While the previous chapters offered a bird’s eye view of good writing, Trimble uses Chapters 4-6 to dive into to the nuts and bolts of the individual essay. According to Trimble, essays are broadly organized into three parts: the opener, the middle, and the closer. He begins with openers, which are the first few sentences or paragraph of a piece. Trimble writes that authors “will generally be given only four or five sentences to prove that you are worth hearing” (31). Openers are critical because if they’re written poorly or unclearly, then the author has lost their reader immediately. Just as humans judge each other based on first impressions, the same quick, discerning critique is applied to their writing.

A successful opener has two key goals: to state the essay’s topic and the author’s thesis statement about that topic. A good thesis is one that opens the door for debate: “If it’s debatable, and if you’ve been able to state it in one sentence, it’s a good thesis. Now, go ahead and prove it” (53). College essay writers often struggle with writing a thesis statement, erring on the side of writing down facts rather than opinions. Use Trimble’s “is it debatable?” rule to test if a thesis is stating an argument rather than a mere fact.