---If you cannot make an outline, you probably didn't do the paragraph or essay correctly.
---You need to focus on answering the question.
Structure for a Short Essay
For the thesis, rewrite the question as an answer, and add your subtopics:
For example, if this is the question:
In his essay, "A Homemade Education," Malcolm X talks about the importance of an education. Do you agree that it
is important nowadays to have an education?
You can answer like this:
"It is important nowadays to have an education because [subtopic 1] and [subtopic 2]."
The part before the subtopics, where you answer the question, "It is important nowadays to have an education," is
the claim (or unifying element), so the thesis should have the claim and subtopics. You don't have to use the word
"because," but the subtopics should be the reasons for your claim.
Then focus on the subtopics.
Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence that relates to the claim and one subtopic. After the topic sentence,
you can break your body paragraphs into supporting ideas, or you can just fill it with detail sentences and not break
it into supporting ideas.
After the first body paragraph, make sure the rest of the body paragraphs have topic sentences that start with
transitions.
Also, for longer essays, you can beak longer body paragraphs into main points.
Finish with the concluding paragraph.
If the question is about a text, you need to let the reader know author and title of the text in the introduction because
you need to be clear about what you are writing.