 Now all writing has structure, there is first the introduction, then the main body in which the ideas are developed and third the conclusion. So let me repeat, all writing has structure and the structure is very simple. It is in three parts, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. Let us look at the introduction. The introduction is concerned with the topic or the subject of writing. In the introductory paragraph you will state the problem or the issue whatever you are writing on in a few general statements, right? To attract your reader, to attract your reader's attention and you will write a thesis statement, a thesis statement to say how you intend to treat the topic of your essay. The thesis statement is just like the topic sentence in a paragraph. Have you got the point? The thesis statement which you will write in your introductory paragraph will state how you intend to treat the topic. It is similar to the topic sentence in a paragraph. Now how would you try to catch the reader's attention? So that the reader would want to continue reading. Now this can be done in a number of ways. You can pose a question, you can use a quotation, an apt quotation mind you, you can use a dialogue, you can have a striking description or an image in words or you can make a controversial statement, a statement that would make your reader sit up and want to read on or you could develop a historical perspective or a background. Start with the history of whatever you are writing on or you can begin by making an appeal for some action or for change. Now all these that I said are ways of trying to catch your reader's attention. You will be very careful. You will choose the one that suits your purpose of writing. Not all of them are suitable, right? The next thing is the main body, the main body of the essay. This is the second part of the essay, the major part and this is where you develop the main idea with the help of examples and details. This part consists of more than one paragraph and each paragraph develops a subdivision of your topic. So the number of paragraphs will vary with the number of subdivisions. You can organize the ideas either by chronological order or by way of importance just as you did for a single paragraph. And the third part of your essay is the conclusion and here in the third and the last part you draw your conclusion. There are many ways of ending your composition. You could create a feeling of finale, a feeling well that all right now it is coming to an end. Now this may take the form of a summary, a summary or a review of the main points discussed in the body of the essay. Here you may even propose recommendations. You may even give your decision, right, your opinion. Now we will look at on your screen you will see the diagram and you will see in graphic form what you have learned today. You have the three parts of the essay, the first part is the introduction, the second part is the main body and the third part is the conclusion. Now in your introduction you will have a general statement or a number of statements and with those statements you will have your thesis statement. The thesis statement in the thesis statement you will show how you are going to treat the topic. Then you move on to the main body. Now over there on your screen you are just shown three, these are three paragraphs. It is not necessary that you write three paragraphs in the main body. It can be more than three paragraphs, it could be five paragraphs, six paragraphs. It all depends on what you are writing, what is the purpose of your writing and how much material you have got, how much content you have got. It is here that you are going to develop the content of your essay and notice that each paragraph has a topic sentence, a supporting evidence which could be in the form of illustrations, examples, facts, figures and then there will be a concluding sentence. That is for one paragraph. The same pattern you will follow for the next paragraph. You will have the topic sentence, you will have supporting evidence and you will support your evidence by giving examples, by giving facts, figures, statistics, right? And you will have a concluding sentence. And the same thing will continue till you have said all that you have to say. And the third part will be the conclusion. And again, your conclusion will be either a restatement of what has been said earlier. It could be a summary. You could summarize the points that you made in the main body and you can add something. It is not necessary that you confine yourself to a summary or a restatement. It all depends on what you are writing, on your topic and your purpose. I am sure you have noticed that I keep repeating. It all depends on the topic of your writing, on the topic, on the subject of your writing and on the purpose of your writing, right? And you have to give your opinion or your decision and sometimes you are even required to make recommendations if you are dealing with a problem. And you would like to recommend that certain steps be taken. It is here. In this part, the third part, that you will make your recommendations, your suggestions for any action or any steps that have to be taken. Now I would like you to look at the paragraph, the slide on paragraph. Notice it is the same pattern, the topic sentence and then you have got support, support, support which is in the form of facts, figures, examples, statistics, whatever and then you have got a concluding sentence. So this, if you have learned to write a paragraph, you will have no difficulty in writing an essay. The only difference is of length, how you expand your ideas, right? Now in essay writing, paragraphs are written and designed to serve as part of a longer composition. In a skillfully written essay, each paragraph has its own proper place, just as each word has its proper place in a coherent emphatic sentence. Now when you are writing, if you revise your work, you will realize that, oh, this paragraph should not be over here, this paragraph should come earlier. So in your, in step four, where you revise, after you have written your essay, go back and look at the paragraphs, look at the order in which the paragraphs are coming and you might want to change their position that this paragraph, paragraph A should not be there, it should be where paragraph C is and when you are revising, you can make all these changes. Just as there is a problem of transition from one sentence to another within the paragraph, so there is some problem when dealing with a group of paragraphs. So you can see that writing an essay is essentially the same as writing a paragraph. It has the same problems, the problems of transition, the problem of unity, the problem of coherence and the problem of emphasis. So when you are writing, you can juggle with your paragraphs in your, when you revise your paragraph C, which one, sometimes we do not realize it, but when you revise, we realize that paragraphs ought to be shifted and you can do that. And as you can see, writing an essay is essentially the same as writing a paragraph. Step four is revising and this is the most important part of writing, it is a practice that our students do not indulge in, they are not encouraged to develop this habit. Whatever you write, revising means that you rewrite, build upon what you have written to make it better. Students tend to hand in what they have written, without taking a look at it. They expect the teacher to make the correction, of course the teacher will correct them, but you do your bit, you have written something, go over it. I would rather the student correct his mistakes himself, rather than wait for the teacher to do it. So revising means that you rewrite, build upon what you have written to make it better. It is at this stage that you try to get rid of unnecessary material. You try to improve on what you are going to retain. What you don't want, what you feel is irrelevant, throw it out, cut it out, but what you feel that you must retain, see if you can improve on it. Excuse me. Try to improve on what you feel that you must retain. A typical revision means writing one or two more drafts. One draft you have written already, you revise it, leave it, go back to it again. Even if you go back to a piece of writing after say 10 minutes, you will find that you want to make changes in it. I always feel that there is always room for improvement. And in writing, the more you write, the more you will get into the habit of revising what you have written. And when you revise, you will find that your revision is definitely better than what you have written earlier. What you revised, what you produced second time is better than what you wrote the first time. Now here, at this stage, you insert details that you left out. You may put in transition words which would make smoother reading. And if you are working on a word processor, take out a hard copy so that you can see the entire document at one time. Step 5 is proofreading. And this is the final stage in the writing process. It means checking carefully for spelling, grammar, punctuation and other mistakes, other errors. Use your dictionary for this purpose. Proofreading is often hard work and students want to avoid proofreading, proofing. If proofing is done carefully, it will ensure that your written work looks as good as possible. Now these were the five steps in the process of writing. Whatever you write, you will notice that if you follow these steps, the work that you produce will definitely be better. There is no single correct way of writing English. Good writing depends on a set of specific skills. And these skills are involved in writing, the three skills. The three skills are involved in writing. The first one is skill of communication, the skill of putting your ideas across to the reader. Number two is the skill of organizing, organizing your ideas in the shape of sentences and paragraphs. And the third skill is the stylistic skill, the skill of style, achieving the right level of formality or achieving the right tone for your writing. Now these skills will not come to you at once. It is over a period of time after a lot of writing. If you do a lot of term papers, do a lot of written assignments, gradually you will overcome the fear of writing. You will learn to put across your ideas to your readers. You will learn to organize your ideas, give them some shape and you will learn to use the right tone.