whats a 3.5 essay

University of Louisville Writing Center

The pros and cons of the three-point-five essay.

Whitney Brown

Since starting work at the UofL Writing Center, I’ve met a lot of students who have struggled with the “Three-Point-Five” or “Five Paragraph” essay, one of the most common formats taught in high schools right now. For anyone unfamiliar with this terminology, the Three-Point-Five, or Five Paragraph, essay encourages students to write an introductory paragraph with a clear thesis statement that outlines the arguments that will be made in the body, followed by a body of three paragraphs, one point (argument) each, which support the thesis, ending in a conclusion that restates the thesis and sums up the arguments made in each paragraph. Three points in five paragraphs; hence, the names.

For those of you who are more visual learners, this is what it looks likes:

Paragraph 1: Thesis

Paragraph 2: Point 1

Paragraph 3: Point 2

Paragraph 4: Point 3

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

Many students come to the Writing Center after receiving a less-than-satisfying grade on a paper of this kind, hoping that we can help with revision. Or, they turned in a paper like this and were told to do something else for the next paper, and they don’t know what to do. They are frustrated. This is what they did in high school, and they thought their high school classes were supposed to prepare them to write for college. They don’t understand why the professor said they needed to “do more.” Sometimes they’re afraid that they’ll have to throw out everything they learned in high school and re-learn how to write papers.

As a Writing Center tutor, I always try to stress that they don’t need to forget the Three-Point-Five essay; they just need to build on it. The Three-Point-Five essay provides a useful framework. When you build a house, you have to start with the foundation and the wooden frame. This frame gives the house shape; it’s what makes the house look like a house. However, the frame is bare, so you have to add the walls and the roof. The Three-Point-Five is like that frame. You can use it to get started in writing academic essays, but you may not want to stop there.

So what are the Pros and Cons of this type of essay? Let’s start with the Cons.

1) This format gives the reader the basic arguments three times, first in the thesis, then in the body, and then in the conclusion. This can feel repetitive, which is not a great rhetorical strategy. It may seem a little boring, or a little simplistic.

2) This is disjointed. Each body paragraph relates back to the thesis, but they don’t relate to each other. This means that the arguments stand by themselves, instead of working together.

3) A Three-Point-Five Essay is totally self-contained, meaning that it doesn’t connect with a broader topic or make room for more questions. It pretends to be the final word on the subject.

College professors generally don’t want to see this kind of essay because they want to read complicated and interesting papers. They don’t want to read the same thing three times, and they don’t want repetition to be the only strategy students have. Saying the same thing over and over again is not very convincing, after all. Professors would also like to know that their students can makes connections between the different parts of their arguments. So, instead of thinking of each paragraph as one separate argument that has nothing to do with any of the others, they want students to think of the paper as one argument with a lot of paragraphs providing support for that argument. Finally, professors want students to know that there is more to each subject than is given in the paper. No paper is the be-all and end-all of anything. It’s one side of a larger conversation about the topic of study.

Now that I’ve gone into the weaknesses in the Three-Point-Five format, let’s take a look at the Pros.

1) This format teaches students how to support a thesis. That’s an important skill to have. After all, the thesis is like the tip of a pyramid. It needs everything underneath it, like the body paragraphs, to hold it up.

2) The Three-Point-Five essay teaches students how to write a paragraph. It’s true that each paragraph has to connect with every other paragraph in some way, but each paragraph should discuss one idea. Otherwise, the reader gets lost, unsure of what evidence goes with what idea.

3) It teaches you not to bite off more than you can chew. In high school, three pieces of evidence can be enough to work with while learning the other skills I’ve already discussed. However, by the time students reach college, they can handle more. The workload gets bigger the farther in college you go because students get used to writing. However, you don’t want to try to take on more information than you can handle.

So, if you’re having trouble building onto the Three-Point-Five essay, here are some tips:

1) Make sure that your body paragraphs are connected. You can do this by looking for similarities or differences. You can say things like, “[My current point] is similar to [something I talked about earlier] because they both [mean the same thing]. Or, “Unlike [my last point], [my current point does something else].

2) In your conclusion, don’t just restate your thesis and summarize your argument. Bring in a new perspective. Think about new questions your arguments raise. Think about how your paper fits into a larger understanding of the topic you’ve been discussing. Maybe you question a long-held opinion, or maybe you support one. Sometimes writing teachers call the conclusion “the pay-off” because they see the conclusion as the writer’s chance to explain why it was an important use of the reader’s time. It’s the moment when the reader finds out what they’re supposed to take from this paper.

The Three-Point-Five essay is just one method of writing you’ve learned in the past that you can build upon as college writers. Writing for college can be challenging, and sometimes it will feel like past experience hasn’t really prepared you for it, but if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll see that the writing you’ve done in the past can be useful. Just like the Three-Point-Five essay, if you think about what each method has to offer, as well as what it doesn’t, you’ll find a way to use that method as a framework and build it up into a proper house…I mean, paper.

4.2 THE BIG PICTURE: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay

The skills that go into a very basic kind of essay — often called the five-paragraph essay — are indispensable. If you’re good at the five-paragraph theme, then you’re good at identifying a clear thesis, arranging cohesive paragraphs, organizing evidence for key points, and connecting your main idea to the world through the introduction and conclusion.

In college, you need to build on those essential skills. The five-paragraph essay by itself is bland and formulaic. In other words, it is not very interesting to read, and it doesn’t feel very natural. More importantly, it doesn’t get you (or your reader) to think very deeply. Your professors are looking for a more ambitious, arguable, and compelling thesis with real-life evidence for all key points — all in a more organic (less artificial) structure.

What does that look like?

The five-paragraph essay, outlined below in Figure 3.1 is probably what you’re used to: the introduction starts general and gradually narrows to a thesis, which readers expect to find at the very end of that paragraph. In this format, the thesis uses that magic number of three: three reasons why a statement is true. Each of those reasons is explained and justified in the three body paragraphs, and then the conclusion restates the thesis before gradually getting broader. This format is easy for readers to follow, and it helps writers to organize their points and the evidence that goes with them. That’s why you learned this format.

Figure 3.1 The traditional five-paragraph essay structure

Figure 3.2, in contrast, represents a paper on the same topic that has the more organic form that is expected in college. The first key difference is the thesis. Rather than simply presenting a number of reasons to think that something is true, it puts forward an arguable statement: one with which a reasonable person might disagree. An arguable thesis gives the paper purpose. It surprises readers and draws them in. You hope your reader thinks, “Hm. Why would they come to that conclusion?” and then feels compelled to read on.

The body paragraphs, then, build on one another to carry out this ambitious argument. In the classic five-paragraph essay (Figure 3.1), it probably is not important which of the three reasons you explain first or second. In the more organic structure (Figure 3.2), each paragraph specifically leads to the next. If you changed the order of the body paragraphs, then the essay would not make sense.

The last key difference is seen in the conclusion. Because the organic essay has a thesis that does not have an obvious conclusion, the reader comes to the end of the essay thinking, “OK, I’m convinced by the argument. What do you, the author, make of it? Why does it matter?” The conclusion of an organically structured paper has a real job to do. It doesn’t just reiterate the thesis; it explains why the thesis matters.

Figure 3.2 The organic research essay structure

All that time you spent mastering the five-paragraph form in Figure 3.1 was not wasted. There’s an idiom in English: You have to know the rules before you can break the rules. But now is the time to move beyond an obvious thesis, loosely related body paragraphs, and a repetitive conclusion. Now is the time for you to move beyond the five-paragraph essay.

Watch this video to learn more about moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to an organic research essay:

Now practice with this exercise; it is not graded, and you may repeat it as many times as you wish:

Text adapted from: Guptill, Amy. Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence . 2022. Open SUNY Textbooks, 2016, milneopentextbooks.org/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/ . Accessed 16 Jan. 2022. CC BY-NC-SA

Video from: The Nature of Writing. “What’s Wrong with the Five Paragraph Essay and How to Write Organically (Animated Video).” Www.youtube.com, 3 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAlcAGVBEXU. Accessed 30 Dec. 2021.

Chapter 4: Structuring, Paragraphing, and Styling

4.10 A review of the five-paragraph essay

Julie A. Townsend

A review of the five-paragraph format

Many writers will be able to detail the five-paragraph format.

The introduction previews the entire essay.
The thesis statement goes at the end of the introduction and describes what the three body paragraphs will be about.
The body paragraphs discuss each topic described in the thesis statement in detail.
There should be transitions between each body paragraph.
The conclusion repeats key points made in the essay and could be the introduction re-worded in a different way.

These are sample answers from writers who describe what they have learned about the five-paragraph format. The five-paragraph format is a reader-friendly organizational structure that writers can rely on if they need to get information quickly and formally across to a wide audience. For instance, the five-paragraph format might be useful when writing a report to a supervisor with the purpose of explaining progress on a project. The introduction gives the most important information at the beginning and each paragraph is clearly related to one topic. The conclusion leaves the reader with a summary and a possible call to action.

Problems with the five-paragraph format

Donald Murray in his article “Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product”argues writing should be taught as “…the process of discovery through language. It is the process of exploration of what we know and what we feel about what we know through language. It is the process of using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world” (4). However, when writers use writing to discover more about a topic, the five-paragraph format can be limiting because of the following:

Writers usually decide on the three main body paragraphs before they start drafting.
With three large topics to change from, writers are less likely to dig deep into a specific topic.
Writers may use the five-paragraph format in ways that avoid detail and make their essays indistinguishable from other essays on the same topics.

For instance, a writer might want to discuss communication on social media. They decide before they start writing that their three main topics will be Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. By the time they write a few details about Facebook, they move on to Instagram. There is not enough space for the writer to get into details and differentiate ideas on their topic and to describe observations, experiences, and research in depth. When writers start with three main topics, it’s also hard to find the space to teach the reader something new.

Discover with writing

Writing is an opportunity to share unique experiences with readers. If writers feel like they are not sharing anything valuable through their writing, they should reconsider their stance on the assignment or schedule a meeting with their instructor so that they can orient themselves more meaningfully to the assignment. Often, five-paragraph format writing is uninspired. Writers race to jot down what they know on three loosely related subjects so that they can finish the essay. The writer is not learning through the writing and neither is the reader. The main problem with the five-paragraph format is that it discourages writers from discovering what they could write on one focused and specific topic.

When to use the five-paragraph format

Published essays, in any genre, that use the five-paragraph organization are very rare. It might be interesting for writers to pay attention to how published material that they read on their own time is organized. Because first-year writing is a context where writers are encouraged to learn and teach through their writing, the five-paragraph format might not be the best choice for organization. However, when writers are in situations that demand them to relay information quickly, the five-paragraph format can be useful. Formulaic writing is not uninventive or inherently bad. Different genres use various kinds of formulaic writing, and it’s important for writers to adhere to conventions and pay attention to how essays are organized in the genre they are writing in.

