Things You'll Need:
- A dictionary
- A thesaurus;
- or, an Internet connection
- A word processor;
- or a pen and paper
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Step 1
First off, ask yourself if you have all of your materials. If you are writing the letter out long hand, then make sure you have a black or blue pen and a dictionary and thesaurus with you. On the other hand, if you have a computer, Internet connection and installed word processor, then you have everything you need on your computer. If you are without a word processor and need a free one, you can download a free word processor for Linux or Windows machines from here: www.openoffice.org.
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Step 2
Now, think about what it is that you need to write about. You do not have much time to convince the reader in three paragraphs, so you need to make sure you have a very specific aim in mind. The more specific the better. This is called your topic. Let us say that you are writing a school assignment on birds. Narrowing the topic requires you to choose maybe one bird to write about, or perhaps one specific quality of birds, e.g. wings, that all birds have in common.
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Step 3
Once you have chosen your topic, you need to figure out a title. If you are writing a complaint letter to your senator, you may not need to have a title, but instead will make your point clear in the letter. If you are writing a short essay for a job application, your title might be something to the effect of "Personal Qualities." I will stay with the example of birds for now and call the example essay "Can all birds fly?" By making your title a question, the reader knows exactly what it is that you plan to talk about and will expect to learn more than just a simple "yes" or "no".
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Step 4
The next step involves your first sentence. Your first sentence should contain something that grabs the attention of the reader. So, for example, you might write, "Although all birds have wings, not all birds can fly." This first sentence answers the title question clearly and sets up the next sentence, which can be your "topic sentence."
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Step 5
Your topic sentence is very important because it sets up the rest of the essay. Try not to put in needless filler, but instead focus on the facts. So, following from the example above you might write, "This essay will list three flightless birds and explain, in brief, why they cannot fly."
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Step 6
The important part of the above is that you have said you will write about three flightless birds. Remember that each paragraph should, at miminum contain three sentences, but you would be better off keeping it to five. Your minimum paragraph, then, following from the flightless bird example, at least six sentences, that is, a sentence introducing the bird you are going to talk about, e.g. an Ostrich, along with a follow up sentence explaining why the particular bird cannot fly.
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Step 7
After your middle paragraph, you are ready to complete your final paragraph which should begin with a transition such as "in sum" or "in conclusion". You have an opportunity here to bring everything to together and perhaps explain what everything you talked about has in common besides just the obvious. For example, you might say, "In conclusion, all of the birds listed above cannot fly, but this does not mean that they are at a disadvantage. These birds have other advantages that make up for their lack of flight capability and since they retain other traits common to all birds, they have advantages as well." You might add in some more concluding thoughts such as where a person might find more information about birds.
