin: perhaps Brett Martin, the left-handed reliever who until recently played for the Texas Rangers; or Brett Martin, the legendary Australian squash player; or even Clara Brett Martin, the Canadian who in 1897 became the British Empire’s first female lawyer. Only when the singer began referencing details of stories that I made for public radio’s “This American Life” almost 20 years ago did I realize it actually was about me. The song ended, “I really like you/Will you be my friend?/Will you call me on the phone?” Then it gave a phone number, with a New Hampshire area code.

So, I called.

It’s possible that I dialed with outsize expectations. The author of this song, whoever he was, had been waiting 11 long years as his message in a bottle bobbed on the digital seas. Now, at long last, here I was! I spent serious time thinking about how to open the conversation, settling on what I imagined was something simple but iconic, on the order of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume.” After one ring, a male voice answered.

I said: “This is Brett Martin. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call.”

The man had no idea who I was.

“You have to understand,” he said, apologetically. “I’ve written over 24,000 songs. I wrote 50 songs yesterday.”

And thus was I ushered into the strange universe of Matt Farley.

Farley is 45 and lives with his wife, two sons and a cockapoo named Pippi in Danvers, Mass., on the North Shore. For the past 20 years, he has been releasing album after album of songs with the object of producing a result to match nearly anything anybody could think to search for. These include hundreds of songs name-checking celebrities from the very famous to the much less so. He doesn’t give out his phone number in all of them, but he does spread it around enough that he gets several calls or texts a week. Perhaps sensing my deflation, he assured me that very few came from the actual subject of a song. He told me the director Dennis Dugan (of “Dennis Dugan, I Like Your Movies Very A Lot,” part of an 83-song album about movie directors) called once, but he didn’t realize who it was until too late, and the conversation was awkward.

Freed from the blinding incandescence of my own name, I could suddenly see the extent of what I had stumbled into. It was like the scene in a thriller when the detective first gazes on the wall of a serial killer’s lair. Papa Razzi and the Photogs is only one of about 80 pseudonyms Farley uses to release his music. As the Hungry Food Band, he sings songs about foods. As the Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities & Towns, he sings the atlas. He has 600 songs inviting different-named girls to the prom and 500 that are marriage proposals. He has an album of very specific apologies; albums devoted to sports teams in every city that has a sports team; hundreds of songs about animals, and jobs, and weather, and furniture, and one band that is simply called the Guy Who Sings Your Name Over and Over.

He also has many, many songs about going to the bathroom. If you have a child under 10 with access to the internet, it is very likely you know some part of this body of work. What he refers to collectively as his “poop songs” are mostly released under two names: the Toilet Bowl Cleaners and the Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee.

“The Odd Man is more shameless,” he explained. “The Toilet Bowl Cleaners are making statements with their albums,” though the distinction between the former’s “Butt Cheeks Butt Cheeks Butt Cheeks!” and the latter’s “I Need a Lot of Toilet Paper to Clean the Poop in My Butt” may be subtler than he imagines.

Largely, though not entirely, on the strength of such songs, Farley has managed to achieve that most elusive of goals: a decent living creating music. In 2008, his search-engine optimization project took in $3,000; four years later, it had grown to $24,000. The introduction of Alexa and her voice-activated sistren opened up the theretofore underserved nontyping market, in particular the kind fond of shouting things like “Poop in my fingernails!” at the computer. “Poop in My Fingernails,” by the Toilet Bowl Cleaners, currently has over 4.4 million streams on Spotify alone. To date, that “band,” and the Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee, have collectively brought in approximately $469,000 from various platforms. They are by far Farley’s biggest earners, but not the only ones: Papa Razzi and the Photogs has earned $41,000; the Best Birthday Song Band Ever, $38,000; the Guy Who Sings Your Name Over and Over, $80,000. Dozens of others have taken in two, three or four digits: the New Orleans Sports Band, the Chicago Sports Band, the Singing Film Critic, the Great Weather Song Person, the Paranormal Song Warrior, the Motern Media Holiday Singers, who perform 70 versions of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” substituting contemporary foods for figgy pudding. It adds up. Farley quit his day job in 2017.

