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Importance of Accessibility & Usability 

• Categories: Graphic Design

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Words: 1197 |

Published: Oct 11, 2018

Words: 1197 | Pages: 3 | 6 min read

Guidelines for different age groups

• Visual perception
• Memory and knowledge
• Strategies for information retrieval
• Mental models for predicting interactions and outcomes
• Problem-solving and decision making
• Emotion-driven behavior
• Multi-modal
• Error-tolerant
• Attention-focusing
• Improving web accessibility for this audience will improve access for everyone.

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Accessible writing is just good writing

The Writer Team

Accessibility is a big, complex topic that touches every aspect of human life. In the digital realm alone, designing for accessibility involves an almost overwhelming variety of best practices. You only have to scan The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to get an immediate sense of how many different elements go into creating fully accessible content. 

Content strategists must be proactive about improving accessibility. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a billion people experience some form of disability , and many of these disabilities — such as blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, and photosensitivity — affect how a person experiences digital content.

In the not-so-distant past, many organizations did little more than apply accessibility Band-aids like adding alt text to images. Fortunately, accessibility has become part of the mainstream content conversation, and organizations are learning a lot more about what’s at stake and how to do a better job at making their content available to a wider audience.

The good news is that making content more accessible is a win-win. It makes it possible for people with disabilities to access and enjoy your content, and it also delivers a better experience for everyone else. Put simply, accessible writing is just good writing. It works for everyone.

In this article, we’re going to touch on some of the core, foundational elements that make your content more accessible to a wider audience. We’ll touch on:

• The key attributes of accessible writing
• Examples of companies that get it right
• Some material you can cut and paste into your style guide
• Tips on strategies to help you implement accessibility best practices across your organization

You and your team work really hard on your content. You owe it to yourselves and to your audience to create an accessible content experience. This starter guide will help you identify places where you can start to build a strong foundation for that experience.

Use precise language and a functional structure

If your content is easy to understand, more people will be able to engage with it. When developing content, remember that not everyone has the same experience, background, or reading level. One rule of thumb is to write for an average literacy level. 

Using clear language also helps you build trust with your audience. For example, in our plain language guide , we noted that the number one factor that increases consumer trust is easy-to-understand “terms and conditions” (according to the Edelman Trust Barometer ). Bottom line: aim for maximum readability.

Key question:

Will the meaning be clear to my intended audience?

Keeping your writing simple can be difficult if you need to include complex terminology. Whatfix includes callout sections to explain terms that might confuse the reader.

For inspiration on how to explain complex topics simply, check out the ELI5 (Explain Like I’m Five) Reddit thread.

Tips to steal for your style guide

• Use plain language and short sentences (aim for a maximum of 25 words per sentence)
• Use short paragraphs (aim for a maximum of five sentences per paragraph)
• Use the active voice instead of the passive voice wherever possible
• If you use acronyms, abbreviations, or complex terms, explain them clearly

Organize your content with titles, headers, and bulleted lists

A logical and clear structure goes a long way toward making content more accessible and easier to understand, whether or not the reader has a disability.

It’s much easier for a screen reader to correctly process a piece of content if it is well-structured using a page title and subheadings to organize the text. A clear and thoughtful structure is also important for SEO (search engine optimization) because it helps search engines understand what’s on your website.

Using headers and bulleted lists also makes it easier for readers to skim your content, which helps them quickly assess if it can answer their questions. Making content skimmable is a critical way to keep readers engaged and get them to the content they need as quickly as possible. The Animalz Benchmark Report found that the median time spent on a page in 2021 was three minutes and nineteen seconds. That’s not a lot of time to make the right impression. If you don’t put your important content in obvious places, people won’t stay around long enough to read it.

Does my content make sense if someone only reads the headers?

