Division of a Paper

     As any student in any college knows, there are going to be times when they are going to have to write a paper and turn it in for some kind of grade. That paper is either going to make or break their course grade. A well written paper has to have three main parts. An intro, with which we "hook" the teacher, the content, which keeps the teacher interested in what we are writing, and an outro, which sums the paper up in a nice neat little package and ties up all the little loose ends. Unless the paper is about little loose ends and in that case they probably won't get all tied up, but left flapping in the proverbial breeze for a good teacher to see.
        The intro is that first sentence,or first paragraph, first chapter, first page, whatever it is to be called depending on the length of the paper. It is the thing that grabs the teacher and says "I know what might interest you," to him or her. It is what peaks the interest, like those warm wonderful aromas in the kitchen right before Thanksgiving.(Sigh) A good intro has three parts to it. A really good quote, question or a startling/descriptive statement. A statement that will grab the teacher by the throat and say,"READ ME", and then the rest of the paragraph says, "I HAVE KNOWLEDGE FOR YOU." The third part should lead the teacher by the hand right into the content of the paper.
        The content of the paper is the fleshing out of what was brought up in the intro. Ideally, there should be three parts to back up whatever the writer is trying to say. There can be more but there really needs to be at least three points. Three little bitty corroborating pieces of information is all it takes to back up what is trying to be drummed into the poor teacher's brain. More than that and the poor guy gets a headache form trying to read a gazillion papers with a gazillion points, less than that and he might still be...confused. Each point should have its own sentence, paragraph, section, chapter whatever the length of the paper is. For example, a book is nothing more than a really long paper. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end; it just has more chapters to back up the points.The points usually being; point one-boy meets girl, point two-boy loses girl, and point three-girl realizes she dodged a bullet and gets away laughing. This is where sequels come in, but that is a different point.When the third paragraph finally winds down, and the teacher realizes there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel, he should be led gently in to the outro.
         Finally, the last part of the assignment, is the summary or the outro. The outro is that part of the paper that sums everything, in the preceding parts up, in a nice neat little packge, if it can be done, making it easy for the teacher to remember what the paper was about. It recaps everything, ties up all those loose little ends laying around. The outro has to be there, due to the fact that the teacher, after having read so many papers and paragraphs, can't remember what he has just read when he gets down to the end of the piles of papers he has to read. This refreshes his memory just a bit. It is a way for the writer to leave her readers with whatever attitude that she wants. It is the last chapter in the book where the heroine is glad she got away, or got married, whichever and can even hint to the sequel if there is to be one.
         Any one of us can write any kind of paper. To put it together with some kind of cohesion, so that the end fits the beginning, and the middle, is what the teacher gets paid to drill into our little heads and what every student tries to do. As long as we have that basic formula down, we can do it in any order that we want to and we can still rest assured that we will at least pass the course. As long as we pass the work in to him at some point, for his reading pleasure, and a passing grade.