“People like to criticize the whole streaming thing, but there’s really a lot of pros to it,” he said. Indeed, in 2023, his music earned him just shy of $200,000, about one halfpenny at a time.

‘If you reject your own ideas, then the part of the brain that comes up with ideas is going to stop. You just do it and do it and do it, and you sort it out later.’

Farley’s earnings help fund his multiple other creative endeavors. He records what he calls his “no jokes” music. This includes a two-man band he’s been in since college called Moes Haven, which once recorded an album a day for a year. He hosts two podcasts, one about his work and the other recapping Celtics games. And he makes movies: microbudgeted, determinedly amateur but nevertheless recognizably cinematic features starring himself and his family and friends. (They feature a spectacular array of New England accents.) In most, Farley plays some version of himself, a mild-mannered, eccentric hero projecting varying degrees of menace. Farley and his college friend Charlie Roxburgh are in the midst of a project in which they have resolved to release two full movies per year. The model, Farley said, was inspired by Hallmark Movies: “If this movie stinks, good news, we’re making another in six months!” Their most popular work remains “Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You!” (2012), a charmingly shaggy tale of a cryptid threatening a small New England town. It features Farley’s father as a big-game hunter named Ito Hootkins.

Like many of Farley’s endeavors, his films have attracted a small but intense following. “I could fill a 5,000-seat arena, if I could only get everybody in one place,” he says. His is the kind of obsessive project that seems to inspire the same from others. A few years ago, Leor Galil, a Chicago music writer, set out to listen to Farley’s entire corpus, from start to finish, chronicling the journey in a zine titled Freaky 4 Farley. Four pages into Issue 1, he had already taken on the grim tone of an Arctic explorer. “I’ve become a little tired of the album 25 songs in,” he wrote, “which makes me concerned about my ability to get through the rest of this listening quest.” Issue 2 begins, “I failed.”

The umbrella name that Farley uses for all his outputs is Motern. He made the word up; or rather, he seized on what he felt was its strange power after misspelling the word “intern” in what he had planned to be a 10,000-page novel. To Farley, creativity has always been a volume business. That, in fact, is the gist of “The Motern Method,” a 136-page manifesto on creativity that he self-published in 2021. His theory is that every idea, no matter its apparent value, must be honored and completed. An idea thwarted is an insult to the muse and is punished accordingly.

“If you reject your own ideas, then the part of the brain that comes up with ideas is going to stop,” he said. “You just do it and do it and do it, and you sort it out later.” Or, as the case may be, you don’t, but rather send it all out into the abyss, hoping that someday, somebody, somewhere will hear it.

I was aware, of course, that on some level I’d been had, the one tiny fish vain enough to be snared in Farley’s trawl. It left me a bit paranoid. “Charlie Roxburgh” suddenly seemed like such a perfect Boston pseudonym that I spent a day investigating whether he was a real person. (He’s real, lives in Connecticut and makes corporate videos for his day job.) I lost another day chasing after a Letterboxd commenter who goes by the handle dcs577 and was so baffled by the popularity of Farley’s movies that he published his own short e-book, “The Not Motern Method.” It urges readers to give up on their artistic dreams, and even mimics Farley’s buckshot S.E.O., by appearing in multiple, slightly different versions. Surely he had to be a Farley alter ego. (Nope: a 36-year-old movie buff in Missouri.)

Mostly I was trying to figure out whether I thought Farley was a bad guy. Did his scheme represent the inevitable cynical end product of a culture in the grips of algorithmic platforms? Or might it be a delightful side effect? Was his work spam or a kind of outsider art? Was he just the Poop Song Guy, or was he closer to Steve Keene, the Brooklyn-based, Gen-X-hipster-approved painter of over 300,000 works who has been the subject of books and museum retrospectives? As it happens, Farley has a song about Steve Keene. It’s on a Papa Razzi album titled “I Am Not Wasting My Life,” which suggested he was asking some of the same questions.