• Break your text up into digestible sections
• Use headings to make text skimmable
• Create a hierarchy of information: your most important points should stand out
• Organize text with heading levels: an H1 followed by H2s, H3s, and H4s
• Use lists to summarize long or complex content

Use meaningful link text

A study by The Lancet found that, as of 2020, 43.4 million people live with blindness, and 295 million live with visual impairments or low vision. People using screen readers to access web pages sometimes listen to a list of links at the start of the article instead of accessing them in the context of the article. To avoid confusion, your links should make sense out of context, meaning someone can understand what’s behind the link based on which words are linked. In Moz’s SEO guide, they advise making sure your link text is “succinct” and “relevant” to the page it’s linking to.

Another thing to note is that readers using speech recognition software select links with voice commands. If you use the same link text multiple times, these readers won’t be able to tell which link is the one  they want.

It’s also a common mistake to link directly to a download or content that automatically opens in a new window. This can be confusing for everyone, but especially for people using assistive technology. Make sure you inform readers about the new window right in the link text. For example, instead of just writing “annual report,” write “download our annual report as a PDF” or “our annual report (opens in a new tab).”

Do my links make sense out of context and provide a clear sense of where they lead?

• Write descriptive link text that makes sense out of context — avoid “click here”
• Limit links to 100 characters
• Use unique link text where possible
• Inform users if a link will automatically open in a new tab or download a file
• “Click” is not an inclusive instruction. Use “select” instead.

Provide content in different media formats

There are many reasons that someone might want to access your content in a variety of different media formats:

• They might use assistive technology like reading pens or screen readers that convert text to audio.
• They might have different learning styles or be neurodivergent — for example, folks with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or autism — and need to process information in different ways to retain it.
• They might be experiencing content that isn’t in their native language.
• They might be in an environment that makes it difficult to hear or see clearly (for example, on public transportation or in a crowded office).

Is my content appropriate and adaptable for more than one medium or learning style?

Write descriptive alt text

It’s important to add descriptions or alternative text (“alt text”) to your images so your visual content can be accessed by people who are blind or living with other visual impairments.

Does the alt text on my images include enough detail to be helpful to someone who can’t see it?

Moz suggests creating alt text that’s descriptive enough so that if someone were to read the alt text, they could imagine what the image looks like.

In this example, “man on escalator” is okay, but the best alt text is more specific: “man wearing backpack walking down escalator.”

Alt text should be succinct. If you need to write a longer description, put it in the main body of the text.

Many apps, like Twitter, now offer the option to add alt text to your images within the platform. If the platform doesn’t offer the option, simply write a description in the caption.

• Write alt text that’s equivalent to the visual content
• Explain images fully in context — unless they are purely decorative 
• Make alt text succinct (aim for 80-125 characters)
• Make sure that any text in a graphic format is purely decorative
• If your images include important text (such as in an infographic), write this information in the caption or in the main body

Include captions, transcripts, and audio options

Adding captions and transcripts to your video and audio content is a valuable way to give people options about how they want to interact with and experience your content. Screen readers help people convert text to audio, but you may also want to consider creating a dedicated audio option for written content.

Key questions:

Does my content include easy-to-follow instructions, helpful descriptions, and clear labels to guide people? Is my content available in a variety of visual and audio formats?

Optimize your writing for easy navigation and usability

Well-written and well-organized content makes for a better user experience. It keeps people engaged with your site or app, and makes sure they have a positive experience.

To make it easier to navigate their site, Airbnb uses microcopy to clarify what to type in each field in the search bar. For example, under the label “Location,” it says, “Where are you going?” 

Work with your web developers to make sure you:

• Use the correct HTML tags for the content type .
• Ensure good color contrast (so text can be read by people with color blindness) — or offer the option to increase color contrast, like Twitter does .
• Make your site accessible to people who rely on their keyboard to navigate, for example, by providing keyboard shortcuts, like Facebook does .
• Format your web content for mobile phones and different device sizes. We recommend checking out the Bitrise mobile accessibility guide .

