ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Be clear about your subject

Writers rarely take the time to figure out the subject of a paragraph before they write one. But only by knowing the subject can you make a strong point about it. And only with a strong point can you assess whether all of a paragraph's sentences are related to it.

In the following paragraphs the subject is boldfaced and the point italicized. (In the first two sections of this book I have italicized what I surmise to be the point of many of the paragraphs.)

Manchuria openly displays its attachment to a bygone age. In the port of Dalian, in Liaoning province, there is a Stalin Street; and in Shenyang, the province's capital, stands one of the few remaining public statues of Mao. In Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, a party official says that Mao's poems, set to music, are as suitable for karaoke sessions as "Love Story"; to prove it, he sings one.

Jeff Pulver is well and truly wired. He is an Internet entrepreneur, with his fingers in many pipes, particularly the "fat pipe" that snakes into his home in Great Neck, New York. The fat pipe is a wire that can carry 1.5 bits of data a second. In lots of companies a pipe that fat is shared by hundreds of employees. Mr. Pulver has one all to himself. He thinks of it as rather expensive insurance against his Internet's principal curse: delay.

Back to Powerful paragraphs • Next