: Re: How do I structure an essay into a thesis statement and three points in three paragraphs? -this is not a school homework I'm writing an essay but I struggle with thesis statements and paragraphs.

@Annie587

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Hmm, who says that an essay must have three main points?

If this is a school assignment, and the teacher says "you must write an essay with three main points", etc, then if you have an idea for an essay that you just can't hammer into three main points, I'd say use a different idea.

If you're writing an essay because you want to talk about this particular subject, then it doesn't matter how many main points you have, whether it's 3 or 2 or 5. Just make the points you want to make. I've written lots of essays, and I never say, "Oh, blast, I have 4 main points, I've got to figure out which one to leave out." (I may say, "Oh, blast, I have 20 main points, this is way too much for one essay. I need to leave something out.")

If you need to meet an arbitrary standard for a class, I'd say, Just hammer it into the mold. If you are required to have exactly three main points, think through what you're trying to say and see if you cannot extract three main points. Like if you're trying to support a thesis, what are the tree main arguments you can come up with for that thesis? If you have four, then drop one or perhaps combine two into one. If you have only two, then try to think of a third, or break one into two parts.

If I was teaching a class, I might give an assignment like this to force the student to think about what his main points are and to enumerate them. I would not give such an assignment to say that in general, every essay must have exactly three points.

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