ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Building paragraphs from a plan

Strong paragraphs will emerge more easily if you have done some planning. (Riveting Reports, also in this series, is a good place to start.) A paragraph-by-paragraph plan helps you organize your material by going beyond an outline to identify the topic of each paragraph in an entire piece. You then write the topic of each paragraph at the top of a sheet of paper (or page screen, if you're online) and try to make a strong point about each topic. Finally you assemble your raw material—details, comments, examples—under those points. With your material thus organized, and your head significantly clearer, you're ready to write unified, coherent, well-developed paragraphs.

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