After you’ve settled on the supporting points you want to make and the evidence you’ll use to develop your ideas, spend some time thinking about how you will put everything together for your readers.

Introduction. Your introduction sets the tone for your essay and influences how your readers understand and interpret the information that you give them. Most informative essays present the thesis statement in the introduction so that readers will grasp the writer’s main idea from the start. Beyond stating your thesis, you can use a range of strategies to introduce your ideas. Two effective options are providing a historical account and asking a question. Historical accounts, such as the one George Chauncey offers at the beginning of “The Legacy of Antigay Discrimination,” can help your readers understand the origins of a subject and how the situation has changed over time. Asking a question invites your readers to become participants in the conversation.

Organization. The organization of your essay also affects how readers respond to your points. Your organizing strategy should take into account your purposes and your readers’ needs and interests, as well as the nature and amount of evidence you’ve assembled to support your points. To organize your essay, choose an organizing pattern and create an outline or a map. You can use a wide range of organizing patterns in an informative essay, but some are better suited to the genre than others. If you are informing your readers about an event or a series of events, for instance, you might want to use chronological order to structure your essay. If you are providing an overview of competing ideas about an issue, you might choose comparison and contrast. And if you are explaining the defining characteristics of a subject, such as the typical attitudes of college-age voters, description might be a useful pattern to follow.

Conclusion. You’ve probably read conclusions that simply summarize a document. These summaries can be effective, especially if your essay has presented complex concepts. A conclusion can do more, however, than simply restate your points. If you asked a question in your introduction, for instance, consider answering it in your conclusion. And if you want your readers to continue thinking about your subject after they’ve finished reading your essay, you might conclude by offering additional insights about what the information you’ve provided might mean for readers, as featured writer Ellen Page does in her finished essay.

Chapter 16 provides additional strategies for writing introductions and conclusions. Chapter 15 provides information about organizing patterns, outlines, and maps.