hello friends we are back for another part of our argumentative writing unit and this time we're looking at body paragraphs the meat and muscle of your paper so let's get started what are body paragraphs it's three typically three paragraphs that explain the key arguments that are in your thesis each key argument should be covered in its own paragraph if you don't know what thesis statements are make sure you check out lesson two in this argumentative writing unit so here are the parts of a body paragraph part one we start with the topic sentence so that's a sentence that explains your key argument for that paragraph it's not your thesis statement it's just a sentence that explains one key argument and that will be the focus of your paragraph then you're going to have some explanation and evidence so this is where you get the facts statistics quotes that support your topic sentence with analysis in your own words and then you're going to put a concluding sentence this is the last sentence of the paragraph that summarizes the key arguments and transitions the reader to the next paragraph so why do we have body paragraphs the body paragraphs are the building blocks of your argument without them your argument would not be fully developed it would just be your opinion so some important notes about body paragraphs after your topic sentence you will write a sentence explaining what you mean in a little bit more detail after you share your evidence write a sentence or two that explains why the evidence you selected is important and how it connects to the topic sentence and finally avoid simply rewriting your topic sentence as your conclusion sentence you will summarize the main point of the paragraph and transition the reader to the idea in the next paragraph so here's some notes about using evidence i know we talked about evidence in the last lesson but just a little reminder here make sure you use the introductory phrase before you introduce the evidence use one to two solid pieces of evidence per body paragraph and then finally after your evidence write a sentence that explains how the evidence connects to the key argument for that paragraph so let's help your paragraph flow with some transitions so transitions are single words quick phrases or sentences that help the reader understand what to do with the information you give them and it gives them directions on how to piece together the ideas of your argument so you can see in this chart right here some common transitions that you will use in your paper in your body paragraphs to go from one idea to the next so let's dissect this body paragraph what we're going to do is we're going to highlight the topic sentence we're going to bold the evidence we're going to change the color of the transition words and underline the concluding sentence so if you have the lesson that goes along with this you can do it on your paper or on your google slide if you're just watching the youtube channel you can pause this video and then you can write these things down on notebook paper all right so let's read our body paragraph college athletes should be paid because they bring in a considerable amount of revenue for their colleges universities in the ncaa as it stands now organizations profit unfairly from the work and likeness of college athletes in fact according to bloomberg.com the ncaa reported over 1.06 billion in revenue in 2017 which is the most recent available numbers in 2018 ncaa president mark emmert was paid more than 2.7 million nine other ncaa executives were each paid more than five hundred thousand dollars in 2018 with one paid more than 1.3 million this shows that the athletes are this shows that the athletes that are putting in the grueling day in and day out work are being exploited without college athletes organizations like the ncaa and the universities would not be profitable so they should fairly compensate the ones who are funding their paychecks all right so let's pause we're going to find topic sentence evidence change the color of the transition words and underline the concluding sentence we're back so let's look right here topic sentence is this college athletes should be paid because they bring in a considerable amount of revenue for their colleges university in the ncaa so i'm going to highlight that that's the key argument of this paragraph so everything in this paragraph should be related to that topic sentence so this is where i explain the topic sentence right here this is an explanation sentence and then here we have evidence so we're going to bold the evidence what is this right here in fact according to bloomberg.com that my friends is a transition phrase so we're going to change the color of that so here's the evidence blah blah all the way down here so about how much the people of the ncaa are getting paid so that is my evidence i'm going to bold that this shows it's a transition phrase i'm going to change the color that then here's my explanation of what it shows and then finally a concluding sentence without college athletes organizations like the ncaa and the universities would not be profitable so they should fairly compensate the ones who are funding their paycheck so i'm going to underline that as you can see everything in the topic sentence is related to how college athletes should be paid because they bring in a lot of money for colleges universities in ncaa all right so that is it that is how you write a quality body paragraph if you would like more help with this or you want the activities the mentor text and the guided notes that go along with this video please check out the links below otherwise stick around for lesson six which is all about a counter argument and how to write one until then bye [Music]