Unit 3: Supporting Writing
In this unit, we'll consider the best way to plan and support our essays. As you develop your answer to an essay prompt, you want to be sure you back it up with strong support that is organized in a way that the reader can follow easily.
We'll discuss thesis statements, supporting points, organizing paragraphs using the MEAL Plan, and determining the relevance of outside evidence with the CRAAP test. Our test-taking strategy in this unit assists with organizing all those ideas to ensure the final essay is clear and focused for the reader.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- identify type of support for argumentative essays;
- apply effective support and detail strategies;
- select the relevant information; and
- organize ideas for the essay (test-Taking Skill 3).
3.1: Stating and Supporting Your Ideas
The first step in being able to support your writing is to determine what you're writing about. When you review the essay prompt, answer it in a quick 1-2 sentences. This is your thesis. This article will show you how to refine that thesis into a clear statement that will guide your entire essay. Once you have a thesis statement, you can work on your supporting details. Support is how you explain why your answer to the prompt is the correct one. You will include your support in the body paragraphs of your essay.
This article discusses how to write strong body paragraphs to show your reader that you understand the prompt and can back up your ideas well.
3.2: Using Support Effectively
Now that you have your thesis and ideas to support it, you need to write body paragraphs that are clear and easy to follow. This is where the MEAL plan comes in.
The MEAL plan stands for:
M: Main idea
E: Evidence
A: Analysis
L: Link
Using these steps in a paragraph will help you explain your ideas and connect back to your thesis. This makes your essay organized and easy for the reader to follow. This resource will explain the MEAL Plan and show examples of how to use this when you write the paragraphs of your essay.
3.3: Is It Relevant?
In some exams, you may be asked to use outside evidence to support your essay ideas, or you may have to answer questions about the relevance of outside evidence in a short passage. One way to determine if an outside source is credible and useful to you is to use the CRAAP test. CRAAP stands for:
C: Currency
R: Relevance
A: Authority
A: Accuracy
P: Purpose
Checking these points for a source can help determine if it fits an essay or passage. Review this detailed explanation of each step in the CRAAP test and how to use it in your reading and writing.
3.4: Test-Taking Skill 3: Organizing Ideas
We mentioned organization when we reviewed the MEAL Plan, and after you've organized individual paragraphs, it's also essential to organize the essay as a whole. This resource examines three common ways to organize your paragraphs based on the kind of prompt you need to answer: chronological, order of importance, or spatial. Review this resource for ways to organize your exam essay and make it easy for the reader to follow your ideas.
Unit 3 Assessment
- Receive a grade
This unit considered how parts of an essay come together through support and organization. In this ungraded activity, you will read another excerpt from an argument-based article and think about how support and organization can make it cohesive and clear to the reader.
- Receive a grade
This essay is a little different from the essays you wrote for Units 1 and 2. Now, we'll work up to a 3-paragraph essay while keeping proofreading, revising, and organizing in mind. For this essay, we'll move from an argument-based to a source-based writing prompt. Make sure you read each excerpt carefully and use the skills from all three units to write a strong essay.