Works Cited

Murray, Donald. “Teach writing as a process not product.” The Leaflet, vol .71, no.3 (1972), pp. 11-14.

A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in First-Year Writing by Julie A. Townsend is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essay Writing Guide

Essay Format

Essay Format: A Basic Guide With Examples

10 min read

What is an Essay Format?

An essay format refers to a set of guidelines that decides how the elements of your paper should be arranged. No matter what type of essay you’re writing, formatting is an essential step in the essay writing process.

The format guidelines cover the essay structure, title, citations, and the basic outline of the essay.

When formatting a paper, there are certain things that you need to pay attention to. These include the structure of an essay, title page, works cited page, and citation styles .

Here is a basic essay format template:

How To Format Essay in MLA Style

Formatting an essay in MLA style is a common requirement in many academic settings, particularly in the humanities.

MLA provides guidelines for various aspects of your essay, from font and margins to citations and bibliography. Here’s an essay format MLA you can use as a reference:

MLA Essay Format Template

Title Page: MLA does not typically require a separate title page. Instead, place your title at the top of the first page, centered, and do not use bold, italics, or underline for the title. Below the title, include your name, the instructor's name, the course name and number, and the due date, each on a separate line, left-aligned.
Header and Page Numbers: Create a header with your last name and page number in the upper right corner of every page, half an inch from the top, and flush with the right margin. For example: Smith 1.
Margins and Spacing: Set all margins to 1 inch, and use double-spacing throughout the essay.
Font and Size: Use a legible font like Times New Roman or Arial, size 12.
Indentation: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches, which can be done automatically using the "Tab" key.
Paragraphs: Leave only one space after periods or other punctuation marks within sentences.
Title: Place the title of your essay (centered) at the top of the first page. Do not use bold, italics, or underlining for the title. Capitalize major words.
Citations: MLA uses in-text citations to acknowledge sources. When quoting or paraphrasing, include the author's last name and the page number (e.g., Smith 45).
Works Cited Page: At the end of your essay, include a separate page titled "Works Cited." List all sources alphabetically by the author's last name. Follow the specific MLA citation style for different types of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.).

Sample MLA Essay

How to Format Essay in APA

Formatting an essay in APA style is commonly used in the social sciences and psychology.

APA provides a set of guidelines for various elements of your essay, including formatting, citations, and references. Here’s how to format essay in apa:

APA Essay Format Template

Title Page: The title page in APA includes: Title of the Essay (centered, bold, and in title case) Your Name (centered) Institutional Affiliation (centered) Running head: [Shortened Title] (flush left, in uppercase) Page Number (flush right)
Header and Page Numbers: Create a header with the title of your essay in all capital letters, followed by a colon and a shortened version of the title (up to 50 characters), in the upper left corner of every page. The page number should be in the upper right corner.
Font and Size: Use a clear and readable font like Times New Roman or Arial, size 12.
Paragraphs: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches. Use a hanging indent for references on the reference page.
Citations: Use in-text citations to acknowledge sources. Include the author's last name and the publication year (e.g., Smith, 2023) when quoting or paraphrasing.
Title: Use bold and title case for the title of your essay on the title page. On subsequent pages, use a shortened version of the title (in uppercase) as the header.
References Page: At the end of your essay, create a separate page titled "References." List all sources alphabetically by the author's last name. Follow the specific APA citation style for different types of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.).

Sample APA Essay

How to Format Essay in Chicago Style

Formatting an essay in Chicago style, often used in history and some other humanities disciplines, requires specific guidelines for citations and formatting. Here are the guidelines to format your essay in Chicago style:

Chicago Essay Format Template

Title Page: The title page in Chicago style includes: Title of the Essay (centered, in headline-style capitalization) Your Name (centered) Course Name and Number (centered) Instructor's Name (centered) Date (centered)
Margins and Spacing: Set all margins to 1 inch. Use double-spacing throughout the essay.
Page Numbers: Number pages in the upper right corner of each page, beginning with the first page of the main text (usually page 1). Page numbers should be in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.).
Paragraphs: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches. Use a block paragraph style with no extra space between paragraphs.
Citations: In Chicago style, you have two citation options: footnotes and endnotes. In your text, place a superscript number (e.g., ^1) at the end of the sentence containing the cited information. Corresponding footnotes or endnotes should provide full citation details.
Title: Use headline-style capitalization for the title of your essay (e.g., "The History of Ancient Civilizations").
Bibliography: At the end of your essay, include a separate page titled "Bibliography." List all sources alphabetically by the author's last name. Follow the specific Chicago citation style for different types of sources (books, articles, websites, etc.).

Sample Chicago Essay

Chicago Format Paper - MyPerfectWords.com

Formatting In-Text Citations: APA, MLA, and Chicago Styles

An in-text citation is a brief reference within the body of your essay or research paper that indicates the source of information you have incorporated into your writing.

Each of the formatting style have a unique way for adding in-text citations:

In APA style, remember to include the author's last name, the publication date, and the page number (if applicable) within parentheses.

Example: "The impact of climate change on biodiversity is a growing concern (Smith, 2020, p. 27)."

In MLA style, provide the author's last name and the page number without any punctuation between them.

Example: "The impact of climate change on biodiversity is a growing concern (Jones 42)."

Chicago Style Format

The Chicago Manual of Style offers two distinct options for in-text citations:

Author-Date Style: In this approach, you place your citations within parentheses directly within the text. This style involves citing the author's last name and the publication date within the body of your text. Example: (Smith 2021) or "According to Smith (2021),..."
Notes and Bibliography Style: This style utilizes numbered footnotes or endnotes to provide citations. Instead of placing citations within the text, you include a superscript number at the end of the relevant sentence, which corresponds to a full citation located in a footnote at the bottom of the page (or endnotes at the end of the document). Example: Johnson argues that "the data is unconvincing."¹ Nevertheless, Smith contends that the study makes "a compelling case" for this plan of action.²

Each of these Chicago citation styles has its unique advantages and is chosen based on the requirements of the assignment or the preferences of the writer.

How to Determine What Format to Follow

Selecting the appropriate citation format for your academic writing is essential to ensure that your work meets the expected standards. To make an informed decision, consider the following factors:

Subject and Discipline

APA Style: Primarily used in the social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and education. It is also common in business and nursing disciplines.
MLA Style: Commonly employed in humanities disciplines, including literature, languages, and cultural studies. It's widely used for papers related to literature and the arts.
Chicago Style: Used in history, some social sciences, and certain humanities disciplines. Chicago offers both author-date and notes and bibliography styles, making it versatile for various subjects.

Professor's Instructions

Always adhere to your professor's specific instructions regarding citation style and writing convention . Professors may have preferences or requirements based on the nature of the course or assignment.

For instance, an English professor might prefer MLA for literary analysis, while a psychology professor may opt for APA to encourage familiarity with research norms. However, when formatting styles are not specified by the instructor, you can follow whatever is appropriate for your subject.

Institutional Guidelines

Your educational institution may have established guidelines or standards for citation formats.

Check your institution's style guide or consult with academic advisors to ensure compliance with their specific requirements.

By considering the subject matter, your professor's preferences, and your institution's guidelines, you can confidently choose the appropriate citation style to enhance the clarity and professionalism of your academic writing.

Now that you've gained a solid understanding of the basics for three major formatting styles, you're well-prepared to tackle your essay formatting with confidence.

Whether you're crafting an essay, a research paper, or any academic document, these formatting principles will help you present your ideas professionally.

If you find yourself in a time crunch, our expert writers are here to help you tackle your academic challenges in no time.

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8.3 Drafting

Learning objectives.

Identify drafting strategies that improve writing.
Use drafting strategies to prepare the first draft of an essay.

Drafting is the stage of the writing process in which you develop a complete first version of a piece of writing.

Even professional writers admit that an empty page scares them because they feel they need to come up with something fresh and original every time they open a blank document on their computers. Because you have completed the first two steps in the writing process, you have already recovered from empty page syndrome. You have hours of prewriting and planning already done. You know what will go on that blank page: what you wrote in your outline.

Getting Started: Strategies For Drafting

Your objective for this portion of Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” is to draft the body paragraphs of a standard five-paragraph essay. A five-paragraph essay contains an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. If you are more comfortable starting on paper than on the computer, you can start on paper and then type it before you revise. You can also use a voice recorder to get yourself started, dictating a paragraph or two to get you thinking. In this lesson, Mariah does all her work on the computer, but you may use pen and paper or the computer to write a rough draft.

Making the Writing Process Work for You

What makes the writing process so beneficial to writers is that it encourages alternatives to standard practices while motivating you to develop your best ideas. For instance, the following approaches, done alone or in combination with others, may improve your writing and help you move forward in the writing process:

Begin writing with the part you know the most about. You can start with the third paragraph in your outline if ideas come easily to mind. You can start with the second paragraph or the first paragraph, too. Although paragraphs may vary in length, keep in mind that short paragraphs may contain insufficient support. Readers may also think the writing is abrupt. Long paragraphs may be wordy and may lose your reader’s interest. As a guideline, try to write paragraphs longer than one sentence but shorter than the length of an entire double-spaced page.
Write one paragraph at a time and then stop. As long as you complete the assignment on time, you may choose how many paragraphs you complete in one sitting. Pace yourself. On the other hand, try not to procrastinate. Writers should always meet their deadlines.
Take short breaks to refresh your mind. This tip might be most useful if you are writing a multipage report or essay. Still, if you are antsy or cannot concentrate, take a break to let your mind rest. But do not let breaks extend too long. If you spend too much time away from your essay, you may have trouble starting again. You may forget key points or lose momentum. Try setting an alarm to limit your break, and when the time is up, return to your desk to write.
Be reasonable with your goals. If you decide to take ten-minute breaks, try to stick to that goal. If you told yourself that you need more facts, then commit to finding them. Holding yourself to your own goals will create successful writing assignments.
Keep your audience and purpose in mind as you write. These aspects of writing are just as important when you are writing a single paragraph for your essay as when you are considering the direction of the entire essay.

Of all of these considerations, keeping your purpose and your audience at the front of your mind is the most important key to writing success. If your purpose is to persuade, for example, you will present your facts and details in the most logical and convincing way you can.

Your purpose will guide your mind as you compose your sentences. Your audience will guide word choice. Are you writing for experts, for a general audience, for other college students, or for people who know very little about your topic? Keep asking yourself what your readers, with their background and experience, need to be told in order to understand your ideas. How can you best express your ideas so they are totally clear and your communication is effective?

You may want to identify your purpose and audience on an index card that you clip to your paper (or keep next to your computer). On that card, you may want to write notes to yourself—perhaps about what that audience might not know or what it needs to know—so that you will be sure to address those issues when you write. It may be a good idea to also state exactly what you want to explain to that audience, or to inform them of, or to persuade them about.

