The document provides guidance on how to structure an essay response when asked to discuss which supermarket is best. A sample introduction outlines how the response will argue that there is no significant difference between supermarkets in terms of price, quality or service. Body paragraphs then present evidence to support this thesis, addressing each point individually with topic sentences and analysis. The conclusion restates the thesis while summarizing the main arguments, and finishes with a "clincher" to leave the reader thinking critically about the topic.

1. Essay Writing: An
Exploration
Michael Cobden
Dalhousie Writing Centre

2. Help!
“I have no idea what a thesis
is,” a student said to me,
“and no idea how to write an
introduction or a conclusion. I
always think I’ve got
something to say, but I’m
freaked out by having to write
it as an essay.”

3. The Subject
“Imagine,” I said, “that you
and I are having a coffee, and
you say, ‘Which do you think
is the best supermarket
around here?’ That’s like the
subject of an essay.
Picture by Jim (http://www.flickr.com/
photos/alphageek/121953651) [CC-BY-
SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia
Commons

4. The Introduction
I could just answer, ‘The I long for the days when shopping for
food meant dropping off a list at my
Superstore on Quinpool local grocery store and coming back
an hour later to pick up the order, or
Road,’ but if I wanted to show phoning in my order in the morning
you that I can think, which is and having it delivered that afternoon
— and getting a bill once a month. In
what one has to do to get those days the grocer knew you and
good marks for an essay, I knew your likes and dislikes. But
those days are gone, and now the
might start my answer — this only choice I have is which
would be the essay’s supermarket to go to. As far as I'm
concerned — here, at the end of my
introduction — by saying introduction, comes my thesis
statement—it makes no difference
something like this: which supermarket one shops at
because there's no significant
difference in price, quality or service.

5. Body Paragraphs
Then in the body paragraphs, — I might quote someone I
I would present my evidence was talking to the other
and analysis (or arguments) day who said she shopped
on each point. First, prices. in different supermarkets
each week just for the fun
of it but always ended up
spending the same.
— I might refer to my own
research on prices.
— Or I might refer to research
I'd read on prices in
different supermarkets.

6. The Topic Sentence
I would start by making the
point I want to make about
prices. ‘You know, the price of
individual items may vary
(slightly) from one
supermarket to another, but
the price of a family’s weekly
order of groceries would be
much the same in any
supermarket.’ In writing an
essay, that’s what’s called a
topic sentence.

7. Transition to the Next
Paragraph
After I’d said what I wanted to So, prices aren’t a reason for
say about prices (which would choosing one supermarket
be my first body paragraph in over another. But what about
an essay), I’d find a way to quality? Which supermarket
move to my next point (my has the best food?
next body paragraph), which
is about quality. I’d say
something like this:

8. Second Body Paragraph
Then (my second body paragraph) I'd talk about
quality, again starting with the point I want to make
(the topic sentence) and then reporting evidence (in
this case about quality) and analyzing it.

9. Another Transition
And when I was done with Last week, I went to a
that, I’d find a way to move supermarket that has a
onto my next point (my next bakery I like. It was just after
body paragraph), which would 5 p.m., and all the baguettes
be about service. I might say were gone. I complained at
something like this: the customer service counter
and was given a lecture about
how much bread is wasted
every day.
That would lead me nicely
into what I wanted to say
about service.

10. Additional Body Paragraphs
And when I’d finished making my point about service,
if I had other points I wanted to make to support my
view (my thesis), I’d discuss each one (in a separate
body paragraph).

11. Conclusions
OK. So now I’ve made all my That would re-state my point
points and it’s time to wrap up (my thesis), but not in the exact
(my conclusion): So you see, I same words I used when I
might say (re-stating my thesis started (in my introduction).
and summarizing my main Now I have the benefit of all my
arguments), all supermarkets arguments and evidence (in the
are much the same. Some body paragraphs). It isn't
people might prefer this or that enough just to freshen my
product at one over the others; language. I need to say
some might find the service something fresh — something
more congenial at one than at that grows out of what I’ve said
the others; some might find the (in the body paragraphs). The
prices better for individual fresh thing I’m saying is that
items if not overall. Taken though various supermarkets
together, these advantages and do offer advantages to
disadvantages tend to even out, shoppers in individual aspects,
and it makes no difference taken altogether the individual
where you shop. advantages disappear.

12. The Clincher
I could end there, but I like to end Isn't it ironic that with all the
with what's sometimes called a choice one has in every
clincher. It’s something I hope will supermarket of which cereal to
leave the person I’m talking to (the buy, which kind of sausage, or
person marking my essay) thinking which brand of bread or milk, the
that I know something about this choices are much the same in all
subject and how to analyze what I supermarkets. Sure there are three
know and how to argue and that I different kinds of milk — but the
can say things with a bit of flair. same three kinds in every
But I must be careful at this stage supermarket. For the shopper,
not to introduce new material or to there's a sameness about every
go off on a tangent. I need to say supermarket and a sense of being
something sexy that emerges from caught in a system that knows
what I've said (in the body of my nothing about the individual
essay) or that it implies. So, I customer and frankly doesn't care
might end by saying: to know.
So take that!

13. Clincher #2
I might add (or substitute) something like this: I
asked the manager of my local supermarket why the
store no longer sold Lactantia unsalted butter (in my
view the best butter in Canada). He said, “I honestly
don't know. We didn't make that decision. It must
have been made at head office.”

14. Clincher #3
Or I might return to my opening thought — you know,
the one about grocery shopping in the old days: When
I was a child, my parents shopped at Wolfson's
grocery store, rather than Kalinikos's or Smith's,
because Mr. Wolfson stocked a particular brand of
salami just for us and sliced it the way my father liked
it, thick and juicy – and because if my mother ordered
a pound of apples and they weren’t very good that
day Mr. Wolfson would phone her and ask if she’d like
to have pears instead. Now that was a grocery store.
And those were the days.