Many content management systems offer dynamic templates, and you can use developer tools in Google Chrome to check how your site looks and responds at different screen sizes.

• Avoid directional language like “click the box on the left”
• Write instructions that make sense regardless of the page layout
• Write descriptive form labels, so it’s clear exactly what people need to enter

Test your content for accessibility

The best way to ensure maximum usability for the widest audience is to conduct extensive testing with a diverse group of people across different devices and different software.

Here are some tools for checking your content’s accessibility:

• OpenClassrooms course : A guide on how to access your content with assistive technologies
• axe DevTools and WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) : Extensions that identify accessibility issues. Sparkbox recommends them in their review of automated accessibility tools .
• OpenDyslexic : A font plug-in that makes it easier for people with dyslexia to read web pages.

Key takeaway: Don’t assume that just because your content works for you that it will work for everyone.

Collaborate with your team for consistency

Your content exists in an interconnected ecosystem that spans a network of topics, channels, formats, and audiences. To create a consistent and seamless user experience, everyone on your team needs to understand what makes content accessible.

Jennifer Schmich, Intuit’s senior manager of content systems, says accessibility affects almost every aspect of their content — including the code, design, and language choices. “When it comes to inclusivity, we always ask ourselves, ‘ Are our customers seen? ’” Schmich says.

The first step to getting your team on board with improving accessibility is to start with clear communication about why you’re making changes to your style guide. By helping people understand the reasons behind these changes, they’ll be more likely to take ownership over their role in the effort.

Set up regular check-ins to stay on top of progress, setbacks, and new opportunities. Making your content accessible is definitely not a once-and-done effort. It’s important to establish ongoing reviews and updates as part of your overall content development and publishing process. You can use a collaborative tool like Trello to keep everyone on the same page and define roles and tasks.. For best results, avoid attempting sweeping changes. Instead, break your accessible transformation down into small tasks and assign them to different team members.

Accessible writing is an ongoing process

Like we said before, accessibility is a huge topic. If you try to take the whole thing on at once, there’s a good chance you’ll end up feeling overwhelmed. The most realistic and effective approach is to start small and gradual, and then keep making steady improvements over time. If you adopt this kind of strategy, you’ll be in good company. The truth is that even the biggest, most sophisticated companies in the world haven’t gotten accessibility completely figured out. We’re all on this journey together. 

The W3C has some helpful suggestions for how to get started on their Writing for Web Accessibility page . Again, don’t feel like you have to do everything at the same time. Pick one or two areas to focus on, and remember to share the responsibility with your teammates. 

At the same time, you might want to work on adding some of the tips we shared in this article to your style guide, and scheduling some time to talk with your team about accessibility. There’s a lot to be said for simply getting the conversation started. 

--> “A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.” -->

May Habib CEO, Writer.com

Here’s what else you should know about Ascending.

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Style guides

Inclusive writing: accessibility and readability, definitions, accessibility guidance, readability guidance, further resources.

Accessible writing means making sure all users can read and understand what you write, including users with different mental and physical abilities. It includes the language you use, the structure of the text and the way you organise and present content.

Accessibility is particularly important to those who use assistive technology such as screen readers to help them navigate content. But it also helps everyone understand your writing more easily.

One aspect of accessibility is readability. This refers to how clear and understandable your language is to all audiences.

• Use clear headings in your writing, and use headings in their logical order. This helps people understand the structure of your content and find what they want more easily.
• Put meaningful words first in headings. For example, ‘Accessibility guidance’ not ‘Guidance on accessibility’, because it is quicker for users to understand the meaning when they scan.
• Where appropriate, use numbered or bulleted lists to display information, as these are easier to scan and comprehend than blocks of text.
• If you want readers to do something, include a simple and accurate ‘call to action’ in your writing.
• Use bold text for emphasis or headings, rather than italics or underlining. This can be easier for dyslexic people to read.
• When writing for the web, format headings using heading styles (such as 'heading 2' or 'heading 3'), rather than just using bold text. Correctly styled headings mean that people using screen readers can navigate your content.
• For example, use ‘For further guidance on writing accessible web content, check our writing for the web resources ’ rather than ‘For further guidance on writing accessible web content, click here ’.
• Use unique text for hyperlinks with different destinations.
• Try to use the same text for links that go to the same destination page.

