1
Unity Review Workshop: The Essay
The purpose of this workshop is to identify the degree of unity present in your essay.
We define “unity” as the quality of “oneness,” which in this case, means having central
ideas that glue the paper together. These central ideas are expressed as a solid thesis
statement and topic sentences that both develop the thesis and act as the central idea of
each paragraph.
Work in pairs or small groups for this workshop. You will need to give your paper to
another student, your reviewer, but before the reviewer reads your paper, identify your
paper’s thesis statement by underlining it. This will allow your reviewer to understand your
paper in terms of its central idea (the thesis). And of course, once the reviewer knows
your thesis statement, he or she will also know what the central idea (topic sentence) of
each paragraph is and something about the way you, the writer, developed each topic
sentence. You will perform the same reviewer function for another student writer.
The reviewer needs to put the paper through two levels of unity review. Each is
described below:
Level 1 Review (Essay Level)
In Level 1 Review, the reviewer checks to see if each of the topic sentences
explains or develops the thesis statement in one way or another. Ask yourself if each
topic sentence clearly relates to or has something to do with the thesis statement. Then
label each topic sentence as outlined below and share your findings with the writer.
S, for supports the thesis statement; or
O, for off-topic or partially off-topic regarding the thesis statement, and
C, for contradicts or partially contradicts the thesis.
Level 2 Review (Paragraph Level)
In Level 2 Review, the reviewer checks to see if each sentence in each body
paragraph supports or explains the topic sentence. As you did for your Level 1 Review,
ask yourself if each body sentence clearly relates to or has something to do with the topic
sentence. Then label each body sentence as outlined below and share your findings with
the writer.

S, for supports the topic sentence
Mt. Hood Community College
Mary Kelly Klein, Instructor, WR80-90-115
2


O, for off-topic or partially off-topic regarding the topic sentence, and
C, for contradicts or partially contradicts the topic sentence.
Please be aware of the fact that some papers may contain highly unified
paragraphs but no topic sentence. This, in fact, is a common error both among
student and professional writers. You will be performing an excellent service to a writer
by noticing this omission because the addition of topic sentences invariably helps the
paper flow much, much better.
Review Outcomes: Level 1 (Essay Level)
Now it is time for the writer to make any changes necessary to unify his or her paper.
Feel free to work with your writer if she or he so desires. Some writers like to work out
their ideas by themselves, and others thrive on input from a reviewer. In either case, the
writer is faced with two possible problems, and each will require different solutions to
resolve them.
1) Regarding off-topic topic sentences, the writer can
a) Eliminate them altogether, which sometimes means that an entire paragraph can or
should be eliminated. (Make sure you save your ideas, writers! Never throw away
or delete a good idea!!!!)
b) Explain their connection to the thesis by rewriting the topic sentence. Adding
snippets of the thesis or synonyms of key concepts in the thesis statement are
excellent ways to fix this problem.
c) Or the writer can change the thesis statement to include the ideas expressed in
the off-topic paragraph. This is usually the easiest way to deal with the problem of
off-topic topic sentences.
2) Regarding a topic sentence that contradicts the thesis statement, two alternatives are
available:
a) Eliminate it altogether, which sometimes means that an entire paragraph can or
should be eliminated. The problem with this, however, is that in an effort to be
consistent and present a unified piece of writing, the writer will be omitting
important information. This brings up the idea of intellectual honesty, that is,
college students are expected to deal with inconsistencies and contradictory
Mt. Hood Community College
Mary Kelly Klein, Instructor, WR80-90-115
3
information by helping a reader make sense of it. Sweeping it under the rug by
eliminating it introduces the risk of intellectual dishonesty.
b) Change the thesis statement in order to deal with inconsistent or contradictory
information by using concession. The words though, although, even though, and
while can be used to deal with the contradictory information without disrupting the
writer’s discussion of his or her main idea. In this manner, the writer can present
two points of view in one sentence, thereby giving the reader a richer, more highly
informative view of an issue, concept, person, event, and the like. The thesis
statement may then read something like this: “Although blah-blah-blah, yadda-yaddayadda.” In this case the “blah-blah-blah” is the contradictory information and the
“yadda-yadda-yadda” is the original thesis statement.
Review Outcomes: Level 2 (Paragraph Level)
Level 2 review outcomes are very similar to Level 1, above. Again, feel free to work
with your writer if she or he so desires, but remember that some writers like to work out
their ideas by themselves. In either case, the writer is faced with same two possible
problems as those outlined above, and each will require different solutions to resolve them.
Follow the same process above, but apply the unity test to the body paragraph sentences—
do they support the paragraph’s topic sentence, are they off-topic, or do they contradict the
topic sentences. In addition, if you find that a number of sentences in a paragraph are
off-topic or contradict the topic sentence, the writer may be able to
c) Group the off-topic and/or contradictory sentences into a new paragraph . If so,
then they will also need their own topic sentence, which can be tricky because the
topic sentence has two jobs: it helps explain the paper’s thesis statement (or
central idea) and it unifies the paragraph that it heads. If the writer chooses this
path—and sometimes it is positively the best path, then he or she may need to
change the paper’s thesis statement by adding to the thesis statement, or in the
case of contradictory information, using concession (2b and 4b, above) to change
the thesis statement.
Again, do ask for help if you hit a rough patch. And you know the rules about asking
for an extension—your request needs to be in writing and it needs to state a date by which
the paper will be in my campus mailbox—and it cannot be more than one class meeting
beyond its due date, unless you have negotiated some other arrangement with me.
Mt. Hood Community College
Mary Kelly Klein, Instructor, WR80-90-115