Alyssia Ashkevron
ENGL 111-37D
10 June 2014
Response: White’s 5 Paragraph Theme Theme
This short paper will be in response to my reading of Edward White’s “5 Paragraph Theme Theme” essay. The following paragraphs will illustrate my opinion of White’s idea, if I think it is an effective means of writing a paper, and if I believe it should be the way all papers, essays, and reports are written. Lastly I will finish up with an overview of what I have discussed. I believe this paper to be well written and thought out. The author follows his own formatting of having five parts to his paper and supporting sub-topics, and it’s written in an easy to follow logical order that someone could easily duplicate. I am by no means an expert on grammar and punctuation, but it also seemed to be grammatically correct as well. Overall I think his idea of a five-paragraph theme will work for most applications. Do I think it is an effective means of righting a paper? My answer to that is two-fold; as I believe it would work perfectly for shorter reports and essays, but not very long reports that requiring complex thought organization. It is definitely effective in the aspect that White used it as a persuasive essay on convincing you that five paragraphs is the most effective when writing a paper. So, overall I would say yes, it is an effective method of writing a paper, as long as you can effectively convey all the information needed in five paragraphs with three sup-topics each. However, I do not feel it should be used for every type of report or essay. I believe that too ridged of a form can inhibit creativity due to trying too hard to meet a certain format or think of another sub-topic just to fill a page. This can lead to “fluff” in a report that can diminish its overall effectiveness. For instance when I write I don’t do any formatting at all until I’m finished. I feel I can right more freely when I don’t have to worry about the specifics, and I can go