Remember that creating accessible content is about more than just writing. It also includes the way you use images, colour and design, and the size, font and formatting of your text.

When writing for the web, accessibility also involves using alt text; captioning videos; and correctly tagging content. Find out more about web accessibility .

Try to use language that is accessible to people with a lower literacy level or those whose first language is not English.

• For example, instead of writing ‘key points’, use ‘important information’ or ‘essential information’ – a non-native English speaker will likely understand ‘key’ to mean something that unlocks a door, and may not have encountered the more metaphorical use.
• The gov.uk website has a list of words to avoid and some useful alternatives .
• For example, ‘EDI’ should be written as ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’.
• Avoid writing ‘UoB’ as a shorthand for the University of Bristol.
• For example, on first use, write ‘School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS)’.
• It may be useful to write out acronyms in full whenever they are used in a new page or section, to make sure all readers understand the meaning.
• Use ‘for example’ instead of ‘eg’
• Use ‘that is’ instead of ‘ie’
• Use ‘note’ instead of ‘nb’
• Use ‘per year’ instead of ‘per annum’
• Avoid using ‘etc’.
• Negative contractions such as ‘shouldn't’, ‘don't’ and ‘can't’ can also be hard for some readers to understand.
• Content Design London’s Readability Guidelines website is a useful resource that can help make your writing more readable.
• You could try using the Hemingway Editor to make your writing clearer.
• For further guidance on writing accessible web content, check our writing for the web resources  and and advice on creating digitally accessible content .
• For guidance on creating accessible and inclusive teaching and learning materials, see the Digital Education Office webpages .
• To find further information about behaviour that is not tolerated at the University, and report unacceptable behaviour, visit our pages for students or staff .

Other sections

• Ethnicity and race
• Nationality
• Religion, faith and belief
• Sex and gender
• Sexual orientation
• Socioeconomic status

Writing accessible content

Select Section

On This Page: -->

• Use simple, concise language.
• Organize and structure the content .
• Write clear instructions .
• Refer to the Disability Language Style Guide .
• Use Canvas' Rich Content Editor to format text .
• Use the Equation Editor to format equations and notations .

For everyone

Write to communicate. Clear, concise writing takes skill and time, but the benefits to your readers are profound.

Most people don't read closely on the web. Instead, they skim over content, searching for just the information they need.  Text that is brief, to the point, and well organized not only helps everyone but is crucial for people with reading, memory and attention deficit or other cognitive conditions and those who speak English as a second language.

Simple, concise language

Edit your content to make it as understandable and succinct as possible:

• Use short, simple sentences.
• Try to keep paragraphs to one main idea.
• Cut or condense what  4 Syllables  calls "wordy writing, repetition, and low-value content," such as welcome messages and "introductions that state the obvious or repeat information that appears further down the page."
• Use descriptive and unique link text (e.g., “Chapter 2 on biometrics” rather than “chapter” or “click here”).
• Clarify your text with images or video.
• Avoid jargon and ambiguous, obscure or complex words and phrases.
• Avoid idioms, such as "piece of cake" and "sit on the fence."
• Spell out abbreviations and acronyms the first time they are used.
• Use the Equation Editor in Canvas' Rich Content Editor.

• Juicy Studio's Readability Test
• Hemmingway Editor

Organize and structure content

• Group related ideas under hierarchical  headings to organize content, to establish relationships between chunks of content. and to visually break up large, daunting chunks of text.
• Use numbered or bulleted lists, which are easy to scan and comprehend. Use bullet lists to arrange related items; numbered lists indicate a process.