Writing at Work

Many of the documents you produce at work target a particular audience for a particular purpose. You may find that it is highly advantageous to know as much as you can about your target audience and to prepare your message to reach that audience, even if the audience is a coworker or your boss. Menu language is a common example. Descriptions like “organic romaine” and “free-range chicken” are intended to appeal to a certain type of customer though perhaps not to the same customer who craves a thick steak. Similarly, mail-order companies research the demographics of the people who buy their merchandise. Successful vendors customize product descriptions in catalogs to appeal to their buyers’ tastes. For example, the product descriptions in a skateboarder catalog will differ from the descriptions in a clothing catalog for mature adults.

Using the topic for the essay that you outlined in Section 8.2 “Outlining” , describe your purpose and your audience as specifically as you can. Use your own sheet of paper to record your responses. Then keep these responses near you during future stages of the writing process.

My purpose: ____________________________________________

____________________________________________

My audience: ____________________________________________

Setting Goals for Your First Draft

A draft is a complete version of a piece of writing, but it is not the final version. The step in the writing process after drafting, as you may remember, is revising. During revising, you will have the opportunity to make changes to your first draft before you put the finishing touches on it during the editing and proofreading stage. A first draft gives you a working version that you can later improve.

Workplace writing in certain environments is done by teams of writers who collaborate on the planning, writing, and revising of documents, such as long reports, technical manuals, and the results of scientific research. Collaborators do not need to be in the same room, the same building, or even the same city. Many collaborations are conducted over the Internet.

In a perfect collaboration, each contributor has the right to add, edit, and delete text. Strong communication skills, in addition to strong writing skills, are important in this kind of writing situation because disagreements over style, content, process, emphasis, and other issues may arise.

The collaborative software, or document management systems, that groups use to work on common projects is sometimes called groupware or workgroup support systems.

The reviewing tool on some word-processing programs also gives you access to a collaborative tool that many smaller workgroups use when they exchange documents. You can also use it to leave comments to yourself.

If you invest some time now to investigate how the reviewing tool in your word processor works, you will be able to use it with confidence during the revision stage of the writing process. Then, when you start to revise, set your reviewing tool to track any changes you make, so you will be able to tinker with text and commit only those final changes you want to keep.

Discovering the Basic Elements of a First Draft

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

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

These elements follow the standard five-paragraph essay format, which you probably first encountered in high school. This basic format is valid for most essays you will write in college, even much longer ones. For now, however, Mariah focuses on writing the three body paragraphs from her outline. Chapter 9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish” covers writing introductions and conclusions, and you will read Mariah’s introduction and conclusion in Chapter 9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish” .

The Role of Topic Sentences

Topic sentences make the structure of a text and the writer’s basic arguments easy to locate and comprehend. In college writing, using a topic sentence in each paragraph of the essay is the standard rule. However, the topic sentence does not always have to be the first sentence in your paragraph even if it the first item in your formal outline.

When you begin to draft your paragraphs, you should follow your outline fairly closely. After all, you spent valuable time developing those ideas. However, as you begin to express your ideas in complete sentences, it might strike you that the topic sentence might work better at the end of the paragraph or in the middle. Try it. Writing a draft, by its nature, is a good time for experimentation.

The topic sentence can be the first, middle, or final sentence in a paragraph. The assignment’s audience and purpose will often determine where a topic sentence belongs. When the purpose of the assignment is to persuade, for example, the topic sentence should be the first sentence in a paragraph. In a persuasive essay, the writer’s point of view should be clearly expressed at the beginning of each paragraph.

Choosing where to position the topic sentence depends not only on your audience and purpose but also on the essay’s arrangement, or order. When you organize information according to order of importance, the topic sentence may be the final sentence in a paragraph. All the supporting sentences build up to the topic sentence. Chronological order may also position the topic sentence as the final sentence because the controlling idea of the paragraph may make the most sense at the end of a sequence.

When you organize information according to spatial order, a topic sentence may appear as the middle sentence in a paragraph. An essay arranged by spatial order often contains paragraphs that begin with descriptions. A reader may first need a visual in his or her mind before understanding the development of the paragraph. When the topic sentence is in the middle, it unites the details that come before it with the ones that come after it.

As you read critically throughout the writing process, keep topic sentences in mind. You may discover topic sentences that are not always located at the beginning of a paragraph. For example, fiction writers customarily use topic ideas, either expressed or implied, to move readers through their texts. In nonfiction writing, such as popular magazines, topic sentences are often used when the author thinks it is appropriate (based on the audience and the purpose, of course). A single topic sentence might even control the development of a number of paragraphs. For more information on topic sentences, please see Chapter 6 “Writing Paragraphs: Separating Ideas and Shaping Content” .

Developing topic sentences and thinking about their placement in a paragraph will prepare you to write the rest of the paragraph.

The paragraph is the main structural component of an essay as well as other forms of writing. Each paragraph of an essay adds another related main idea to support the writer’s thesis, or controlling idea. Each related main idea is supported and developed with facts, examples, and other details that explain it. By exploring and refining one main idea at a time, writers build a strong case for their thesis.

Paragraph Length

How long should a paragraph be?

One answer to this important question may be “long enough”—long enough for you to address your points and explain your main idea. To grab attention or to present succinct supporting ideas, a paragraph can be fairly short and consist of two to three sentences. A paragraph in a complex essay about some abstract point in philosophy or archaeology can be three-quarters of a page or more in length. As long as the writer maintains close focus on the topic and does not ramble, a long paragraph is acceptable in college-level writing. In general, try to keep the paragraphs longer than one sentence but shorter than one full page of double-spaced text.

Journalistic style often calls for brief two- or three-sentence paragraphs because of how people read the news, both online and in print. Blogs and other online information sources often adopt this paragraphing style, too. Readers often skim the first paragraphs of a great many articles before settling on the handful of stories they want to read in detail.

You may find that a particular paragraph you write may be longer than one that will hold your audience’s interest. In such cases, you should divide the paragraph into two or more shorter paragraphs, adding a topic statement or some kind of transitional word or phrase at the start of the new paragraph. Transition words or phrases show the connection between the two ideas.

In all cases, however, be guided by what you instructor wants and expects to find in your draft. Many instructors will expect you to develop a mature college-level style as you progress through the semester’s assignments.

To build your sense of appropriate paragraph length, use the Internet to find examples of the following items. Copy them into a file, identify your sources, and present them to your instructor with your annotations, or notes.

A news article written in short paragraphs. Take notes on, or annotate, your selection with your observations about the effect of combining paragraphs that develop the same topic idea. Explain how effective those paragraphs would be.
A long paragraph from a scholarly work that you identify through an academic search engine. Annotate it with your observations about the author’s paragraphing style.

Starting Your First Draft

Now we are finally ready to look over Mariah’s shoulder as she begins to write her essay about digital technology and the confusing choices that consumers face. As she does, you should have in front of you your outline, with its thesis statement and topic sentences, and the notes you wrote earlier in this lesson on your purpose and audience. Reviewing these will put both you and Mariah in the proper mind-set to start.

The following is Mariah’s thesis statement.

Everyone wants the newest and the best digital technology ,but the choices are many, and the specifications are often confusing

Here are the notes that Mariah wrote to herself to characterize her purpose and audience.

Mariah chose to begin by writing a quick introduction based on her thesis statement. She knew that she would want to improve her introduction significantly when she revised. Right now, she just wanted to give herself a starting point. You will read her introduction again in Section 8.4 “Revising and Editing” when she revises it.

Remember Mariah’s other options. She could have started directly with any of the body paragraphs.

You will learn more about writing attention-getting introductions and effective conclusions in Chapter 9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish” .

With her thesis statement and her purpose and audience notes in front of her, Mariah then looked at her sentence outline. She chose to use that outline because it includes the topic sentences. The following is the portion of her outline for the first body paragraph. The roman numeral II identifies the topic sentence for the paragraph, capital letters indicate supporting details, and arabic numerals label subpoints.

The roman numeral II identifies the topic sentence for the paragraph, capital letters indicate supporting details, and arabic numerals label subpoints.

Mariah then began to expand the ideas in her outline into a paragraph. Notice how the outline helped her guarantee that all her sentences in the body of the paragraph develop the topic sentence.

Outlines help guarantee that all sentences in the body of the paragraph develop the topic sentence.

If you write your first draft on the computer, consider creating a new file folder for each course with a set of subfolders inside the course folders for each assignment you are given. Label the folders clearly with the course names, and label each assignment folder and word processing document with a title that you will easily recognize. The assignment name is a good choice for the document. Then use that subfolder to store all the drafts you create. When you start each new draft, do not just write over the last one. Instead, save the draft with a new tag after the title—draft 1, draft 2, and so on—so that you will have a complete history of drafts in case your instructor wishes you to submit them.

In your documents, observe any formatting requirements—for margins, headers, placement of page numbers, and other layout matters—that your instructor requires.

Study how Mariah made the transition from her sentence outline to her first draft. First, copy her outline onto your own sheet of paper. Leave a few spaces between each part of the outline. Then copy sentences from Mariah’s paragraph to align each sentence with its corresponding entry in her outline.

Continuing the First Draft

Mariah continued writing her essay, moving to the second and third body paragraphs. She had supporting details but no numbered subpoints in her outline, so she had to consult her prewriting notes for specific information to include.

If you decide to take a break between finishing your first body paragraph and starting the next one, do not start writing immediately when you return to your work. Put yourself back in context and in the mood by rereading what you have already written. This is what Mariah did. If she had stopped writing in the middle of writing the paragraph, she could have jotted down some quick notes to herself about what she would write next.

Preceding each body paragraph that Mariah wrote is the appropriate section of her sentence outline. Notice how she expanded roman numeral III from her outline into a first draft of the second body paragraph. As you read, ask yourself how closely she stayed on purpose and how well she paid attention to the needs of her audience.

Mariah then began her third and final body paragraph using roman numeral IV from her outline.

Reread body paragraphs two and three of the essay that Mariah is writing. Then answer the questions on your own sheet of paper.

In body paragraph two, Mariah decided to develop her paragraph as a nonfiction narrative. Do you agree with her decision? Explain. How else could she have chosen to develop the paragraph? Why is that better?
Compare the writing styles of paragraphs two and three. What evidence do you have that Mariah was getting tired or running out of steam? What advice would you give her? Why?
Choose one of these two body paragraphs. Write a version of your own that you think better fits Mariah’s audience and purpose.

Writing a Title

A writer’s best choice for a title is one that alludes to the main point of the entire essay. Like the headline in a newspaper or the big, bold title in a magazine, an essay’s title gives the audience a first peek at the content. If readers like the title, they are likely to keep reading.

Following her outline carefully, Mariah crafted each paragraph of her essay. Moving step by step in the writing process, Mariah finished the draft and even included a brief concluding paragraph (you will read her conclusion in Chapter 9 “Writing Essays: From Start to Finish” ). She then decided, as the final touch for her writing session, to add an engaging title.