When I went to Danvers to meet Farley in December, it became quickly apparent that he is the most transparent person in the world. He’s got a thick head of hair, high cheekbones and a friendly, Kyle Chandler-like face that another Letterboxd reviewer correctly identified as “youth-pastory.” When he picked me up at my hotel, he was wearing a fleece-lined brown hoodie that, judging by social media, is the only outer layer he wears throughout the New England winter — including on the 15-to-20 mile walks he takes twice a week. He struck me as the kind of guy who wears shorts the moment it gets above 48 degrees. Compulsively early, he confessed that he arrived at the lobby an hour before we were scheduled to meet.

You might mistake Motern’s aesthetic for stoner humor, but Farley says he has never had a sip of alcohol, much less done drugs. By his own description, he eats like a picky 12-year-old. When I made him take me to a restaurant in Salem called Dube’s Seafood, famed for its belly clams, he ordered chicken nuggets and buried them beneath a blizzard of salt and ground pepper, removing the top of the pepper shaker to pour it on more directly. In the car we listened to the Rolling Stones, the Replacements, Tom Waits. “It’s a mammoth accomplishment of self-control for me not to be playing my own music right now,” he said, though his efforts at restraint were puzzling, given that I was in all likelihood the one person on Earth at that moment whose job was to listen to it.

All of Farley’s life he has wanted to make things and have people see and hear them. After going to school at Providence College, he moved to Manchester, N.H., specifically because he knew nobody there who might distract him. “If you know people, they want you to go to cookouts,” he says. “I designed my entire life to not have to go to cookouts.” Even now, he cannot abide downtime; to him, the wasted time of a party or watching a football game is measured in songs or scripts he could have written. At no point did Farley consider a more conventional route such as film school or a low-level job in the entertainment industry. Instead, he took a job at a group home for teenagers, knocking out a 40-hour week in three days so that he could work on music and movies the other four. He would leave Moes Haven CDs in public places across Manchester, hoping somebody would pick them up; he slipped them into the stacks at local record stores, like a reverse shoplifter. He would drive people to the airport just so he could force his music on them on the way.

Farley’s persona is simultaneously grandiose — “I really do think I’m the greatest songwriter of the 21st Century,” he told me — and knowingly self-effacing. One night, I went with him to a tiny independent theater in Lexington for a screening of the Motern film “Magic Spot,” a time-travel comedy. On the drive down, I asked what the endgame for the movies was. Obviously, they have a very different business model from his music. What if somebody gave him, say, a million dollars to make his next movie? He thought for a second.

“Three-hundred-thousand for me and Charlie, spread the rest around to the people who have helped us all these years, make a $10,000 movie and get sued,” he said. (That would be about twice the budget of a typical Motern joint.)

“Magic Spot” wasn’t on the marquee when we pulled up, but there was a flier taped to the door. “We couldn’t afford color copies, but we did our best,” the theater owner said as he let us in. There were 11 people in the audience, including Farley’s father and brother-in-law, both of whom were in the movie. There was also a film student named Taylor, who had driven up from the Cape and would end up seeing three Motern screenings within a month, and two guys down from Manchester, one of whom was turning the other on to the Farley canon. A few minutes into the movie, the sound went out, and we sat for about 10 minutes while Farley frantically tried to fix it. He was on the verge of jury-rigging a solution involving holding a microphone to his laptop when the sound system miraculously healed itself.

“A huge success! I’m on cloud nine,” he said, as we headed back toward Danvers. After the show, he refused to accept his share of the ticket sales, instead pressing extra money into the owner’s hands as thanks.

