ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Be sure every sentence bears on the point

After you've written a paragraph, check to be sure each sentence supports the point. Too often, sentences are loosely related to the subject of the paragraph but not tied to the point.

In the following examples, the supporting sentences have been rated yes (Y) if clearly related, no (N) if unrelated, and questionable (?) if their relationship to the point is dubious.

Game theory, fathered 50 years ago by the great mathematician John von Neumann, has become an important tool for economists and businesses. Businesses apply it in sharpening their marketplace skills, drawing on available information, as a poker player does, to plot their next moves and guess the reaction of competitors. [Y] Economists use it in a broader sense to forecast interactions of all kinds. [Y] Strategists at Rand Corp. and elsewhere have applied it to anticipate the diplomatic and military moves of governments. [Y]

In the paragraph above, all the sentences clearly relate to the point. The pronoun it anchors game theory in each of the supporting sentences, which show how game theory has become an important tool.

Business is very bad at Porsche. Sales of the speedy luxury cars on which the company built its reputation have fallen by more than half in the space of just two years. [Y] The cars are known for their sporty design and superior performance. [N] The work force has been cut by 25 percent. [Y] Inside the plant workers are nervous and insecure. [?]

    Sometimes unrelated sentences stick out grotesquely; others require scrutiny to ferret them out. In the preceding paragraph, the third sentence—on sporty design—sends the reader off course and diffuses the point. It should be cut. The fifth sentence may be true, but it would be more effective pulled into the fourth: ". . . by 25 percent, leaving workers inside the plant nervous and insecure."

The life blood of a Chinese company is guanxi-connections. Penetrating layers of guanxi is like peeling an onion: first come connections between people with ancestors from the same province in China; then people from the same clan or village; finally, the family. [Y] It does not matter much whether a Chinese businessman is in Hong Kong or New York, he will always operate through guanxi. [Y] But these networks do not enforce conformity. [?] Chinese tend to be far less concerned with consensus than the Japanese. [N] As long as they honor their word and look after their own, they can do whatever they want. [N]

The second and third sentences clearly support the point—that connections are the life blood of a Chinese company. The fourth might be sliding into another point—and could open another paragraph. The fifth and sixth sentences deal with this second, albeit related point and undermine the paragraph's coherence.

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