Thesis Statement: Everyone wants the newest and the best digital technology, but the choices are many, and the specifications are often confusing. Working Title: Digital Technology: The Newest and the Best at What Price?

Writing Your Own First Draft

Now you may begin your own first draft, if you have not already done so. Follow the suggestions and the guidelines presented in this section.

Key Takeaways

Make the writing process work for you. Use any and all of the strategies that help you move forward in the writing process.
Always be aware of your purpose for writing and the needs of your audience. Cater to those needs in every sensible way.
Remember to include all the key structural parts of an essay: a thesis statement that is part of your introductory paragraph, three or more body paragraphs as described in your outline, and a concluding paragraph. Then add an engaging title to draw in readers.
Write paragraphs of an appropriate length for your writing assignment. Paragraphs in college-level writing can be a page long, as long as they cover the main topics in your outline.
Use your topic outline or your sentence outline to guide the development of your paragraphs and the elaboration of your ideas. Each main idea, indicated by a roman numeral in your outline, becomes the topic of a new paragraph. Develop it with the supporting details and the subpoints of those details that you included in your outline.
Generally speaking, write your introduction and conclusion last, after you have fleshed out the body paragraphs.

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3.5: Effective Thesis Statements

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What is a Thesis Statement?

A thesis statement tells a reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. Such a statement is also called an “argument,” a “main idea,” or a “controlling idea.”
A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should “telegraph” how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay
A standard place for your thesis is at the end of the introductory paragraph.
A thesis is an interpretation of a subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel that others might dispute.
A strong thesis not only grabs the interest of your reader, who now wants to see you support your unique interpretation, it also provides a focus for your argument, one to which every part of your paper refers in the development of your position.
A thesis keeps the writer centered on the matter at hand and reduces the risk of intellectual wandering. Likewise, a thesis provides the reader with a “road map,” clearly laying out the intellectual route ahead.
A thesis statement avoids the first person (“I believe,” “In my opinion”).

A simple equation for what a thesis might look like this:

What you plan to argue + How you plan to argue it = Thesis Specific Topic+ Attitude/Angle/Argument=Thesis

Steps To Write Effective Thesis Statement

Choose a prompt or, if appropriate, select a topic: television violence and children
What are the effects of television violence on children?
Violence on television increases aggressive behavior in children.
Avoid general phrasing and/or sweeping words such as “all” or “none” or “every”.
Lead the reader toward the topic sentences (the subtopics needed to prove the thesis).
While poor parenting and easy access to weapons may act as contributory factors, in fact when children are exposed to television violence they become less sensitive to the pain and suffering of others, are more fearful of the world around them, and are more likely to behave in aggressive or harmful ways toward others.

The Components of an Effective Thesis Statement

You can’t just pluck a thesis out of thin air. Even if you have a terrific insight concerning a topic, it won’t be worth much unless you can logically and persuasively support it in the body of your essay. A thesis is the evolutionary result of a thinking process, not a miraculous creation. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment .
Substantial – Your thesis should be a claim for which it is easy to answer every reader’s question: “So what?”
Supportable – A thesis must be a claim that you can prove with the evidence at hand (e.g., evidence from your texts or from your research). Your claim should not be outlandish, nor should it be mere personal opinion or preference (e.g., “Frederick Douglass is my favorite historical figure.”) It tackles a subject that could be adequately covered in the format of the project assigned.
Precise – It is focused and specific. A strong thesis proves a point without discussing everything. It clearly asserts your own conclusion based on evidence. Note: Be flexible. It is perfectly okay to change your thesis!
Arguable – It should be contestable, proposing an arguable point with which people could reasonably disagree.
Relevant – If you are responding to an assignment, the thesis should answer the question your teacher has posed. In order to stay focused, pay attention to the task words in the assignment: summarize, argue, compare/contrast, etc.
Aware of Counters – It anticipates and refutes the counter-arguments.

The best thesis statement is a balance of specific details and concise language. Your goal is to articulate an argument in detail without burdening the reader with too much information.

Questions To Review Your Thesis

“Do I answer the question?” This might seem obvious, but it’s worth asking. No matter how intriguing or dazzling, a thesis that doesn’t answer the question is not a good thesis!
“Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose?” If not, then you probably do not have a strong argument. Theses that are too vague often have this problem. If your thesis contains vague words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what makes something “successful”?
Would anyone possible care about this thesis? So What? Does your thesis present a position or an interpretation worth pursuing? If a reader’s first response is, “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
“Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering?” Just as a thesis that doesn’t answer the question ultimately fails, so does a thesis that isn’t properly supported with evidence and reasoning.
Does my thesis statement adequately address the direction words of the prompt: summarize, argue, compare/contrast, analyze, discuss, etc.?

Myths about Thesis Statements

Every paper requires one . Assignments that ask you to write personal responses or to explore a subject don’t want you to seem to pre-judge the issues. Essays of literary interpretation often want you to be aware of many effects rather than seeming to box yourself into one view of the text.
A thesis statement must come at the end of the first paragraph . This is a natural position for a statement of focus, but it’s not the only one. Some theses can be stated in the opening sentences of an essay; others need a paragraph or two of introduction; others can’t be fully formulated until the end.
A thesis statement must be one sentence in length , no matter how many clauses it contains. Clear writing is more important than rules like these. Use two or three sentences if you need them. A complex argument may require a whole tightly-knit paragraph to make its initial statement of position.
You can’t start writing an essay until you have a perfect thesis statement . It may be advisable to draft a hypothesis or tentative thesis statement near the start of a big project, but changing and refining a thesis is a main task of thinking your way through your ideas as you write a paper. And some essay projects need to explore the question in depth without being locked in before they can provide even a tentative answer.
A thesis statement must give three points of support . It should indicate that the essay will explain and give evidence for its assertion, but points don’t need to come in any specific number.

Progressively Complex Thesis Statements

5 Page Essay: Examples, Topics, & Word Count

What does a five page essay look like? If you’re searching for an answer to this question, you’re in the right place! Such a paper is a standard high school and college assignment. That’s why it might be written on almost any topic. Organic farming, overpopulation, police brutality, and abortion are just some examples.

A 5 page essay word count is usually 1200 to 1250 words (12 pt., double-spaced). The length of a typical academic paragraph is 100 to 150 words. So, there are 12 to 16 paragraphs in a five page essay.

If you need 5 page essay examples, take a look at the list below. We’ve collected A+ samples for you to get inspired. Good luck with your essay!

5-page Essay Examples: 12887 Samples

This capstone class: practice of ethical and social responsibility.

Subjects: Family, Life & Experiences Personal Experiences
Words: 1380

Recreational Shark Fishing

Subjects: Environment Environmental Studies
Words: 1297

The Candy Bombers by Andrei Cherny

Subjects: Historical Literature Literature
Words: 1320

We Don’t See Things As They Are; We See Them As We Are

Subjects: Cognition and Perception Psychology
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Concepts of Truth in Mathematics, the Arts and Ethics

Subjects: Philosophical Concept Philosophy
Words: 1628

HR Department and Employee Relations

Subjects: Business Management
Words: 1331

How Judges Think at a Criminal Trial

Subjects: Judicial Process on Criminals Law
Words: 1427

T. Roosevelt as a Rough Rider

Subjects: Historical Figures History
Words: 1465

Plants in Lakota Folklore

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An Analysis of Michelangelo’s Work

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Definition of a good roommate

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David Mccullough: Summary and Themes in “1776”

Subjects: American Literature Literature
Words: 1407

Miami School Negotiations: A Plan for the Mediating Process

Subjects: Business Case Study
Words: 1559

Socialism & Democracy: Fundamental Believes and Concepts

Subjects: Politics & Government Social & Political Theory
Words: 1582

The Development of Twentieth-Century Music: Schoenberg vs. Stravinsky

Subjects: Art Musicians
Words: 1435

Managing Cross-Cultural Staff: Norms for Groups Within the Organization

Words: 1581

Behavior Modification in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Introduction

Subjects: Education Education Issues
Words: 1382

Differences in Wages and Benefits at the Workplace

Ethical issues in schools within jefferson county.

Subjects: Education Teacher Career
Words: 1666

Towards Understanding Behaviorism School of Psychology

Subjects: Major Schools of Thought Psychology
Words: 2022

“Bus 174” Children: Oppressed, Neglected, and Stigmatised

Subjects: Documentaries Entertainment & Media
Words: 1564

Critique and critical reveiw analysis

Subjects: Education Pedagogy
Words: 1409

At 18, Is It Time for a Drink?

Subjects: Sociological Issues Sociology
Words: 1365

Anthropological Comparison between the Chinese and Hindu Society

Subjects: Anthropology Sciences
Words: 1362

A Comprehensive Code of Ethics Plan

Subjects: Business Business Ethics
Words: 1475

American vs. Asian Marriages

Words: 1399

8 Inflectional Morphemes in English: Full List & Examples

Subjects: Languages Linguistics
Words: 1307

Thomas Jefferson as the Greatest Teacher and Source of Inspiration

Subjects: American Ex-Presidents History
Words: 1483

Cross-Cultural Implications or Interactions

Subjects: Business Managerial Negotiation
Words: 1270

Virtual Teams Challenges in Global Corporations

Subjects: Business Organizational Management
Words: 1426

Buddhism and Hinduism

Subjects: Religion World Religions
Words: 1354

Possible Causes and Solutions to Global Warming

Words: 1476

Spare the Rod or Spoil the Child: Outline

Words: 1379

Managing Creative Project and Team

Subjects: Business Strategic Management
Words: 1361

How to Reduce the Purchase of Counterfeit “Knockoffs” by College Age Youth (18-24 Years Old)

Subjects: Advertising Effect Entertainment & Media
Words: 1757

The Theory of Human Change and Growth

Subjects: Developmental Theories Psychology
Words: 1480

New Business Issues in Case of United Foods Company

Subjects: Business Business Critique
Words: 1411

Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola: Man Is a Miraculous Being

Subjects: Philosophers Philosophy
Words: 1556

Who Moved My Cheese Essay: Book Summary, Analysis & Real Life Examples

The study of human behavior and stress.

Subjects: Behavior Management Psychology
Words: 1545

Business Law: Periodicals Review

Subjects: Business & Corporate Law Law
Words: 1667

Freud’s View of Human Nature: Psychoanalytic Theory Research

Subjects: Psychologists Psychology
Words: 1580

Jacques Le Goff: the Terms “Intellectual” and “Labor”

Subjects: Literature World Philosophy Literature
Words: 1422

Punishing an innocent person

Subjects: Ethics Sociology
Words: 1408

External Influences Affecting the Tesco Company and Its Activities

Subjects: Economics Taxation
Words: 1252

SARS: It’s as Bad as We Feared but Dared Not Say

Words: 1800

Web Quest of Employee Business

Subjects: Economics Regulation of Finance
Words: 1549

Solar Energy as an Alternative Source of Energy

Subjects: Ecology Environment

Buddism: Ch’an Master Lin-chi I-hsuan Hui-chao

Subjects: Religion Theology
Words: 1370

Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy: Partners or Opponents?

