The MEAL Plan

A dependable template for essay writing

Organizing Paragraphs

• The MEAL plan is a simple, dependable way to organize paragraphs in essays

• Although there are many other ways one might proceed, this is a simple way and especially useful if you are not a practiced essay writer

• Based on assumption that good essay paragraphs contain a Main point, Evidence, Analysis, and Link back to the thesis

Main point

• Each MEAL paragraph should begin with a short topic sentence

• This tells us what the paragraph is about

• Anything in the paragraph that does not relate to the topic sentence is not relevant

Evidence

• In an essay, evidence is usually material cited/quoted from another source

• May also be evidence summarized from various sources

• Evidence is offered in support of one’s main point or argument

Analysis

• The majority of any essay paragraph should consist of analysis

• Analysis occurs when evidence is interpreted in a logical and meaningful fashion

• Single greatest flaw of student essays is that summary or restatement is offered instead of analysis

• Second greatest flaw of student essays is that analysis does not proceed in sufficient depth or detail

Link (back to thesis or forward to next point)

• A MEAL paragraph concludes with a link back to one’s overall thesis

• In other words, a concluding statement explaining why the preceding evidence and analysis is relevant to the greater argument

• May also/instead transition into next paragraph and set up next main point

Example MEAL paragraph

[M] Although Gilman offers no confirmation in the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with a suggestion that the house might be haunted. [E] The house is introduced as an “ancestral hall” and “colonial mansion” – the former term, especially giving a sense of its age and history. The narrator even states flatly that it seems like “a haunted house” although she backs away from the suggestion immediately.

Example MEAL paragraph [A] However, the narrator isn’t prepared to leave this idea entirely alone. She “proudly declare[s] that there is something queer about [the house]” and her pride in this declaration may speak to a certainty she feels but is unable to admit. “Else, why should it be let so cheaply?” she asks herself, and “why [should it] have stood so long untenanted”? These are legitimate questions to ask, and the house being “let cheaply” and having been “untenanted” for so long certainly suggests that its “queerness” or undesirability is not just a figment of her imagination, as we might otherwise take her ensuing visions. As well, the age of the house and this sense of an unknown history is consistent with the tropes of a haunted house story. As Stephen King notes, in Danse Macabre, haunted house stories often suggest that “the past is a ghost which haunts our present lives constantly” (253; orig. emph.). For that reason, the haunted houses in fiction are typically old, and typically the stories suggest or simply state that something horrible might have happened there, that they are “Bad Places” (King 253) still replaying the horrible traumas of the past.

[L] This sense of repetition — that a woman was once trapped here in this room, just as a woman has become trapped again — permeates “The Yellow Wallpaper” even though Gilman offers no confirmation of any such events.

Ratio: Analysis to OtherAlthough Gilman offers no confirmation in the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” begins with a suggestion that the house might be haunted. The house is introduced as an “ancestral hall” and “colonial mansion” – the former term, especially giving a sense of its age and history. The narrator even states flatly that it seems like “a haunted house” although she backs away from the suggestion immediately. However, the narrator isn’t prepared to leave this idea entirely alone. She “proudly declare[s] that there is something queer about [the house]” and her pride in this declaration may speak to a certainty she feels but is unable to admit. “Else, why should it be let so cheaply?” she asks herself, and “why [should it] have stood so long untenanted”? These are legitimate questions to ask, and the house being “let cheaply” and having been “untenanted” for so long certainly suggests that its “queerness” or undesirability is not just a figment of her imagination, as we might otherwise take her ensuing visions. As well, the age of the house and this sense of an unknown history is consistent with the tropes of a haunted house story. As Stephen King notes, in Danse Macabre, haunted house stories often suggest that “the past is a ghost which haunts our present lives constantly” (253; orig. emph.). For that reason, the haunted houses in fiction are typically old, and typically the stories suggest or simply state that something horrible might have happened there, that they are “Bad Places” (King 253) still replaying the horrible traumas of the past. This sense of repetition — that a woman was once trapped here in this room, just as a woman has become trapped again — permeates “The Yellow Wallpaper” even though Gilman offers no confirmation of any such events.

Analysis vs. Description

• Students are often confused about what constitutes analysis

• A common problem of English papers is description offered instead of analysis – usually plot summary

• A related problem is when quotes are offered to provide further description rather than evidence

• Analysis interprets evidence

Description or Analysis?

• Poe’s narrator languishes in depressing surroundings. We’re told about the “silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (13).

• The quote is used to “prove” an obvious point, a fact, so is description.

• The setting IS depressing in the poem: it’s a fact. It doesn’t need to be proven.

• We only need the first sentence

How to Analyze?

• To develop this into analysis, we need to introduce the quote in a way that shows what argument it supports

• Poe’s narrator languishes in depressing surroundings. (Statement of fact)

• Poe’s narrator languishes in a setting upon which he projects his depression. (Arguable statement)

• The narrator notes “the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (13). (Evidence offered to support argument)

Analysis as Interpretation

• Analysis interprets evidence to show how it supports the argument

• The narrator notes “the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (13). (Evidence offered to support argument)

• By describing the curtain’s rustling as “sad” and “uncertain,” the narrator projects his own inner state onto the external surroundings (a curtain can neither be sad nor uncertain, but the narrator surely feels this way).

• Even a word that might normally describe the curtain (“silken”) has taken a strange role: the “rustling” is silken, as if describing the sound through an adjective of touch, a sort of synesthesia that further displays the jumbled emotions of the distraught narrator.

Arguments vs. Facts in Literature

• You could disagree with the basic argument (that the narrator is projecting his inner feelings onto his external setting)

• You could disagree with the claim that this quote “proves” the same

• You could disagree with the particular development of the argument (with this analysis)

• You cannot meaningfully disagree with the idea that the setting is depressing on its surface

• —unless you constructed a complicated argument that we cannot trust even the basic details due to the inherent unreliability of first-person narration, AND this gives us an interesting interpretation

Arguments vs. Facts in Literature

• So, even if you were to disagree with the general claim that “the setting is depressing” you would have to refute the complex basis of that claim—in a normal reading, it is a statement of fact

• Therefore, it’s not worth defending, only attacking • Therefore, it should NEVER be the sole focus of a paragraph

and does NOT require proof—nor does ANY statement of fact

• Statements of fact are right or wrong

General Points re: Analysis

• Analysis should take up most of your space in an essay, and in a paragraph

• Analysis must follow evidence • Quotes cannot, therefore, appear near or at the end

of paragraphs • Quotes must be well-chosen to support arguments • Quotes should never be used to “prove” simple

“facts” • Statements of fact are not necessarily true

QUIZ: Which of the following statements are arguable, and which are statements of fact?

1.The narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” has been diagnosed with “nervous depression” and is being treated with the rest cure, so is forced to “rest” in the room with the yellow wallpaper.

1.In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” the statue of Pallas is a metaphor for unrequited love.