Clear instructions

Don't assume people know what you want them to do on your site or course.  Provide simple, clear instructions, help tips, and error messages.  Avoid jargon and technical terms.  Describe form input requirements, such as date and phone number formats.

Disability Language Style Guide

For a guide on writing about disabilities, please refer to the Disability Language Style Guide , provided by the National Center on Disability and Journalism and ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

For instructors

• Use the Equation Editor to format equations and notations .  

Canvas Rich Content Editor

In addition to the suggestions for everyone, make sure to use the Canvas Rich Content Editor to format content. The Rich Content Editor's built-in styles for headings, bold and italic, links, lists, tables and image, file and document uploads will automatically add the underlying HTML code needed to ensure your content is accessible.

Equation Editor

Accessibility Connections

• For accessibility in online learning and education, join the UDAT working group .
• Connect with us on ASU's  #accessibility   Slack   channel.
• Subscribe to ASU's  ITACCESS mailing list .

Snapsolve any problem by taking a picture. Try it in the Numerade app?

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6 Effective Sentences

In these passages, a twentieth-century essayist/editor uses three sentences to express what a nineteenth-century novelist/critic says in one. Which is the “better” piece of writing? The question is meaningless – or rather, it’s badly formulated. The common-sense question to ask about writing is: How well does it work ? In order to answer that, we should first consider two other questions: What does it intend to do? To whom is it addressed? A writer’s purpose and audience quite naturally help to determine style, and we shouldn’t be surprised to find Stendahl’s writing often looking like the second example and White’s writing like the first – when appropriate. Given the purposes and audiences of each of these quotations, they both “work” equally well in their contexts.

If the rule for a paragraph is that it should have unity, coherence and emphasis , then the rule for a sentence is that it should make sense. Let’s look again at White’s middle sentence. It expresses a half dozen ideas: his respect for the reader; his gratitude for the reader’s “trouble”; his acknowledgement that he’s a “slow reader” himself; his assumption that “most people are”; his obligation to clarify his thoughts; and his confession that he might not be able to fully express himself anyway. White could have written all that in six separate, precise sentences – but he chose to use a more personal, colloquial manner in order to engage his reader; to show his reader that writing, as well as reading, is a careful, thoughtful process. If you understood that (or if you felt that while reading his sentence), then White succeeded in writing a truly effective sentence. Indeed, his sentence obeys the “rule” to be clear just as well as Stendahl’s short epigram. And as White suggests in his last sentence, that complicated middle one was probably rewritten “a good deal” before it appeared in its final form. Notice too, how White brackets the long sentence with two short, concise ones to vary the pace of his unfolding argument and avoid overwhelming his reader.

In light of these two very different examples of sentences that work, it might seem silly to try to identify the “ideal” sentence. But remember that we’re working on a particular type of writing project in these worksheets, so we can make some general assumptions about your audience and goals. We can say that generally, concrete nouns for your subject and active verbs introducing the predicate help your reader quickly grasp what you’re talking about and what you wish to say about your topic. These work better than abstract nouns and passive verbs. Generally , it’s more effective to modify your nouns and verbs with individual adjectives and adverbs rather than complicated phrases or clauses – simply because you don’t want unnecessary words to weaken good ideas.

Consider this first paragraph from a student essay:

What is a hero? Why do we admire certain people in our society? Since the beginning of time man has searched for someone to imitate and to use as a role model in his own life. In many ancient civilizations there is literature which centers on a hero of that time. But over time man has changed tremendously; or has he? No matter how advanced our civilization becomes, our heroes generally possess the same qualities and attributes. One of the oldest writings that modern man possesses, The Epic of Gilgamesh , is based on a hero and his adventures that he encounters during his lifetime.  Although The Epic of Gilgamesh was written over 5,000 years ago, the hero Gilgamesh would still be a hero today. The reason why one may consider Gilgamesh a modern day hero is because he is strong, sensitive, confident (yet humble), unselfish, and successful.