Subjects: Politicians Politics & Government
Words: 1388

Hitchcock’s Rear Window: Dream Analysis

Subjects: Art Film Studies

An informal reading inventory and its application

Subjects: Education Education Theories

The Impact of Genocide on the Modern Society

Subjects: Contemporary History History
Words: 1594

Symbolism in Death of a Salesman

Words: 1699

Sculptors of the Italian Renaissance

Words: 1356

Economic Crisis and Its Social and Psychological Constraint

Subjects: Economic Systems & Principles Economics

Choosing a Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory for Environmental Ethics

Words: 1447

Effects of Lack of Social Media Marketing on Papa Pita Bakery

Subjects: Business Marketing
Words: 1318

Relationship between Form and Structure in Design

Subjects: Design Worldwide Architecture
Words: 1146

Fair Trade Essay

Subjects: Economics Fair Trade

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor: A Retelling of the Story of Jesus’ Crucifixion

Subjects: Literature World Literature
Words: 1347

The Connection between Literacy, Education and New media

Subjects: Approach to Learning Education
Words: 1376

Peter Eisenman; Building Germany, the Holocaust Memorial

Subjects: Nazi Germany Warfare
Words: 1514

Mud Lick Creek Project – Fresh Water Pollution

Words: 1842

History of Pension Abuses

Subjects: Labor Law Law
Words: 1410

William Faulkner: Literature Works

Words: 1359

A Doll’s House Modernism Theme

Words: 1729

Management Recycling of the Waste

Subjects: Environment Recycling
Words: 1444

Types of Learning Theories and Models

Subjects: Development Psychology

Tragedy in the Works of Arthur Miller and Flannery O’Connor

Subjects: Dramatical Novel Literature
Words: 1574

Luxury Fashion Label for Men

Words: 1499

The Life of Urie Bronfenbrenner

Words: 1336

Economics of Sport and Recreation

Subjects: Economics Finance
Words: 1385

Social Problem of Abortion: Dealing With Media

Words: 1630

The Significance of Language: “Mother Tongue”

Subjects: Language Development Linguistics
Words: 1492

International Trade Advantages and Limitations

Subjects: Economics International Trade Policy
Words: 1463

The Concept of Green Technology in Modern World

Subjects: Air Pollution Environment
Words: 1716

Art During the Renaissance

Subjects: Art Art Movement
Words: 1282

A Horror Show at the Cinemaplex

Subjects: Business Company Missions
Words: 1812

The Evolution of American Federalism

Subjects: Government Politics & Government

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo: Film Techniques and Cinematography Critical Essay

Words: 1529

African Americans in America’s Prison Systems

Subjects: Criminal Law Law
Words: 1481

Miami School District Negotiation Paper

Words: 1429

Troubled Adolescent due to Bullying

Subjects: Psychological Issues Psychology
Words: 1515

Personality Development: Psychological Models and Theories

Words: 1494

Benefits of Genetic Engineering as a Huge Part of People’s Lives

Subjects: Genetics Sciences
Words: 1327

The Importance of Ethics in Business in Light of the Recent Global Financial Crisis

Words: 1486

Competitor Analysis For Company Londyou

Words: 1287

Cigarette Hike Sparks Panic Buying

Subjects: Economics Macroeconomics

How Childhood Trauma Leads to BPD

Media and celebrity influence on society.

Subjects: Entertainment & Media Media and Society
Words: 1342

Newcrest Mining Limited’s Sustainability Reporting

Words: 1424

Fighting Domestic Violence in Pocatello, Idaho

Subjects: Sociology Violence

How Cult Leaders Get and retain Followers

Subjects: Religion Religion, Culture & Society

Position Paper on ‘Lament for America’ by Earl Fry

Subjects: History United States
Words: 1506

Fascism in the Western States: UK and US

Words: 1469

Social Care in Ireland

Islamic art: early medieval period.

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Print and Broadcast Computer Advertisements

Subjects: Advertising Entertainment & Media
Words: 1538

The Great Grandfather of the Sandalwood Mountains

Subjects: British Literature Literature

The Effect of Polymers on Environment vs Glass

Christian festivals: calendar and events.

Words: 1551

Once a Warrior-Always a Warrior

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Classical Conditioning as an Explanation of Human Behavior

Words: 1364

Motivation Concepts and Theories

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Human Nature and the Freedom of Speech in Different Countries

Subjects: Human Rights Sociology
Words: 1461

Characters and the Essence of Relationships: David Mamet’s Oleanna and Peter Shaffer’s Equus

Subjects: Comparative Literature Literature

International Development of Coca-Cola

Words: 1420

Young Goodman Brown. Puritanism and Hawthorne [Analysis]

Words: 1791

History Through Film: Depicting the Moments of the Past

Words: 1378

What True Majority Democracy Is About?

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Drug Addiction and Its Effects

Subjects: Health & Medicine Healthcare Research
Words: 1423

Significance of Cultural Relativism: Nature and Reason

Contributions in psychological clinical counseling, australian goods and services tax system, the maasai: one of the indigenous tribes in the world, duality of soul in robert louis stevenson’s dr. jekyll and mr. hyde.

Words: 1733

The meaning of freedom today

Subjects: Freedom Philosophy Philosophy

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Open access
Published: 28 October 2023

ChatGPT-3.5 as writing assistance in students’ essays

Željana Bašić 1 ,
Ana Banovac 1 ,
Ivana Kružić 1 &
Ivan Jerković 1

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10 , Article number: 750 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Science, technology and society

ChatGPT-3.5, an AI language model capable of text generation, translation, summarization, and question-answering, has recently been released for public use. Studies have shown it can generate abstracts, research papers, and dissertations, and create quality essays on different topics. This led to ethical issues in using ChatGPT in academic writing, AI authorship, and evaluating students’ essays. However, it is still unknown how ChatGPT performs in students’ environments as a writing assistant tool and if it enhances students’ essay-writing performance. In the present study, we examined students’ essay-writing performances with or without ChatGPT as an essay-writing assistance tool. The average essay grade was C for both control (traditional essay-writing, n = 9) and experimental (ChatGPT-assisted essay-writing, n = 9) groups. None of the predictors affected essay scores: group, writing duration, study module, and GPA. The text unauthenticity was slightly higher in the experimental group, but the similarity among essays was generally low in the overall sample. In the experimental group, the AI classifier recognized more potential AI-generated texts. Our results demonstrate that the ChatGPT group did not perform better in either of the indicators; the students did not deliver higher quality content, did not write faster, nor had a higher degree of authentic text. We anticipate that these results can relieve some concerns about this tool’s usage in academic writing. ChatGPT-assisted writing could depend on the previous knowledge and skills of the user, which might, in certain instances, lead to confusion in inexperienced users and result in poorer essay writing performance.

A large-scale comparison of human-written versus ChatGPT-generated essays

Steffen Herbold, Annette Hautli-Janisz, … Alexander Trautsch

Perception, performance, and detectability of conversational artificial intelligence across 32 university courses

Hazem Ibrahim, Fengyuan Liu, … Yasir Zaki

Artificial Intelligence in studies—use of ChatGPT and AI-based tools among students in Germany

Jörg von Garrel & Jana Mayer

Introduction

November 30, 2022, will go down in history as the date when a free version of the AI language model created by OpenAI called ChatGPT-3.5 (OpenAI, 2022 ) (in further text ChatGPT) was made available for public usage. This language model’s functions encompass text generation, answering questions, and completing tasks such as translation and summarization (Agomuoh, 2023 ).

ChatGPT can be employed as assistance in the world of academia. It can improve writing skills since it is trained to deliver feedback on style, coherence, and grammar (Aljanabi et al., 2023 ), extract key points, and provide citations (Aydin and Karaarslan, 2022 ). This could increase the efficiency of researchers, allowing them to concentrate on more crucial activities (e.g., analysis and interpretation). This has been supported by studies showing that ChatGPT could generate abstracts (Gao et al., 2023 ; Ma et al., 2023 ), high-quality research papers (Kung et al., 2023 ), dissertations, and essays (Aljanabi et al., 2023 ). Previous studies showed that ChatGPT could create quality essays on different topics (Hoang, 2023 ; Hoang et al., 2023 ; Nguyen and La; 2023 ; Nguyen and Le, 2023a , Nguyen and Le, 2023b , Susnjak, 2023 ). For example, this program, in conjunction with DaVinci-003, generated high-quality short-form essays on Physics, which would be awarded First Class, the highest grade in the UK higher education system (Yeadon et al., 2023 ). It also led to questions on the ethics of using ChatGPT in different forms of academic writing, the AI authorship (Bishop, 2023 ; Grimaldi and Ehrler, 2023 ; Kung et al., 2023 ; Pourhoseingholi et al., 2023 ; Xiao, 2023 ), and raised issues of evaluating academic tasks like students’ essays (Stokel-Walker, 2022 ; Whitford, 2022 ). Unavoidable content plagiarism issues were discussed, and solutions for adapting essay settings and guidelines were revised (Cotton et al., 2023 ; Hoang, 2023 ; Lo, 2023 ; Sallam, 2023 ; Stokel-Walker, 2022 ; Yeadon et al., 2023 ). A recent SWOT analysis of ChatGPT’s impact on education comprehensively analyzed all the mentioned issues. Strengths included advanced natural language generation, self-improvement, and personalized feedback, with potential benefits in information accessibility, personalized learning, and reduced teaching workload. Weaknesses encompassed limited understanding of the topic, inability to critically evaluate information, response quality evaluation challenges, bias risks, and a lack of higher-order thinking. Threats included contextual limitations, academic integrity risks, discrimination perpetuation, increased plagiarism, etc. (Farrokhnia et al., 2023 ).

As argumentative essays are one of the most advanced students’ tasks in higher education, and as such pose a challenge for students (Latifi et al., 2021 ), one of the ways where ChatGPT could be tested is essay writing. Such essays empower students’ ability to give an argument and build confidence in their knowledge preparing them not only for the academic environment but also for real-life situations (Valero Haro et al., 2022 ; Heitmann et al., 2014 ). A previous study showed that students need further development of argumentation competencies, as they demonstrated externalization issues with argumentation that did not differ if they worked in groups or individually. The results suggest that students experience problems in externalizing their argumentation knowledge both at the individual (argumentative essay) and collaborative levels (argumentative discourse), and that they need to further develop their argumentation competence (Banihashem et al., 2023a ; Banihashem et al., 2023b ; Kerman et al., 2023 ; Ranjbaran et al., 2023 ). However, it is still unknown how ChatGPT performs in students’ environment as a writing assistant tool and does it enhance students’ performance. Thus, this research investigated whether ChatGPT would improve students’ essay grades, reduce writing time, and affect text authenticity.

