The Meat and Potatoes
Yes, another analogy! The body is the meat and potatoes of your essay: where the actual discussion occurs.
Unless the teacher or exam calls for a formula essay, the typical five-paragraph essay for example, open yourself to more any number of body paragraphs. If the thesis mentions something, the essay must address that something, and it may need more or less than three paragraphs worth of explanation. Your objective is to thoroughly expand upon your thesis.
Paragraph Structure
In order to determine where to begin or end a paragraph follow this rule: start a new topic, start a new paragraph. Therefore, one point per paragraph.
The paragraph in its most basic form is a miniature essay. It contains:
1. A Topic Sentence. (mini-thesis)
2. A detail and elaboration for support. (mini-body)
3. Wrap-up or concluding sentence. (mini-conclusion)
For more information on providing support, visit the page on Elaboration.
EXAMPLE
To understand “The Lottery’s” significance, a reader should first comprehend tradition and why people resist it (1). Tradition in its most innocent state is simply a customary pattern; however, a community following tradition often overlooks reason in favor of habit (2). In the village where “The Lottery” takes place, merely that “there’s always been a lottery” (2) provides reason for the event’s continuance. The elders of the society broach the lottery with suspicion. Old Man Warner uses the expression “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon,” and claims the youth of the north village are a “pack of crazy fools” for wanting to give up the seemingly necessary ritual (2). To the townspeople, terminating the lottery would be step backwards rather than forward (here, I inject my inference from the specific example, (2). In this village, only youth looking upon the circumstance with eyes untainted by habit could find enough courage to rebel against such a longstanding rite (3).
Above, quotations from the text serve as specific examples. If writing about a personal topic such as a favorite or my opinion, then I might give a personal example or make an example out of a current event.
Insight
Speaking of current events, often a reader looks for a connection of your opinion/topic to the real world--as in the world that does not revolve around you alone. Readers search for a real world connection because they want to know that your opinion holds up beyond the scope of your life. Also, the maturity and forethought required to make a relevent connection to the real world shows that you have insight, a deep understanding, into what you are writing.