For somebody so driven to find an audience and so immune to embarrassment, the advent of the digital age was a miracle. Farley began uploading the Moes Haven catalog to iTunes when it came out, and then to Spotify. As described in the closely autobiographical Motern film “Local Legends,” Moes Haven was intended to “meld the sounds of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Pink Floyd, into a musical concoction that was going to blow the minds of millions of fans all the way around the world.” As it turned out, Farley noticed that the only song that seemed to blow minds, or at least get downloaded, was a comic throwaway called “Shut Up Your Monkey.” (“Get down/Get funky/Shut up/Your monkey.”)

“Some people would have quit right there,” he says. “I saw an opportunity.”

Whatever the dubious value of any individual song in the Farley universe, it’s as part of the enormous body of the whole, the magnum opus, that it gains power.

A lot of energy has been spent trying to pick the lock of the recommendation algorithms that can make or break a song on Spotify and other streaming services. Any number of online courses, distributors and publishing companies promise to navigate the labyrinth of inputs — playlist inclusion, natural language processing, average length of listens, influencer attention, metrics like “acousticness,” “speechiness” and “danceability” — that will push a song onto millions of users’ recommended playlists. Critics, meanwhile, bemoan the rise of bands like Greta Van Fleet, an “algorithmic fever dream” according to Pitchfork, who seem to be engineered to be the Next Song after whatever it was you actually chose to listen to.

When I asked Farley how much of this he factors into his work, the answer was “almost zero.” He gets the sense that longer titles seem to work better than short ones and that around a minute and a half is a good minimum length. But for the most part, his is a blunt-force attack on the softer target of search results. At its most intentionally parasitic, this includes such tracks as “A Review of ‘Exile on Main Street’” designed to be discovered by the Rolling Stones-curious. A 2013 album credited to the Passionate & Objective Jokerfan takes advantage of the fact that song titles cannot be copyrighted. Thus, “This Girl Is On Fire (Quick, Grab a Fire Extinguisher!),” “(Almost) Instant Karma” and “Searching for Sugarman,” which, unlike the more famous “Sugar Man,” by Rodriguez, is about a baker whose sugar delivery is running late. Farley says he has since sworn off these kinds of tricks.

These days, he sets himself a relatively light goal of one 50-song album a month, recorded in a spare bedroom in his house. (Fifty tracks is the limit that CD Baby, which Farley uses to distribute and manage his music, allows, a regulation that may or may not have something to do with Farley, who used to put as many as 100 on an album.) Once he reaches his quota, he begins the tedious work of checking the levels of each song, entering titles and metadata (genre, writer, length, etc.), creating an album title and cover art (nearly always a selfie) and uploading the package one song at a time.

Farley showed me a worn, green spiral notebook in which he meticulously tracks his output and earnings. From Spotify, he earns roughly a third of a cent per stream; Amazon and Apple pay slightly more on average: between a third and three-quarters of a cent. TikTok, on the other hand, pays musicians by the number of videos featuring their songs and is thus immune to Farley’s strategy; when Kris and Kylie Jenner recorded a video of themselves dancing to Farley’s song about Kris, millions of people saw it, but Farley earned less than 1 cent.

Among other topics Farley told me he planned to tackle in future albums were: colleges, household items, tools, musical instruments. I had planned to ask what categories haven’t worked, but what had become clear by then is that the idea of any one song, or even album, hitting the jackpot isn’t the point. Even after Spotify’s recent announcement that it would no longer pay royalties on songs receiving fewer than a thousand streams, Farley’s business model rests on the sheer bulk of his output. And so does his artistic model. Whatever the dubious value of any individual song in the Farley universe, it’s as part of the enormous body of the whole, the magnum opus, that it gains power. This is especially true when you consider that an artificial intelligence could conceivably produce 24,000 songs, Farley’s entire oeuvre, in about a day, a fact that gives his defiantly human, even artisanal, labor a kind of lonely Sisyphean dignity. Whatever else Farley’s work is, it is not AI — even when it barely seems to be I.