Some Comments:   This paragraph is not particularly effective. Yet there is nothing structurally, grammatically “wrong” with the sentences. The ideas it contains are not extremely complicated. So why is it so difficult to read? Is it just because irritatingly obvious unnecessary words and seemingly endless repetitions have weakened the ideas? Suppose we rewrite the paragraph without eliminating any of the necessary words and without changing any of the ideas the writer seems to have intended:

People have always searched for role models, and the literature of many ancient civilizations center on a hero. Do our “heroes” today possess the same general qualities? Written over 5,000 years ago, The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the adventures of a man who would still be considered a hero because he is strong, sensitive, confident (yet humble), unselfish, and successful.

Okay, we’ve reduced it from nine sentences, 147 words to three sentences, 61 words by pruning deadwood – but honestly, that still hasn’t made us really excited to read the rest of the essay. To continue the “pruning” metaphor: writing a good essay is like developing a framework of branches (topic sentences) that will act as a skeleton on which foliage, flowers, and fruit (your thoughts, arguments, conclusions) can grow. A better shape can produce more fruit, and make that fruit easier to pick. But in the case above, will the effort be rewarded? Has the writer done enough of the groundwork to make this essay interesting and engaging?

So how do sentences help us express worthwhile ideas in ways that will make people want to listen? Consider the main definition of “sentence” in The American Heritage Dictionary :

A grammatical unit that is syntactically independent and has a subject that is expressed or…understood and a predicate that contains at least one finite verb.

Being mechanically correct is certainly important – but it isn’t enough. The kind of writing your readers are expecting in high school and college essays should also have a point and a human voice . Maybe we should revive the obsolete definition of “sentence” mentioned in the same dictionary:

An opinion, especially one given formally after deliberation. [Middle English, opinion, from Old French, from Latin… sentire , to feel]

In addition to conveying information and proving your familiarity with the texts, effective sentences should show your engagement with the material – how you feel about the issue at hand. This does not mean you don’t have to offer a reasonable, logical argument. It means the reader needs to sense that you care about what you’re saying.

For our purposes, style means no more than building your sentences by choosing and arranging your words so that they clearly present your ideas about your subject. In the next worksheet we’ll discuss the appropriateness of words themselves; for now let’s look at sentence structure . Your interesting ideas, honest feelings, and thoughtful responses need to be revealed and developed in an orderly way so as to hold your reader’s attention. Sentences that attract attention to themselves rather than your ideas because of their awkwardness distract and cause your reader to lose confidence in your argument.

Active vs. Passive Voice

Using passive verbs (verbs of being) rather than active verbs (verbs of doing ) is one of the most common mistakes made by writers at all levels. The sentence you just read is a passive sentence – no one does anything. Sometimes passive statements of fact are appropriate. But writers at all levels overuse “is,” and we all need to write carefully and avoid this pitfall.

Why is active voice so important? What if we had ended the previous paragraph passively? We could have said, “The verb ‘is’ tends to be overused by writers. Passive voice is a problem that should be avoided by careful writers.” If we had done this, the reader might be left with the impression that what we’re really interested is verbs. And that’s not the case: what we’re really interested in is writing .

Maybe history offers a better example. How often have you read passages in history textbooks like “The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776,” or “There were riots after the execution of the prisoners”?  Do these sentences tell you the whole story? Did things just happen , or did somebody do something ? In history, this is not just a question of style: it’s a serious issue of interpretation.  Overuse of the passive voice where things “just happen” denies people of agency and portrays a random world without cause and effect. It also insulates people from responsibility for their actions and short-circuits questions about motivation and differing points of view.

Yes, the passive voice does sound more “authoritative” (or maybe pedantic) because we’ve grown up reading textbooks written this way. Maybe “Hamlet was written between 1599 and 1602” doesn’t sound that bad to you, but what if the passage read “Shakespeare wrote Hamlet between 1599 and 1602”? Now we can visualize a man sitting down to do something, and we naturally begin to wonder, what was going on around him?  Why did he write this play at that moment?  What was he trying to say?

