ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

An Approach to Paragraphs

Many writers think of paragraphs as a collection of sentences framed by an indent and a carriage return, running perhaps ten or twelve lines. Few have the language to describe what's good—or bad—about a paragraph. This book shows you what it means for a paragraph to be unified, coherent, and well developed. The idea here is to give you a way of looking at paragraphs that will change the way you write.

A paragraph is unified if each sentence is clearly related to the point, coherent if you make it obvious to your reader how each sentence is linked to the point. You can make the link more obvious by repeating key words and phrases. You can also use transitional words and phrases to enumerate and coordinate a paragraph's sentences. And you can change the structure of your sentences to reveal parallel or subordinate ideas. These techniques do more than make your paragraphs coherent—they also give them pace.

A paragraph is well developed if its sentences unfold in a way that makes your argument perfectly clear to the reader. One of the best ways to do this is to express the point of the paragraph as a general statement in the first sentence and then to support it with details and examples in subsequent sentences. Used for perhaps half to two-thirds of all paragraphs in expository writing, this model is among the most common. Some of the other ways are to conclude with the point, to phrase the point as a question and answer, and to undermine an argument to make the opposite point. Still other ways include making a subtle (or not so subtle) comment at the end of a straightforward series of details. Deciding how you develop a paragraph generally depends on the details, examples, and comments you have to support your point.

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