A year or two ago, Farley discovered with some chagrin that he was no longer the No. 1 result for the search “poop song.” There was another Poop Song Guy.

His name is Teddy Casey, and amazingly, he is also from a Boston suburb, Newton. That’s where the similarities with Farley stop. Casey has precisely two songs available for streaming: a sweet kids’ song about animals called “Monkey,” and “The Poop Song,” which has over four million streams across various platforms.

Casey is 55; until recently he was working as a bartender and hosting open-mic nights near where he lives in midcoast Maine. When I reached him, he was back home after a week in New Hampshire, training to become a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier. He wrote his poop song around 2009, but he didn’t get around to posting it until 2020. “It didn’t do anything for months,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, one month it made $20. I was like, Wow, cool. Buy a case of beer.”

These days, the song brings in about $1,200 per month, enough to pay his rent, Casey told me, with what sounded like a Lebowskian shrug. “I have other songs that I want to put up,” he said. “But I kind of don’t want to sell out.”

I asked if he knew about the Toilet Bowl Cleaners, and he said he’d heard a few of their songs. “I’m not making this up,” he said. “There’s this other guy, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, the Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee. His idea was to customize every poop song. So there’s a Steven Poop song, a Bob Poop song, a Mary Poop song. He’s got hundreds!”

I told him that both bands were in fact the same person.

“Well, OK,” he said, as if realizing the full extent of what he was up against. “I like mine better, but I’m biased,” he said, finally. “You can tell he knows how to write songs, but I think he’s just been going for volume.”

In fact, I knew about the suite of songs that combine Farley’s two most successful genres — names and poop — because he was working on a new set of them when I visited him. He estimated that he had already completed about 3,000, but there were always new names.

“This can be kind of painful,” he warned, switching on his keyboard and firing up his laptop. He donned headphones, consulted a list of names and got to work. In the silence of the room, I could just hear the soft click of the keyboard and his vocals:

Jamilah, p-p-p-poop/Jamilah poop poop poop.

In “Local Legends,” which is something like Farley’s “All That Jazz,” there is a fantasy sequence in which Farley imagines the two sides of his personality arguing: one, the serious, heartfelt artist, the other a greasy record executive demanding ever more poop songs. Of course, the scene can only be a fantasy, and can only have Farley playing both characters, because the greasy record executive belongs to a lost world — one in which drastically fewer people had a chance to produce art and the work was often corrupted by corporate gatekeepers, but in which there was also a clearly marked road to an audience and a living. Farley represents both the best and worst of the incentives and opportunities that have taken this world’s place. Certainly, there are few creators working today in any medium who would not recognize the anxiety he embodies: that their work now lives or dies by the vagaries of opaque algorithms serving a bottomless menu of options to an increasingly distracted public. And that if they don’t bow to the demands of these new realities, their work — and by extension they — will simply disappear. Which is to say that while the experience of watching Farley work was not unpainful, as promised, neither was it totally unfamiliar.

After a minute and a half of “The Jamilah Poop Song,” Farley paused. He adjusted a few dials, consulted his notebook, thought for a few seconds and plowed on to the next song. Different tempo, different vocals, similar theme.

Tunka, Tunka , he sang. Poop, poop poop poop poop .

Brett Martin is the author of ‘‘Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution’’ and a three-time James Beard Award winner. He most recently wrote about Las Vegas’s punk museum for the magazine. Chris Buck is a photographer and director. He was the first recipient of the Arnold Newman Portrait Prize.

