You may wish to think about organizing your essays like a courtroom case. You have probably seen courtroom cases played out on television, whether they were real-life trials, old Perry Mason reruns, L. A. Law, even Ally McBeal. These shows, despite their departure from reality in many, many ways, actually do demonstrate the structure of an argument. In order to understand this comparison, you must think of yourself as the attorney, and you must think of your reader as the judge or jury. Your goal as the attorney is to convince that judge or jury to believe your case.

In every case, you will see certain common elements:

Opening Arguments (Introduction)

During the opening arguments, the attorney (you, the writer) presents to the judge or jury (your reader)—

• a short summary of what the case is all about, giving as much or as little background information as necessary
• what exactly he or she hopes to demonstrate to the judge or jury—a thesis ("my client is not guilty!")
• a little glimpse of what sorts of evidence he or she may call on or what direction he or she may head in order to prove the thesis ("when you examine the physical evidence, understand that he had no motive or opportunity to commit the crime, and learn more about his character, you will see that my client is absolutely not guilty."

Presentation of Evidence (Body of Essay)

During the body of the trial, the attorney calls witnesses and presents evidence. During this phase,

• the witnesses come one at a time (only one topic per paragraph)
• the attorney thoroughly examines that witness before moving on to the next witness (ideas of paragraph fully developed)
• then the attorney calls the next witness (change paragraphs when you change topics)
• the attorney calls as many witnesses and presents as much evidence as necessary in order to prove point (don't restrict yourself to 5-paragraph essay)

Closing Arguments (Conclusion)

During closing arguments, the attorney wraps up his or her case for the judge or jury—the ones who must be won over to agree with the thesis. At this point, the attorney—

• briefly recaps the evidence and witnesses' testimony (without simply listing or reciting what has already been said)
• ties the evidence together, showing how it all goes together to support the main argument
• revisits the thesis in light of the evidence (this isn't the same as simply repeating the thesis; it is recasting the thesis in an even clearer light because of all of the evidence the reader now understands)

Here are some other features you should consider for each section of your essay:

Introduction

• Provide background information

• general information to help your reader approach your thesis

• establish common ground with the reader

• Begin to focus or narrow ideas down to thesis topic

• Thesis sentence: states the exact purpose or argument of your paper, suggests the organization of the body paragraphs, and contains the topic along with a comment on it

Body Paragraphs

• Transition

  • connects this paragraph to the one before it
  
  
  
  • shows reader why this particular point follows the preceding one

• Topic sentence that tells exactly what this particular paragraph is about

• Explanation of / comment on main idea of topic sentence

• Evidence

• supports topic sentence using concrete examples and/or a quotations

• helps your reader see that your point is true rather than simply having to take your word for it

• Analysis

• demonstrates for the reader why evidence is significant—don't expect evidence to speak for itself

• repeat this approach for each piece of evidence

• Final comment

• wraps up paragraph

• relates the ideas of this paragraph to the thesis sentence (the big picture of your paper)

• emphasizes that you are effectively proving your thesis

Conclusion

• Revisit thesis sentence without simply repeating it

• do not simply copy it from your introduction

• after thinking out your argument well enough to write a paper about it, have a new angle or insight (not a completely new idea)

• Bring your ideas out to something more general than your thesis

• after writing about a very specific point (your thesis), gradually move back out to something a little more general

• by referring to the general idea with which you began your essay, end effectively and stylistically by coming full circle, thus unifying your whole paper.