Ⅱ. Organization

1. Some Principles

Like a paragraph, a composition must have unity. All the facts and all the ideas in an essay should contribute to the presentation of its thesis or central thought. Irrelevant things, however interesting they are, should be excluded. A speaker may be allowed to digress from his main subject for a little while, but a writer is not given such freedom.
A composition consists of several paragraphs, each of which has one central thought. They must be arranged in some kind of order, so that one paragraph leads naturally to another to form an organic whole. What the order should be depends on the nature of the subject, or the type of essay to be written. One possible method is to arrange the paragraphs according to the importance of the ideas they express, putting the more important after the less important, and the most important at the end of the essay, so as to bring about a climax.
Proportion is as important to an essay as it is to a painting. Main facts or ideas deserve full treatment; minor ones should be given less space. The essential part of an essay is the body or the middle part. To give this part about seven-or eight-tenths of the total space will be just right. The beginning and the end, though important, have to be short.

2. The Beginning

Most, if not all, essays are made up of a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning (the introduction) rouses the reader's interest in and secures his attention to the subject matter of the essay or provides necessary background information. The middle (the body) gives a clear and logical presentation of the facts and ideas the writer intends to put forth. The end (the conclusion) winds up the essay often with an emphatic and forceful statement to influence the reader's final impression of the essay and shows the implication or consequences of the argument.
To the writer the beginning is often the hardest part of an essay, because he has to decide from what point to start, and in what direction to go. There is no single way to begin all essays. The following are some possible approaches (all the examples may be used as the first paragraph of an essay on Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941):

(1) A quotation

Hegel, the German philosopher, says, "We learn from history that men never learn anything from history." This wry remark has been confirmed time and again by historical events, one of which is Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. He must have utterly forgotten or wilfully ignored the great disaster Napoleon brought upon himself by attacking Russia early in the nineteenth century.

(2) Figures or statistics

The attack on the Soviet Union was the largest and fiercest of all that Hitler had launched. He threw in 190 divisions, 3,000 tanks, over 5,000 planes, and altogether 5.5 million men.

(3) A question or several questions

What made Hitler decide to leave Britain alone for the time being and turn east to attack the Soviet Union? What made him so sure of a quick victory in that vast country where Napoleon had lost almost all his troops?

(4) The time and place of the event to be described

On the morning of June 22,1941, along the entire 1,800 kilometer-long Soviet frontier, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the fascist German forces attacked.

(5) Relevant background material

By the middle of 1941, Hitler had occupied fourteen European countries. All the manpower and resources of these countries, from France to Poland, from Norway to Greece, were at his disposal. It seemed to him that the time had come for his greatest venture - the invasion of the Soviet Union.

(6) An analogy

A traditional story describes a foolish man lifting a rock too heavy for him and having his own feet squashed. Hitler was like that foolish man, but he was different in that, before he destroyed himself, he destroyed millions of other people.

(7) A definition

Fascism can be defined as the use of brutal force in enslaving the people at home and the people of foreign countries. Fascism is oppression and aggression.

These beginnings may be appropriate for an expository essay. For narrative and descriptive writing there are many other possible ways, such as the description of a person's appearance, of a place, of a scene, etc., a dialogue, or an anecdote.
It is even sometimes practicable to write the introduction after the middle and end of the essay have been written.

3. The End

The end of an essay is important because it is often the part that gives the reader the deepest impression. Not every essay needs a separate concluding paragraph. For a short composition, the last paragraph of the body, even the last sentence of that paragraph, may serve as the end, so long as it can give the reader a feeling of completeness. A composition of over 1,000 words may require a concluding paragraph that summarizes the main points to help the reader to remember them. But if the points are arranged in a climactic sequence, the last point, which is the most important one, is good enough to be the end - a new paragraph would only weaken the climax.
Concluding paragraphs should be short, forceful, substantial, and thought-provoking, made up mainly of restatements or summaries of the points that have been discussed. No new ideas should be introduced in a concluding paragraph.
Sometimes it is good to link the concluding paragraph to the introductory. If, for instance, a question is raised in the introductory paragraph, an answer should be given in the concluding paragraph.