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Taylor, a film student who watched many screenings of Farley’s films. Taylor uses they and them pronouns, not he and him.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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Cheap coal, cheap workers, Chinese money: Indonesia’s nickel success comes at a price

Jakarta hopes the industry is the ticket to becoming a developed nation. But there are fears the toll on the environment – and people’s lives – will be too high

S tanding chest-deep in the Molucca Sea, just outside the billowing smokestacks of the world’s largest nickel industry, Upin adjusts his mask and dives. Members of his people, the Bajau, have been known to stay underwater for more than 10 minutes but Upin resurfaces shortly. He hauls a rugged disc of metal over the side of his dugout canoe.

“Since the factories arrived, there has barely been any fish to catch,” he says and grimaces towards the opaque water.

“The ocean has become warmer and more polluted. It itches on my skin but I have no choice. Collecting scrap metal is the only way for me to survive.”

Nickel has upended life on the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Halmahera and Obi. Over a decade the region has gone from modest ore exporter to the world’s foremost refiner of the metal. A rural backwater has been catapulted into modernity.

Above: Upin steers his boat with wife Jenni and son Riski past nickel factories in Morowali. Since the factories opened, their drinking water has been polluted and fish is no longer abundant. – All images by Per Elinder Liljas Below: Open-cut nickel mining leads to erosion and sediment sludge in local waterways

Today this is the home of about 200 smelter production lines and 200,000 factory workers – and there could be more to come. As demand soars for nickel to power batteries and electric vehicles, Jakarta banks on the industry being its ticket to becoming a developed nation by 2045.

At the moment it is knocking the competition out of the water. Indonesia produces about half of all the world’s nickel and has pushed prices so low that most other producers are operating at a loss. Australian miners BHP and Glencore announced in February they may leave the metal altogether.

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Indonesia’s recipe for success is cheap coal, cheap ore, cheap workers and Chinese money. But this has meant a steep price to pay for locals, the environment and labourers.

In Upin’s village, Kurisa, on the eastern shore of Sulawesi, the air is pungent with the smell of metal. A smelter flanks the settlement on one side and a coal power plant on the other.

A coal power plant next to a nickel smelter in Morowali. Cheap coal power has been a key ingredient in the Indonesian nickel boom

“Today the air is OK,” says Upin’s neighbour Fauziah.

“Other days, we’re enveloped in thick smoke. The kids are coughing and feel dizzy. Last week a baby died from breathing difficulties.”

Indonesia sits on the world’s largest reserves of nickel but the concentration in the ore is very low. Refining it to battery quality, or even just to make stainless steel, is an incredibly energy-intense process. This has been powered by a construction spree of coal power plants.

Jakarta has created a loophole in its goals to phase out coal to benefit the nickel industry. Since the metal is critical for the green transition, it is allowing new coal power plants connected to nickel smelters as long as they shut down before 2050. This has led to the country setting new records in its coal consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

A coal hangar in a nickel industrial park in Morowali

“Calling the nickel industry a part of the green transition is a joke,” says Muhammad Taufik, coordinator at Jatam, an organisation advocating for a more just mining industry in Indonesia.

“It is good that it creates jobs. But it also destroys ecosystems and people’s lives.”

‘Calling the nickel industry a part of the green transition is a joke’

Muhammad Taufik, coordinator at the fair and sustainable mining advocacy group Jatam in Central Sulawesi

‘This water started turning orange’

Juhardi sits outside his house in Kurisa, grappling with pieces of plastic pipe. He woke up after a night shift at the factory to find the water supply cut off. This is not uncommon.

“Before, we led our water down from the mountains, but then this water started turning orange.”

Water samples from a range of locations along the coast confirm high levels of heavy metals stemming from the mines and refineries.

In a river near Kurisa, popular for fishing, the concentration of nickel was more than 15 times higher than the World Health Organization’s guideline value. The concentration of hexavalent chromium, a contaminant made famous in the Oscar-winning movie Erin Brockovich, was more than five times higher than WHO’s guideline value for drinking water.

Nickel mining runoff causes environmental damage to waterways

A former environmental technician at one of the nickel companies is not surprised.

