ESSAY: WRITING A LONGER ESSAY Now you are ready to apply the knowledge you have gained from this unit to writing a longer paper. You know how to choose and limit a topic, prepare an outline, build coherent and unified paragraphs, use correct form and proper mechanics, develop sentences correctly and grammatically, and use words correctly and effectively. A longer paper of several paragraphs has a few special requirements. Here is your goal for this assignment: Plan, write, and revise an essay Thesis statement. A thesis statement for a paper of several paragraphs is similar to a topic sentence in a paragraph. It has a controlling idea for the entire paper that is a judgmental statement needing clear, convincing support. A typical thesis statement might be like one of these: The awards ceremony at Pittman High School was impressive. A desert survival course builds self-reliance. Friendship requires good understanding by both parties. The predicate of the thesis statement must say something about the subject that is meaningful, argumentative, exact, and limited. The subject of the thesis statement is the subject of each of the topic sentences, said in different ways to prevent repetition. Each topic sentence directly proves the thesis statement. Then the developmental paragraphs are made up of less general statements followed by specific support statements, just as you have been writing in your single paragraph essays. The thesis should be placed in the main clause of the last sentence in the introduction. Outline. Writing an outline will help you write a paper that is well organized and communicates best your ideas. An example outline for a 600-word essay is given: Introductory Paragraph Introduce subject Gain reader's attention State thesis in the last sentence of the introduction First Developmental Paragraph I. Topic sentence (with controlling idea that supports the thesis) A. Less general sentence proving topic sentence 1. Specific support for A 2. Specific support for A B. Another support for topic sent