Similarly, rather than saying “there were riots” as if they just happened like rain from a cloudless sky, we might say “outraged by the execution of their friends and neighbors, farmers and city union-members rioted and attacked symbols of the state.” This active construction opens the door to all kinds of possible questions about the situation and the parties involved. Of course, the active version requires the writer to know more information about the event than just the date when it “happened” (which may be why lazy textbook authors resist the active voice). And it requires the writer to take a stand (which may be why some students avoid it).

Hopefully you can see that in addition to making your writing much more interesting to read, using active verbs allows you to really explore your subject. By writing actively, you can change a string of flat, dead facts into a series of actions and reactions. That means, a series of choices. That means a series of questions that may open new and interesting avenues for exploration.

Common sentence problems

Confusing sentences distract the reader from the point you are trying to make. Here are examples of some of the most common mistakes, along with corrected sentences. You can catch most of these by reading your draft out loud and asking yourself (or a friend) if it makes sense.

The most common sentence problems are FRAGMENTS and RUN-ONS.

• Connect the fragment: “What am I going to do with my life is a question…
• Overall the English invasion was a complete success with some learning curves thrown in at the beginning, but for the most part, it was a complete and utter domination of the indigenous people. Separate the thoughts: simplify the sentence and drop the qualifiers to divide these ideas and emphasize the “but.” “The American colonies were a great success for the English, but they were an utter disaster for indigenous peoples.”
• Still a fragment: what’s the object of “recognizes”? What’s the predicate of “the dread of something after death”?
• A) Two sentences: …verbally as well. The first words…
• B) Comma and conjunction: …verbally as well, and the first…
• C) Semi-colon: …verbally as well; the first words…

A related Subject-Predicate problem concerns REPETITION of the subject.

• Trim, then combine these thoughts: Native families commonly shared resources, and believed this sharing was protected in their contracts with colonists. (47 words to 16. And we got rid of the passive voice )
• Don’t complexify a simple sentence . One subject, one predicate. Some pagans in Beowulf’s culture believed in creating their own destiny.
• Eliminate repetition & contradiction: Sentence 3 contradicts sentence 2. Maybe the writer meant: “Beowulf killed dragons, and became a hero by overcoming his fear.” (26 words to 11)

Many sentence problems in essays are due to a lack of PARALLEL STRUCTURE.

• Don’t mix tenses: either “finds—leads” or “found—led”
• Try not to change subjects: “They” are the subject of first part, “the concept” is the subject of second (and there’s that active-passive voice issue again). How about: “The natives held land to protect their villages, not for private gain.”
• Make parallel : Either “liked to drink, hang around…and fight” or “liked drinking, hanging…and fighting.”
• Faulty comparison: Christian philosophy should be compared to pagan philosophy , or Christians to pagans.
• Another way of thinking about it: Does my modifier clearly refer to what it is supposed to modify? “Unlike the Christian philosophy of mourning a loved one” does not modify “the pagans,” but it could modify “pagan philosophy.”

Without a clearly expressed SUBJECT and PREDICATE, your “sentence” merely confuses the reader.

• The static theme of Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality is tested when the hero’s only undefeatable conflict evolves into the sobering death of his beloved counterpart.
• Subject? Predicate? Is the theme tested? What does “static” mean here? Is the quest tested? How? Does “undefeatable conflict” mean victory or defeat? This is very difficult to understand. Perhaps the reader means: “The death of his beloved Enkidu sobers Gilgamesh and stimulates his quest for immortality.” Perhaps not. The writer should be interpreting this, not the reader.
• Does the simple sentence buried here (gender must necessarily be a highly-dynamic concept) mean anything? The writer of this sentence was very unhappy he had to write a paper about Joan Scott’s book Gender and the Politics of History. It shows.
• No specific predicate . Areas could mean anything. Do platforms spring up all over the stage? Such a vague predicate can only irritate your reader.