“During audits, my supervisor used to tell me to hide environmental violations,” says the man, who wants to be anonymous in order not to disqualify himself for future employment.

He shows an image on his phone of pools of reddish liquid inside an industrial area, and outside its perimeter. “During the rainy season it always floods, and contaminated water flows out into the environment.”

A fisher outside one of Morowali’s many nickel ports. Rapid industrialisation over the past decade has drastically altered the local way of life

Many inhabitants in the region have been bought out from their land. Others tell stories of being forced away. The inhabitants of Kurisa live in stilt houses over the water and don’t hold any land titles. Lacking other opportunities, those young and healthy enough have taken up jobs in the factories. Juhardi describes the work as tough, with scant security precautions.

“Yesterday two trucks collided. Instead of reporting it, my boss said that we should just fix up the trucks and drivers. The companies cover up accidents so they don’t have to pay compensation or stop work. That means they never learn, and new accidents happen every day.”

Workers in the nickel industry on their way home from work in Morowali. The industry directly employs more than 100,000 people, and indirectly over 150,000

On Christmas Eve last year, catastrophe struck. An explosion at a smelter took 21 lives.

Videos from the aftermath soon became viral. They show workers jumping out of a building consumed with flames and smoke. Others lie writhing in pain on the ground. During the following days, workers shared the identity of victims in internal WhatsApp groups.

Among the names, Juhardi saw his cousin’s son, listed as seriously wounded. Juhardi reached his parents by phone, and even though five days had passed, this was the first notice they had about their son. Eventually they found him at a hospital.

Juhardi is fixing the water pipe at his home in Kurisa, a village sandwiched between a coal power plant and a nickel smelter. ‘Since the factories arrived, we’ve had problems with our water supply,’ he says

“I’m extremely disappointed with the company’s slow response,” Juhardi says.

Media reported about the explosion both inside and outside the country. A union leader says the government is determined to convict those responsible but they don’t want more of a scandal.

A spokesperson for PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel, a subsidiary of PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park in Morowali, told the ABC at the time of the explosion it would cooperate with the investigation.

“We sincerely apologise for this incident and we are working closely with authorities to investigate what caused the accident,” he said.

Another shift is already on the way, with western auto companies such as Volkswagen and Ford investing directly in Indonesian refineries to secure their nickel supply.

Factory workers wait for a ride after a day’s work at an industrial park in Morowali

This could propel changes. Aimee Boulanger, the executive director at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, an organisation that has set a global standard for best practice in mining, says the government of Indonesia, as well as several of the mining outfits in the country, have started discussions with them.

“Previously, car brands used to be five to 12 steps separated from the mining industry. That they are now investing directly in the mines is creating heightened awareness of mining conditions,” Boulanger says.

“Indonesia is having a moment right now. Will it be known for responsible mining, or will it be a new Congo?”

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Meet Paris Wolfe, part of your ‘Dine Drink CLE’ team here at Cleveland.com: 5 for Friday

• Updated: Apr. 12, 2024, 5:01 p.m. |
• Published: Apr. 12, 2024, 4:57 p.m.

Meet Paris Wolfe, part of your Dine Drink CLE team here at Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer Photo Courtesy of Paris Wolfe

• Peter Chakerian, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Over the next few weeks, “5 for Friday” will be introducing you to the “Dine Drink CLE” Team at Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

Last week, you met food and culture writer Alex Darus . This week, we check in with Kent State University journalism grad, Chardon native, storyteller and lover of all things hospitality and entertaining, Paris Wolfe!

More 5 for Friday Dining Picks

• Meet Alex Darus, part of your ‘Dine Drink CLE’ team here at Cleveland.com: 5 for Friday
• Getting to know your Dine Drink CLE Team at Cleveland.com: 5 for Friday
• Singer-songwriter Brent Kirby shares his favorite food melodies from The Land: 5 for Friday
• Best restaurants in Cleveland? A-List movers and shakers dish weekly on their favorites

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