Section Titles and Signposts

Section Titles

When writing an essay of significant length, it can be helpful to clarify your argument using sections. The simplest way to do this is to use section titles, which can take the form of sentences, phrases, or even questions. Consider, for example, how writers use section titles in articles. Each title indicates the specific argument the writer offers in that section. Titles quickly orient your reader to the argument or content that will be discussed in a given section. They not only help your reader but can also help you as a writer organize your material.

To section your essay, identify those moments when you shift between ideas that are contained in your thesis. Alternatively, you might section your essay where you shift from closely analyzing one piece of evidence to another. Even further, you might section your essay whenever you shift from working closely with one of your theoretical sources to another.

Signposts

Signposts are an additional tool at your disposal. They are sentences, questions, or even short paragraphs that state what you are doing or what you have done. Clarifying the purpose of your paragraph—presenting, analyzing or synthesizing—is an effective way to being creating a signpost. Of course, you don’t always have to explain why you are doing what you are doing; however, signposts can help orient your reader by signaling changes in the direction of your argument. They often occur at the ends or beginnings of essay sections.

A signpost might signal the material to come and remind the reader of what has already been said. Here’s one example from Columbia University student Jebediah Micka’s essay in The Morningside Review, “Said’s Post-September 11th Media Presence”:

“With a solid understanding of Said’s historical perspective on the bipolar constructs of East and West we can now investigate this question using his own voice” (Micka 4).

And in “Getting Back to the Right Nature” by Donald Waller, we see a signpost that summarizes what he did in the previous section of his essay:

“Rather than posing a serious threat to responsible environmentalism, I have argued, as a biologist, that wilderness defined as large, connected and relatively intact ecosystems should form the backbone of any ecologically informed program to conserve our natural heritage” (Waller 562).

Yet again in “Getting Back to the Right Nature,” Waller signposts what he is going to do in the following section:

“I begin by questioning an initial premise of Cronon’s: that by idolizing wilderness and working for its protection we tend to diminish our concern for, and protection of, nearer and more mundane environments such as our cities and farms” (Waller 542).