Materials and methods

We invited the second-year master’s students from the University Department of Forensic Sciences, to voluntarily participate in research on essay writing as a part of the course Forensic Sciences seminar. Out of 50 students enrolled in the course, 18 applied by web form and participated in the study. Before the experiment, we divided them into two groups according to the study module and the weighted grade point average (GPA) to ensure a similar composition of the groups. The control group ( n = 9, GPA = 3.92 ± 0.46) wrote the essay traditionally, while the experimental group ( n = 9, GPA = 3.92 ± 0.57) used ChatGPT assistance, version 2.1.0. (OpenAI, 2022 ).

We explained the essay scoring methodology (Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence ( 2023 )) to both groups, with written instructions about the essay title (The advantages and disadvantages of biometric identification in forensic sciences), length of the essay (800–1000 words in a Croatian language), formatting, and citation style (Vancouver). We introduced the experimental group to the ChatGPT tool which included a brief explanation of the tool, and an example of entering the prompt about their essay-unrelated issue. They were instructed to use the tool freely, without any limitations (e.g., for creating a complete essay, for concept drafting, for specific topic-related questions, for corrections and suggestions, etc.). We did not demand students to submit the prompts they used and the responses they received. All students had four hours to finish the task and could leave whenever they wanted. The control group was additionally supervised to ensure they did not use the ChatGPT. The students’ names were coded to assure the individual and group anonymity and prevent grading bias.

Two teachers graded the essays (ŽB, associate professor, and IJ, assistant professor). The teachers compared the grades, and if their scoring differed the final grade was decided by the consensus. We used the essay rubrics from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Pennsylvania State University ( http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/pdf/suanne_general_resource_WritingRubric.pdf ), that included the following criteria (mechanics, style, content, and format) and grades from A to D (Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence ( 2023 )). We converted categorical grades to numbers (A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1) for further analysis. For each student, we recorded writing time.

We checked the authenticity of each document using PlagScan ( 2022 ), and conducted the pairwise comparison for document similarity using R studio (ver. 1.2.5033) and package Textreuse (Mullen, 2015 ) using the Jaccard similarity index. We checked the content using an AI text classifier to test if a human or an AI created the text. According to this classifier, text was scored as very unlikely, unlikely, unclear, possibly, and likely that it was AI-generated (OpenAI, 2023 ). We opted for this package after similar programs (OpenAI, 2022 ; Goal and ChatGPT, 2023 ; Debut et al., 2023 ) did not recognize a ChatGPT-generated text in a non-English language as AI-assisted text.

Statistical analysis and visualization were conducted using Excel (Microsoft Office ver. 2301) and R Studio (ver. 1.2.5033). The final essay score was calculated as an average of four grading elements (mechanics, style, content, and format). The linear regression was used to test the effects of group, writing duration, module, and GPA on overall essay scores. The level of statistical significance was set at P ≤ 0.05.

The duration of the essay writing for the ChatGPT-assisted group was 172.22 ± 31.59, and for the control, 179.11 ± 31.93 min. ChatGPT and control group, on average, obtained grade C, with a slightly higher average score in the control (2.39 ± 0.71) than in the ChatGPT group (2.00 ± 0.73) (Fig. 1A ). The mean of text unauthenticity was 11.87% ± 13.45 in the ChatGPT-assisted group and 9.96% ± 9.81% in the control group. The text similarity in the overall sample was low (Supplementary Table 1 ), with a median value of the Jaccard similarity index of 0.002 (0–0.054). The AI text classifier showed that, in the control group, two texts were possibly, one likely generated by AI, two were unlikely created by AI, and four cases were unclear. The ChatGPT group had three possible and five cases likely produced by AI, while one case was labeled as unclear.

A Average essay scores, B Duration and essay scores, C GPA and essay scores, D Text authenticity and essay scores.

Figure 1B, C implies a positive association between duration and GPA with essay scores. Students with higher GPAs in the control group achieved higher scores than those in the ChatGPT group. The association of essay scores and non-authentic text proportion (Fig. 1D ) was detected only in the ChatGPT group, where the students with more non-authentic text achieved lower essay scores.

The linear regression model showed a moderate positive relationship between the four predictors and the overall essay score ( R = 0.573; P = 0.237). However, none of the predictors had a significant effect on the outcome: group ( P = 0.184), writing duration ( P = 0.669), module ( P = 0.388), and GPA ( P = 0.532).

As we are aware, this is the first study that tested ChatGPT-3.5 as an essay-writing assistance tool in a student population sample. Our study showed that the ChatGPT group did not perform better than the control group in either of the indicators; the students did not deliver higher quality content, did not write faster, nor had a higher degree of authentic text.

The overall essay score was slightly better in the control group, which could probably result from the students in the experimental group over-reliance on the tool or being unfamiliar with it. This was in line with Fyfe’s study on writing students’ essays using ChatGPT-2, where students reported that it was harder to write using the tool than by themselves (Fyfe, 2022 ). This issue is presented in the study of Farrokhnia et al., where the authors pointed out the ChatGPT weakness of not having a deep understanding of the topic, which, in conjunction with students’ lack of knowledge, could lead to dubious results (Farrokhnia et al., 2023 ). Students also raised the question of not knowing the sources of generated text which additionally distracted them in writing task (Fyfe, 2022 ). It is noteworthy that both groups obtained an average grade of C, which can be explained by other studies that argued that students’ writing lacks solid argumentation both when writing in general or when writing argumentative essays (Banihashem et al., 2023a ; Banihashem et al., 2023b ; Kerman et al., 2023 ; Farrokhnia et al., 2023 ; Ranjbaran et al., 2023 ). This demanding task could have been even more difficult when using ChatGPT, which could stem from several already mentioned issues like unfamiliarity when using ChatGPT and additional time requirements to link ChatGPT-created content and/or information with real literature sources.

Some studies did show more promising results (Hoang, 2023 ; Hoang et al., 2023 ; Nguyen and La; 2023 ; Nguyen and Le, 2023a , Nguyen and Le, 2023b , Susnjak, 2023 ; Yeadon et al., 2023 ), but unlike our study, they were mainly based on ChatGPT and experienced researcher interaction. This could be a reason for the lower performance of our ChatGPT group, as the experienced researchers are more skilled in formulating questions, guiding the program to obtain better-quality information, and critically evaluating the content.

The other interesting finding is that the use of ChatGPT did not accelerate essay writing and that the students of both groups required a similar amount of time to complete the task. As expected, the longer writing time in both groups related to the better essay score. This finding could also be explained by students’ feedback from Fyfe’s ( 2022 ) study, where they specifically reported difficulties combining the generated text and their style. So, although ChatGPT could accelerate writing in the first phase, it requires more time to finalize the task and assemble content.

Our experimental group had slightly more problems with plagiarism than the control group. Fyfe ( 2022 ) also showed that his students felt uncomfortable writing and submitting the task since they felt they were cheating and plagiarizing. However, a pairwise comparison of essays in our study did not reveal remarkable similarities, indicating that students had different reasoning and styles, regardless of whether they were using ChatGPT. This could also imply that applying the tool for writing assistance produces different outcomes for the same task, depending on the user’s input (Yeadon et al., 2023 ).

The available ChatGPT text detector (Farrokhnia et al., 2023 ) did not perform well, giving false positive results in the control group. Most classifiers are intended for English and usually have disclaimers for performance in other languages. This raises the necessity of improving existing algorithms for different languages or developing language-specific ones.

The main concern of using ChatGPT in academic writing has been the unauthenticity (Cotton et al., 2023 ; Susnjak, 2023 ; Yeadon et al., 2023 ), but we believe that such tools will not increase the non-originality of the published content or students’ assignments. The detectors of AI-generated text are developing daily, and it is only a matter of time before highly reliable tools are available. While our findings suggest no immediate need for significant concern regarding the application of ChatGPT in students’ writing, it is crucial to acknowledge that this study’s design reflects real-life situations of using ChatGPT as a convenient and rapid solution to submit assignments, potentially at the expense of the overall quality of their work. This issue remains an important consideration when assessing the broader implications of our study.

The main drawback of this study is the limited sample size (9 per group) which does not permit the generalization of the findings or a more comprehensive statistical approach. One of the limitations could also be language-specificity (students wrote in native, non-English language for their convenience), which disabled us from the full application of AI detection tools. We should also consider that ChatGPT is predominantly fed with English content, so we cannot exclude the possibility that writing in English could have generated higher-quality information. Lastly, this was our students’ first interaction with ChatGPT, so it is possible that lack of experience as well as inadequate training in using AI language models also affected their performance. Therefore, it is crucial to exercise caution when generalizing these findings, as they may not necessarily reflect the experiences of a broader range of ChatGPT users, who often report rapid draft generation. Future studies should therefore expand the sample size, number, and conditions of experiments, include students of different profiles, and extend the number of variables that could generally relate to writing skills. Also, it would be useful to conduct a study that would analyze the quality and depth of the students’ prompts to ChatGPT, as it seems that the question type and the feedback provided by the user could remarkably affect the final result (Farrokhnia et al., 2023 ).

However, the academia and media concern about this tool might be unjustified, as, in our example, the ChatGPT was found to perform similarly to any web-based search: the more you know—the more you will find. In some ways, instead of providing structure and facilitating writing, it could distract students and make them underperform.

Data availability

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

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Željana Bašić, Ana Banovac, Ivana Kružić & Ivan Jerković

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The study was retrospectively approved by the Ethical Committee of the University Department of Forensic Sciences, University of Split, Croatia (053-01/23-01/12; 1, 3/8/2023). The research was performed in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Research participants were not subjected to harm in any way whatsoever. Respect for the dignity of research participants was prioritized.

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Bašić, Ž., Banovac, A., Kružić, I. et al. ChatGPT-3.5 as writing assistance in students’ essays. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 750 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02269-7

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A 3.5 essay outline requires you to write a five-paragraph essay with an introductory and concluding paragraph. It also has three body paragraphs, which give supporting details of your argument.

Mastering the art of writing 5-paragraph essays is crucial because it is a common writing assignment in colleges and universities. An outline of a 3.5 essay will show important elements to include in your paper from the first sentence of the introduction to the last sentence of the conclusion.

This essay outline has the following key components:

Paragraph I—Introduction
Paragraph II— first supportive idea
Paragraph III— second supportive idea
Paragraph IV— third supportive idea
Paragraph V—Closing

Things to remember when writing a 3.5 essay outline

Understanding a 3.5 outline can be a mindboggling task, without mastering effective writing skills. Importantly, 3.5 essays could be thematic, where you focus on a single issue of discussion throughout the essay. A good example of a theme could be the history of hip-hop music in the United States.

Like when writing other professional essays, your introduction should have a theme, which serves the backbone of your paper..

