Why the Five Paragraph Essay Form Is Not Sophisticated Enough For College

Early on, you were taught the five paragraph essay form as an effective way to organize your first efforts at writing an academic essay. We don't wholly disagree that it is a good place to start learning to think and write, but the five paragraph essay is not sophisticated enough for the intellectual work you will be asked to do in college. Don't let it become a crutch to your intellectual development!

The main problem with the five paragraph essay is that it is exactly backwards. You are supposed to begin with a thesis statement, and then lay out arguments in support of this thesis. But a thesis should be the end product of independent thinking, and not the starting point. Whereas in high school you were likely given topics and simple thesis with which to work (like compare/contrast thesis types), in college, you will be asked to come up with your own thesis ideas. For this, you will need to learn to use writing as a tool for developing your thinking.

Lets face it, thinking can be very messy, and writing is an organic (and not a linear) process. Given this, you should think in the direction of gardening: grow an idea as far as you can-- in fact until it becomes unwieldy. Continue to write forwards, and don't go backwards until it is time to edit your piece. (Editing/pruning is a different process from that of writing.) Think of your essay as a written record or representation of the process that you went through in order to arrive at your original ideas and conclusions. (You can always reverse engineer your essay to reflect any number of essay structures, as we teach you to do in our workshops...)

And remember, the original meaning for "essay" is to try something out. Even if you "fail" in your essay to prove a point (heck, you might even change your own mind!), you will have succeeded in writing an original essay.

es·say (s, -s)
n.
1. (s)
a. A short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author.
b. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay.
2. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students' capabilities.
3. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.
tr.v. (-s, s) es·sayed, es·say·ing, es·says
1. To make an attempt at; try.
2. To subject to a test.
[French essai, trial, attempt, from Old French, from essayer, to attempt, from Vulgar Latin *exagire, to weigh out, from Late Latin exagium, a weighing : Latin ex-, ex- + Latin agere, to drive; see ag- in Indo-European roots. V., from Middle English assaien, from Old French assaer, assaier, variant of essayer.]
es·sayer n.
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