MEAL Plan Variations: Building Paragraphs From a Structured Foundation

If you’ve ever attended a Writing Center webinar or participated in a paper review appointment with one of our writing instructors, you may have heard mention of the MEAL plan. The MEAL plan is useful model we at the Writing Center often use to outline the fundamental components of an academic paragraph. The MEAL plan is composed of four parts, including: 

M – Main Idea

E- Evidence
A – Analysis
L – Lead Out Sentence 

The MEAL plan can be an insightful and helpful tool for creating effectively organized paragraphs that have both a single focus and an even balance of outside evidence and your own analysis and synthesis. In other words, when your mind is still filled with questions of how to get your ideas down on the page, the MEAL plan makes it easy to ensure this information is communicated in a concise, organized, and scholarly manner. You might consider it like a foundation upon which to build the presentation of your ideas. 

However, it is important to remember that the MEAL Plan is a general model. It does not often translate to a perfect, four-sentence paragraph with a sentence dedicated to each aspect of the MEAL plan. If only, writing could be that neat and tidy! More often, academic paragraphs require additional space and flexibility to address an idea fully. As a result, how the MEAL plan comes to be applied to your writing and what it looks like on the page can vary from project to project or even paragraph to paragraph. Therefore, the goal of this blog post is to explore a few examples of how the MEAL plan might be applied. 

Variation 1: The MEAEAL Plan Paragraph
For example, one example of the MEAL Plan that I often employ myself includes a give and take between E-Evidence and A-Analysis, where I take the time to explain different pieces of evidence before highlighting my conclusion in the L-Lead Out Sentence:

M- Utilizing Walden Writing Center’s resources is an effective way students can advance their writing skills and reduce stress. E- Mattingly (2019) reported that students often come to the Writing Center lacking confidence but walk away with greater knowledge and awareness of their writing abilities. A- This recommendation highlights students’ potential to advance their writing skills through the Center’s resources and reflects a welcoming environment of instruction and learning. E- Philbrook (2019) similarly noted that many students find the Writing Center a safe place to explore writing anxiety and locate related resources on writer’s block, mindfulness, and self-reflection. A-Each author highlights a unique way Walden’s Writing Center works with students to develop stronger writing skills and reduce stress. L- The Writing Center, in this regard, can have a meaningful and healthy impact on students’ scholarly writing skills and overall wellbeing.

In this example, there are various places where the E-Evidence and A-Analysis components of the MEAL Plan appear. By taking this approach, you can demonstrate a greater level of critical thinking and engagement with your source material, as you take the time to explain the meaning of all evidence before moving ahead to incorporate additional research that advances and strengthens your argument. This approach can work well for assignments that require comparing or contrasting or identifying common themes in the existing research as is common to literature reviews. 

Variation 2: The MPEEAPEL Plan Paragraph
Another version of the MEAL plan might include a more detailed demonstration of your own perspective and point of view through a combination of personal experience (which I'll mark with PE in the paragraph below), evidence, and analysis:

M- The Writing Center’s paper review service is a vital resource for Walden students seeking to become not only better writers but also scholarly communicators. PE- Upon enrolling at Walden, I contacted the Writing Center to learn about resources available to students and was invited to set up a paper review appointment. E- These paper reviews, according to Walden’s Writing Center (n.d.), are designed to “help students develop their academic writing skills as emerging scholars and encourage students to engage in an ongoing writing process” (para. 4). A- The Writing Center promotes an environment where students’ writing projects are viewed as part of a larger process of professional and scholarly development. PE- Though reluctant at first, I quickly found the paper review service to be an invaluable experience in my growth as a scholar because I received personalized feedback that highlighted patterns in my writing style and made me more prepared to communicate my research. L- The Writing Center’s paper review service helps students see how daily writing projects relate to an ongoing process of scholarly development and communication. 

It is quite common in coursework for you to be asked to draw on your own experience and analysis in order to present argument. Making sure to support your experience with evidence is essential to demonstrating how your ideas and expertise aligns with the existing research and can boost the overall credibility of your claim. The MEAL plan would likely be applied differently in this case; however, it is still beneficial in making sure all the required elements are present. Thus, in the above example, the main piece of E-Evidence is introduced not only after the M-Main Idea but also a personal account. It is then followed by more in-depth A-Analysis and L-Lead out sections.

How ever you come to apply the MEAL plan, be sure to make it your own. The MEAL plan may not be appropriate for all academic paragraphs, so make sure you understand its limitations and follow up with your instructor if you have questions about its application to an assignment. The most important thing to remember is the MEAL plan is not designed to be a hard and fast template that should be applied exactly the same way to each paragraph in your project. Rather, it is a flexible writing tool intended to make the principles of scholarly writing easier to spot and incorporate into your writing. As such, you should feel encouraged to experiment with the varied applications of the MEAL Plan. In fact, doing so will make you a stronger scholarly writer as you gain greater familiarity with the core components of an academic paragraph and move fluidly between them as you write.   

Miranda Mattingly is the Manager of Writing Instructional Services and a former Writing Instructor at the Walden Writing Center. When working with students, her primary focus is on encouraging students to have confidence in their skills as writers and to cultivate their voices as critical thinkers in an increasingly global community. 

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