Here are important instructions when writing 3.5 essay outlines :

Do thorough research . Writing a good, paper depends on the depth of your research. Gather enough information to help you develop the three body paragraphs.
Develop an outline for your essay . Show the three main points you are going to address in your essay to ensure that you answer the essay question correctly.
Have an interesting introduction. Your first sentence of the essay should be catchy to wet the readers’ reading appetite. Use a general statement about your topic of research.
Write your thesis statement . Develop your thesis, encompassing the three main points. Even if it does not sound interesting, make sure that your thesis statement tells the reader the purpose of your essay.
Develop the body of your essay . Each of the paragraphs should a dream a single issue or main point. The body should support and explain your thesis statement. Begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence to signal the reader what the paragraph is addressing. Each of these paragraphs should also have at least three sentences with examples and quotes.
Write your conclusion . The last paragraph of your 3.5 essay should be a conclusion, which wraps up your paper. It should be three to five sentences. Do not merely re-word or repeat your introduction. Re-state your thesis statement and say the importance of your paper. You may also include a broader point like the implication of your thesis to the world.

Consider the following example of 3.5 essay outline:

3.5 ESSAY OUTLINE FORMAT

Opening paragraph_______________________________________
General Statement_________________________________________________ 2. Topic Sentence ___________________________________________________ 3. Main Idea Sentences:
First supportive statement___________________________________
Second supportive statement_________________________________
Third supportive statement___________________________________
THESIS STATEMENT____________________________________________ II. Second paragraph______________________________________________
Introductory sentence supports the first supportive (a.) statement
First evidence________________________________________ b. Second evidence______________________________________ c. Third evidence_______________________________________
Concluding statement________________________________________

III. Third paragraph________________________________________________

Intro sentence supports second supportive (b.) statement
First piece of evidence________________________________________ b. Second piece of evidence______________________________________ c. Third piece of evidence_______________________________________
Concluding statement__________________________________________
Fourth paragraph________________________________________
Introductory sentence supports the third supportive (c.) statement
1 st piece of evidence________________________________________ b. 2 nd piece of evidence______________________________________ c. 3 rd piece of evidence________________________________________
Concluding statement______________________________________________
Conclusion _________________________________________________
Restate the thesis _____________________________________ 2. Conclude the points made in paragraph 2____________________ 3. Conclude the points made in paragraph 3____________________ 4. Conclude the points made in paragraph 4____________________ 5. Give final concluding statement ____________________

The above sample 3.5 essay outline shows all the elements, which you should capture in your essay. You can access the outline here.

Key elements of a 3.5 essay paragraph format

As seen in the above section, different elements form the outline of a 3.5 essay. While this is the case, it is important to have a grip on how to structure a good paragraph that brings out main points in the body of your essay. In this section, we focus some of these key elements. Take a look:

Have topic sentences . A topic sentence is the first line of every paragraph of your essay. It shows the reader the main point, which they should expect in the subsequent sentences of the paragraph. It helps in smooth transition between body paragraphs of the essay.
Detail They give supporting evidence to your topic sentence. You can develop well prove sentences by using researched details and examples from authentic sources. In addition, quotes from experts give concrete support for your topic sentences.
Wrap up your paragraph with a concluding sentence . Every paragraph ends with concluding sentence. It signals closure of discussion on the topical issue and ties all the sentences in the paragraph together.

When developing a 3.5 essay outline, it is necessary to focus on having a strong body for your paper. What makes a good body is the evidence you give to the reader with detailed support sentences. Therefore, there is need to master the art of constructing good support sentences. Here is what you should have in mind at all times:

Good supporting detail sentences should have the following qualities :

Relate to the topic sentence of the paragraph-the sentence should unify all the parts of the paragraph by summing up the main idea you are explaining.
Each sentence should add value to the body paragraph. Do not use filler sentences. Ensure that the sentence is relevant and makes sense to the reader.
Use expressive language when developing support sentences. The sentences should paint the image of your evidence. You can achieve this by being descriptive in your writing.

Essay Outline

Topic___________________________________

Name ____________________________________

Introduce your topic

Thesis statement

Point 1:_____________________________

Point 2:________________________________

Point 3:_________________________________

Supporting facts

Point 1: _________________________________________

Details _______________________________________

Point 2: ________________________________________________

Details __________________________________________

Point 3: _______________________________________________

Details ____________________________________________

Conclusion:

Restate Thesis ______________________________________

Concluding sentence _____________________________________

The sample 3.5 essay outline shows the three main sections of an essay, including the introduction, body and the conclusion. You may access it here.

Additional tips on how to develop an essay outline with 5 paragraphs

There are many steps you can follow when writing an essay. However, without planning and prior planning, it can be almost impossible to convince the reader with your points. If your essay lacks three specific points that address the topic of discussion, then it does not follow the 3.5 essay outline. Thus, it is important to not only do your homework but also be thorough in every step.

Below are some important points to note in order to have an excellent essay:

Doing background research and outlining your topic

Once you settle on a topic, go ahead and start research. In some cases, the lecturer will assign you a topic or give you the freedom to choose an issue that relates to what you may have learned in class.

Outlining your essay helps in organizing your thoughts logically and flesh out your topic. For some, developing an outline is listing the points, which they intend to explore in the paper. In some cases, outlining an essay entails more work. Choose a process that enhances your writing. A basic essay outline constitutes of your topic together with the evidence.

Writing the an appealing introduction

The first element on an essay outline is the introduction of your piece of work. When writing the introduction of a 3.5 essay, have the following at the back of your mind:

Be simple, without using ambiguous statements
Have clarity of thought
State your thesis statement to give your readers direction. Thesis should have three main points.
Give a general opening statement
Make your introduction brief
Be creative
Make your intro interesting

Writing three body paragraphs with a 3.5 essay outline

The body of a 3.5 essay comprises of three paragraphs. The body of your essay should:

Have details
Have description
Have facts about the topic
Serve as evidence
Support thesis statement
Convince the reader that you did research about your claims

Take a look at the following example:

____________________________________________ Title of Essay

Introduction
Give background information 1. ________________________________
Thesis Statement:

________________________________________________ ________________________________________________

Paragraph 2 (Main idea/aspect # 1)
___________________________________ (Supporting idea #1)
________________________________ (Example/detail)
________________________________ (Example/detail)
___________________________________ (Supporting idea #2)

III. Paragraph 3( as in paragraph 2 above )

Paragraph 4( as in paragraph 2 above )
Conclusion
______________________________________________________ Restatement of the thesis
___________________________________ Recommendations

View the whole outline here.

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Watch CBS News

Inflation is sticking around. Here's what that means for interest rate cuts — and your money.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Alain Sherter

Updated on: April 10, 2024 / 7:57 PM EDT / CBS News

The war against inflation was never going to be easy, but the latest consumer price index data demonstrates just how tough a fight the Federal Reserve is facing. In the months ahead, the outcome of that battle will have major implications for your finances.

New labor data shows that U.S. prices in March rose 3.5% from a year ago , hotter than economists expected and the third straight month that inflation has accelerated. Gasoline prices and rent contributed over half the monthly increase, the government said on Wednesday.

The upshot: The Fed's ongoing campaign to tame inflation is far from over. That has left consumers and investors wondering if the central bank, who until recently were widely expected to cut its benchmark interest rate in June, could push back that timeline several months, or even into 2025.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has underscored that policy makers are closely monitoring inflation data to assess their progress in nudging it back toward their 2% annual rate, its level prior to the pandemic-fueled surge in prices. A premature move to cut the federal funds rate risks uncorking additional inflationary pressures, he has warned.

Addressing those concerns, another Fed official said last week that the central bank might not cut rates at all in 2024 "if we continue to see inflation moving sideways."

Why is inflation inching higher?

Two main factors contributing to stronger-than-expected inflation in March were gasoline prices and rent. Rising prices at the pump stems partly to growing U.S. demand, according to the AAA, which said the current national average of $3.62 a gallon is about 6.6% higher than a month ago.

Gas prices are also rising because of mounting geopolitical tensions in Russia and the Middle East, with Brent crude earlier this month surging beyond $90 a barrel and the U.S. benchmark topping $86.

Rents also remain sticky amid the nation's tight housing supply. A few other items also contributed to the acceleration, including car insurance, which surged a whopping 22.2% from a year earlier. Insurers have been hiking premiums to offset their rising costs due to extreme weather and the higher cost of new automobiles.

Why could that impact the Fed's decision to cut rates?

Hiking interest rates is the Fed's most effective weapon against inflation. That's because businesses and consumers put the brakes on spending when it costs more to borrow money, and that effectively dampens demand for goods and services, which in turn can help lower inflation.

But with inflation so far refusing to dissipate in 2024, economists say the Fed has less of a reason to cut rates, at least in the near term.

What is the current Federal Reserve interest rate?

The current federal funds rate — what banks charge each other for short-term loans — is in a range of 5.25% to 5.5%.

The Fed has hiked its rate 11 times since March 2022 in its battle to curb inflation. That's made it more expensive to borrow money, with rates for credit cards, mortgages and other loans sharply rising over the last two years.

When will the the Fed cut rates in 2024?

Prior to Wednesday's inflation report, most economists had penciled in the Fed's June 12 meeting as the likely date for its rate cut in four years. Economists had also predicted several cuts over the rest of 2024.

But due to the latest inflation reading, those experts are pushing back their forecasts.

"June is probably off the table" for a rate cut, noted Elyse Ausenbaugh, global investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Global Wealth Management, in an email.

If the Fed doesn't cut in June, policy makers are unlikely to reduce rates until September because little economic data is released between their June and July meetings that could alter their thinking, noted Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, in a research note on Wednesday.

How could a delayed rate cut impact your money?

The initial impact was felt Wednesday in the stock market, with Wall Street sending shares sharply lower .

Expectations the Fed would soon cut rates had fueled a 20% surge in the S&P 500 since Halloween. That's because lower rates would help bolster spending from consumers and corporations, which in turn would encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies and other investments.

But with that looking less likely in the near-term, investors pulled back on Wednesday. If rate cuts come later in 2024 than expected, consumers could face higher borrowing costs for a longer period. Auto loans, credit card rates and other loans are based on the Fed's benchmark rate, so a higher rate means that consumers won't get a break anytime soon.

Mortgage rates, which are hovering at about 7%, are also influenced by the Fed benchmark rate, although they also reflect other factors, like bond yields and inflation. Rates for home loans are likely to be unchanged in the near-term due to factors like the strong job market and housing demand, according to Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

Is there an upside to interest rates remaining high?

If there's a silver lining, it's for savers given that some high-interest savings accounts , certificates of deposit and other savings vehicles now offer interest rates of 5% or more. If the Fed delays cutting rates, it's likely savers will be able find favorable rates for longer in 2024.

That means consumers could sock away some cash in a high-interest savings account or CD and earn a rate that's 1.5 percentage point to 2 percentage point higher than the current inflation rate. That's better than leaving the money in a checking account that might be providing little to no interest, which effectively erodes the value of your money due to the impact of inflation.