A Short Handbook for writing essays in the Humanities and Social Sciences Copyright © 2019 by Salvatore F. Allosso and Dan Allosso is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Write Five Sentence Paragraphs and Five Paragraph Essays

The classic five sentence paragraph and the classic five paragraph essay are writing forms that can help an author organize their thoughts, write clearly, and present information in a way that is easy for a reader to comprehend.

Here is a tutorial:

Think of a topic . Think about how to explain your topic in a few words. Write that down as the title, you’ll need that later. Examples: Why I Love My Kitties, Growing Luffas, Causal Factors in the Collapse of the Roman Empire.

Write down three things to say about your topic. While you don’t have to write them down, it can be helpful to while first learning the form.

An example of three things you could say about kitties might be:

• physical characteristics
• distraction

A paragraph on growing luffas might include sentences on:

• sprouting seeds
• growing period
• harvesting sponges

The classic five sentence paragraph uses the following format:

1) Tell them what you are going to tell them. 2) Tell them. 3) Tell them. 4) Tell them. 5) Tell them what you told them.

Let’s take a closer look at each sentence.

Sentence 1 – Tell them what you are going to tell them.

Consider specifically what the three things you have to say about the topic have in common.

Since they are all on the same topic it shouldn’t be difficult, but it may be possible to be more specific.

Examples: I love my kitties, Luffas need a long growing season to go from seed to harvest.

Sentence 2 – Tell them.

Take the first of your list of three things you have to say about your topic, and make it into a sentence.

Example: I love the feel of their fur under my fingertips.

Sentence 3 – Tell them.

Take the second from your list of three things you have to say about your topic, and make it into a sentence.

Example: They lovingly interrupt my work and remind me of the pleasures of the here and now.

Sentence 4 – Tell them.

Take the third from your list of three things you have to say about your topic, and make it into a sentence.

Example: When I’m blue, they brighten my day and comfort me.

Sentence 5 – Tell them what you told them.

Write the conclusion.

Read the first four sentences that you just wrote. What should the reader know from reading them? Write that as the last sentence to sum up what you’ve written.

Example: My kitties make my world a nicer place to live in.

Reread, and neaten up and adjust as needed.

Example: I love my kitties. The feel of their fur under my fingertips is soothing. They lovingly interrupt my work and remind me of the pleasures of the here and now. When I’m blue, they brighten my day and comfort me. My kitties make my world a nicer place to be.

Practice with the form makes it easier, it isn’t a bad idea to pick a few random topics and try them out. Once you are comfortable with the five sentence paragraph, the next step is the five paragraph essay. The good news is using the five sentence paragraph as a foundation, the rest is mostly more of the same.

A classic five paragraph essay is made of five paragraphs in the following format.

Which should look familiar.

The 1st paragraph is the introduction.

The first sentence tells what the essay is going to be about. The second is the topic for the second paragraph, the third is the topic for the third paragraph, and the fourth for the fourth. The final sentence prepares the reader for the rest of the essay.

Paragraphs 2-4 are supporting paragraphs each making a point.

Paragraph 5 is the conclusion.

Essays can be grouped and combined this same way into longer papers or chapters. Some textbooks are written this way. Once the basics are understood, they can be applied in a variety of ways.

The number of paragraphs can be adjusted as needed. A compare and contrast may have only an introduction, two supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. A process paper may have many supporting paragraphs. The introduction to an introduction might be kept brief for ease of reading. The form should be a helpful tool, not a rigid standard.

Writing is a skill that develops with practice, and it can be difficult to organize thoughts without that practice. My hope is that this article will help that practice go easier and remove some of the anxiety frequently involved in the process.

Do you have any questions or topics that you’d like to know more about? Post a comment below.

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• Knowledge Base
• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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