Comments on: Why Five-Paragraph Essays are Bullshit

By: How to Write an Essay | Likes to Ramble

How to Write an Essay | Likes to Ramble — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:12:42 +0000

[...] Essays are not five paragraphs long. Essays are arguments, plain and simple. A well-written essay should read like one side of a great debate: it states what the argument (or thesis) is, it brings up all the counterpoints, disproves them, and draws a conclusion from the mess. It’s all about the journey from thesis to conclusion, and that journey can, theoretically, be however long you want. [...]

By: Thomas J. Wilson

Thomas J. Wilson — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:18:51 +0000

This was quite interesting. After having to write these 5-paragraph essays all through high school (and a few times in college so far), I have to say that I completely agree with you.

By: Top Five Reasons for the Popularity of Top Ten Lists | Likes to Ramble

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:16:30 +0000

[...] but I think my points stand better if there’s only five of them. After all, who needs to be restricted by formatting? So without further rambling, here is the top five reasons why top ten lists are so damn [...]

By: Bran Rainey

Bran Rainey — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:54:07 +0000

Very true, Mike.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:14:08 +0000

I was just thinking (although I haven’t looked into it at all): it seems likely the ubiquity of the five-paragraph essay goes right along with the increase in standardized testing. The form sounds exactly like it was designed to be easy to score (by underpaid part-time test readers in, e.g., Omaha) and nothing like it was designed to teach people how to write.

By: Jason Hicks

Jason Hicks — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:03:17 +0000

I’m usually too worried about getting all my ideas on paper (or electronic document) to worry about formatting too much. If I can get something to sound half-way coherent then I consider it a success.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:45:34 +0000

Hahaha. This is funny, and well-written (of course), and you're right (of course). I also notice you stuck to five grafs. A couple of points, though: nobody ever heard of the five-paragraph essay until quite recently -- it must have been invented in the 80s or 90s. The person who invented the essay was Michel de Montaigne. And as for ending sentences with prepositions, there's a famous line attributed to Churchill, who, reacting to some pinhead civil servant editing his writing to avoid final prepositions, said: “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

By: Twitted by sondraftw

Twitted by sondraftw — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:25:00 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by sondraftw [...]