Mortgage Rates
Interest Rates
Federal Reserve

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Stock market today: Asian markets sink, with Japan’s Nikkei down 3.5%, as Mideast tensions flare

A police officer rides a bicycle past an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Friday, April 19, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian markets tumbled Friday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 down more than 3% on heavy selling of semiconductor-related shares.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Friday, April 19, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Friday, April 19, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Friday, April 19, 2024, in Tokyo. Asian markets tumbled Friday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 down more than 3% on heavy selling of semiconductor-related shares.(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan’s Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Friday, April 19, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

The New York Stock Exchange is seen, through a window guard, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 in New York. Wall Street drifted toward gains as more corporate earnings come in, giving investors a break from fretting about if and when the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

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HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei slumping 3.5% on heavy selling of semiconductor-related shares and other market heavyweights.

Tensions in the Middle East were weighing on sentiment across the region, and U.S. futures were sharply lower.

Oil prices jumped about $3 as the state-run IRNA news agency reported that Iran fired air defense batteries early Friday morning after reports of explosions near the city of Isfahan.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 plunged 3.51% to 36,742.05.

Semiconductor equipment supplier Lasertec was the largest loser, it lost 9.7% in morning trading. But most other big tech-related shares also dropped. Renesas gave up 7.3%, Tokyo Electron lost 7.8% and Sony Group Corp. declined 3.3%.

Toyota Motor Corp was down 3.7%.

Japan’s headline inflation rate in March slowed to 2.7%, while the core-core index, excluding fresh food and energy costs, moderated to 2.9%, marking the first time since November 2022 that the index fell below 3%.

The yen was slightly firmer against the U.S. dollar, with the latter falling to 153.80 Japanese yen from 154.64 yen.

A missile defense site near an international airport and air base is seen in Isfahan, Iran, Monday, April 22, 2024. Satellite photos taken Monday suggest an apparent Israeli retaliatory strike targeting Iran's central city of Isfahan hit a radar system for a Russian-made air defense battery, contradicting repeated denials by officials in Tehran in the time since the assault. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Markets are waiting for the Japanese central bank’s next move after it raised its benchmark interest rate last month for the first time in 17 years, ending a longstanding policy of negative rates meant to boost the economy. But the rate remains near zero.

Elsewhere, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 1.7% to 7,512.70. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 2.9% to 2,558.56. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.4% to 16,161.24, while the Shanghai Composite edged down 0.1% to 3,071.76.

Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.2% to 5,011.12 after flipping between small gains and losses through the day. The drop was slight, but it was still enough to send the index to a fifth straight loss. That’s its longest losing streak since October, and it’s sitting 4.6% below its record set late last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1% to 37,775.38, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.5% to 15,601.50.

Equifax dropped 8.5% for one of the market’s bigger losses after it reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. High interest rates are pressuring its mortgage credit inquiry business.

The only stock to fall more in the S&P 500 was Las Vegas Sands, which sank 8.7% even though it reported better results than expected. Analysts said investors may be worried about competition the casino and resort company is facing in Macau, a southern China enclave that is one of the world’s biggest gambling havens.

Helping to offset those losses was Elevance Health, which climbed 3.2% after raising its profit forecast for the full year. Genuine Parts jumped 11.2% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after the distributor of automotive and industrial replacement parts reported stronger profit than analysts expected. It also raised its range for forecasted profits over the full year.

Stocks have been struggling recently as yields in the bond market charge higher. They’re cranking up the pressure because investors have largely given up on hopes that the Federal Reserve will deliver many cuts to interest rates this year.

Yields climbed a bit higher after more reports on Thursday showed the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected.

One report said fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It’s the latest sign that the job market remains solid despite high interest rates.

Another report on Thursday said growth in manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region accelerated sharply, when economists were expecting a contraction.

A third report said sales of previously occupied U.S. homes didn’t fall by quite as much last month as economists expected.

Similar data, along with a string of reports showing inflation has remained hotter than forecast this year, have pushed top Fed officials to say recently they could hold interest rates high for a while .

That’s a letdown after the Fed earlier had signaled three cuts to interest rates could be possible this year. But Fed officials have been adamant they want to be sure inflation is heading down toward their 2% target before lowering the Fed’s main interest rate from its highest level since 2001.

In oil trading, U.S. benchmark crude rose $2.77 to $85.50 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, gained $3.40 to $90.51 per barrel.

The euro dropped to $1.0623 from $1.0644.

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COMMENTS

How to Write in the Format of a 3.5 Essay
3. Write Three Body Paragraphs. The middle of your 3.5 essay is made up of three body paragraphs; each paragraph should focus on a point mentioned in your introduction and thesis statement. Subsequently, each body paragraph should start with a topic sentence to transition readers from point to point.
The Pros and Cons of the Three-Point-Five Essay
1) This format teaches students how to support a thesis. That's an important skill to have. After all, the thesis is like the tip of a pyramid. It needs everything underneath it, like the body paragraphs, to hold it up. 2) The Three-Point-Five essay teaches students how to write a paragraph.
4.1 Basic Essay Structure
4.1 Basic Essay Structure. Emilie Zickel and Charlotte Morgan. Essays written for an academic audience follow a structure with which you are likely familiar: Intro, Body, Conclusion. Here is a general overview of what each of those sections "does" in the larger essay. Be aware, however, that certain assignments and certain professors may ...
3.5: Descriptive Essays
Writing a Description Essay. Choosing a subject is the first step in writing a description essay. Once you have chosen the person, place, or object you want to describe, your challenge is to write an effective thesis statement to guide your essay. The remainder of your essay describes your subject in a way that best expresses your thesis.
PDF The Basic Five Paragraph Essay: Format and Outline Worksheet
There is an Outline worksheet on the back of this page to help you start planning the content, order and organization of your essay. Paragraph 1: Introduction -- If possible, open with an attention-getting device to interest the reader (perhaps a quote or question). Introduce the topic of your essay in general, and present some context for this ...
4.2 THE BIG PICTURE: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay
The five-paragraph essay, outlined below in Figure 3.1 is probably what you're used to: the introduction starts general and gradually narrows to a thesis, which readers expect to find at the very end of that paragraph. In this format, the thesis uses that magic number of three: three reasons why a statement is true.
How to Use the Rule of Three in Writing
3 Ways to Use the Rule of Three in Your Writing. Here are a few simple ways to get started with the rule of three: 1. Three-part structure. Use a three-part structure to organize your writing. In the beginning, set things up. Then build anticipation, and finish with the punchline, resolution, or plot twist.
English 3.5 Essay Flashcards
what does a 3.5 essay contain? thesis, 3 body paragraphs, and concluding/hook sentence. what makes up a thesis statement? topic, position, and 3 subtopics. this captures reader's interest and makes him/her want to keep reading.
How to Write an Essay: 4 Minute Step-by-step Guide
There are three main stages to writing an essay: preparation, writing and revision. In just 4 minutes, this video will walk you through each stage of an acad...
3.5: Definition
Sample Definition Essay. In the following essay, the writer chose to define justice in a specific context: the prison system and mass incarceration. Notice how he begins the essay with a more general definition of justice and then moves into a detailed analysis of his chosen topic, using facts, statistics, and quotations to support his argument.
4.10 A review of the five-paragraph essay
4.10 A review of the five-paragraph essay Julie A. Townsend. A review of the five-paragraph format. Many writers will be able to detail the five-paragraph format. The introduction previews the entire essay. The thesis statement goes at the end of the introduction and describes what the three body paragraphs will be about.
Essay Format Guide: APA, MLA, and Chicago Styles Explained
For example: Smith 1. Margins and Spacing: Set all margins to 1 inch, and use double-spacing throughout the essay. Font and Size: Use a legible font like Times New Roman or Arial, size 12. Indentation: Indent the first line of each paragraph by 0.5 inches, which can be done automatically using the "Tab" key.
8.3 Drafting
Exercise 1. Using the topic for the essay that you outlined in Section 8.2 "Outlining", describe your purpose and your audience as specifically as you can. Use your own sheet of paper to record your responses. Then keep these responses near you during future stages of the writing process.
3.5 essay Flashcards
3.5 essay. Term. 1 / 7. Defention and purpose of 3.5 essay. Click the card to flip 👆. Definition. 1 / 7. a paper in which your purpose is to _explain_ an idea to others in order to make it understandable to them.
How to Write an Essay: 3 Tips for Writing a 5-Paragraph Essay
See why leading organizations rely on MasterClass for learning & development. Familiarize yourself with the simple structure of a five-paragraph essay, consisting of three supporting paragraphs bookended by an introduction and a conclusion.
3 Page Essay: Examples, Topics, & Word Count
If you're a student, you've probably asked yourself this question. 3 page essays are usually assigned to check one's ability to formulate their thoughts. A three page essay word count is 700 to 750 words (12 pt double-spaced). A paper of 3 pages usually consists of 7 to 9 paragraphs. When choosing a topic for a 3 pages essay, remember ...
3.5: Effective Thesis Statements
A thesis statement tells a reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. Such a statement is also called an "argument," a "main idea," or a "controlling idea.". A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is ...
5 Page Essay: Examples, Topics, & Word Count
Organic farming, overpopulation, police brutality, and abortion are just some examples. A 5 page essay word count is usually 1200 to 1250 words (12 pt., double-spaced). The length of a typical academic paragraph is 100 to 150 words. So, there are 12 to 16 paragraphs in a five page essay. If you need 5 page essay examples, take a look at the ...
Writer's Guide: Guidelines for Organizing your Writing
If your purpose is persuasive, you should choose a persuasive pattern to organization your essay's response. Prompt 1 has a persuasive purpose, to convince the principal, so a persuasive pattern is selected. Your school budget has to be cut by $100,000. Write a letter to the principal recommending what, in your view, should be cut from the budget.
ChatGPT-3.5 as writing assistance in students' essays
The duration of the essay writing for the ChatGPT-assisted group was 172.22 ± 31.59, and for the control, 179.11 ± 31.93 min. ChatGPT and control group, on average, obtained grade C, with a ...
How to Write a 3.5 Essay Outline With Ease
An outline of a 3.5 essay will show important elements to include in your paper from the first sentence of the introduction to the last sentence of the conclusion. This essay outline has the following key components: Paragraph I—Introduction. Paragraph II— first supportive idea. Paragraph III— second supportive idea.
3.5 Essay Model 1 .pptx
3.5 Essay Introduction: "Hazards of Movie Going" • I am a movie fanatic. When friends want to know what picture won the Oscar in 1980 or who played the police chief in Jaws, they ask me. My friends, though, have stopped asking me if I want to go out to the movies. The problems in getting to the theater, the theater itself, and the behavior of some patrons are all reasons why I often wait ...
Inflation is sticking around. Here's what that means for interest rate
Inflation is moving sideways, remaining above 3% for the first three months of 2024. Here's how that could impact your finances.
Stock market today: Asian markets sink, with Japan's Nikkei down 3.5%
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1% to 37,775.38, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.5% to 15,601.50. Equifax dropped 8.5% for one of the market's bigger losses after it reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected.