While it is somewhat arbitrary and specious to presume that any given argument can be boiled down to an arguable thesis, three supporting points, and a restatem

While it is somewhat arbitrary and specious to presume that any given argument can be boiled down to an arguable thesis, three supporting points, and a restatement, I think the value of the exercise of writing a formal essay is not so much in slavishly adhering to the form, but in using the form to help you build your case. If I only had one or two points in support of my thesis, I recognized that I was not yet fully prepared to write the essay: either I needed to dig out more distinct points in support of my position, or find a way to split a point into two, or simply devise a new thesis. If I had more than three points, this could mean that my thesis was too broad, or that I was digging too deeply into the material, and needed to find a level of abstraction that worked better. And, occasionally, I assumed the risk of writing an essay that did not observe convention. Sometimes you only need two really strong points to support an argument, and adding a weaker point just for the sake of the formalism detracts from the argument. Sometimes you have four points, and simply cannot remove any one of them without feeling like you've weakened your argument considerably. So you roll the dice, go with what you have, and trust that your grader will honor your choices.