A paragraph is a distinct unit of thought--usually a group of related sentences, though occasionally no more than one sentence--in a written composition. The form of a paragraph is distinctive: the first line is indented. The content of a unified paragraph deals with one central idea. Each sentence fits into a logical pattern of organization and is therefore carefully related to other sentences in the paragraph.
This module will help you to write better paragraphs in your compositions. It will deal with the following aspects of paragraphing: when to begin a new paragraph, topic sentences, paragraph development, paragraph unity, and paragraph coherence.Paragraphs come in all sizes: short-one sentence; average--100 to 150 words; long--250 to 300 words. The one sentence paragraph is rare except in conversation. In business letters the average is about 60 words. Remember, a paragraph is the right length when it develops a single point clearly and fully.
The paragraph indention tells the reader to expect a change and gives him a short breathing spell. Start a new paragraph:
The sentence which presents the topic to be discussed is called the topic sentence. Do not confuse a topic sentence with a title. The topic sentence is a part of the paragraph, not set off from or above it as a title is. Also, a topic sentence is always a complete sentence, where as a title is often a fragment.
In the examples below notice the differences between titles and topic sentences:
Exercise: Convert the following titles into complete topic sentences.
In the following paragraphs, the topic sentences have been underlined. Notice the location of each.
To call a girl and tell her that you have learned her number from a computer could be embarrassing. How might you put it? Could you say, "Univac sent me" or "I was having the most interesting conversation with a computer the other day when your number came up"? Neither approach sounds very casual.
When we watch a person walk away from us, his image shrinks in size. But since we know for a fact that he is not shrinking, we make a unconscious correcting and "see" him as retaining his full stature. Past experience tells us what his true stature is with respect to our own. Any sane and dependable expectation of the future requires that he have the same true stature when we next encounter him. Our perception is thus a prediction; it embraces the past and the future as well as the present.
After you have a topic sentence for a paragraph, you need to develop it adequately. You can learn to write good paragraphs by studying the various techniques that professional writers use to develop ideas. The more you read, the more you will find that no one method, or no one combination of methods, is better than another except as it fits the needs of a given paragraph. Study the following methods of paragraph development.
Supply relevant specific details to develop the controlling idea. The controlling idea of a paragraph often brings specific details to mind. Giving details makes a topic more vivid and develops at more length what is suggested in the topic. Here is a good example from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and rocketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation.
Specific details bring the schoolroom clearly into focus.
Controlling generalizations can be used to develop a paragraph.To be convincing, the examples given in support of a generalization must be truly representative. In the following paragraph concrete examples are given to illustrate the general suggestion of the topic:
Riverside Park is noted for the beauty and variety of its native trees. Along the river to the south are many excellent specimens of elm, sycamore, cottonwood, and hackberry. To the west, covering several acres, is a grove of tall, beautiful black walnut trees, shading here and there a less stately mulberry. To the north the park abounds in large shapely oaks, some of which thrust out protecting arms above clumps of redbuds. Other less prominent specimens scattered throughout the park are ash, box elder, and Osage orange.
Use contrast or comparison to develop the controlling idea. Through this technique, differences or similarities are made to stand out more prominently. Notice the effect of this method in the paragraph below, from Irving's The Country Church:
As I have brought these families into contrast, I must notice their behavior in church. That of the nobleman's family was quiet, serious, and attentive. Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion, but rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred places, inseparable from good breeding. The others, on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter and whisper; they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural congregation.
Use classification to develop a paragraph. To classify is to divide into categories. Some classifications are based on similarities, for instance, such trees as the black oak, the sycamore, and the cottonwood may all be classified as deciduous. Other classifications are based on differences: such trees as the black oak, the sycamore, and cottonwood may be differentiated from the cedar, the fir, and the pine by the labels deciduous and evergreen. A classification relates ideas by listing and characterizing the members of a group. Notice the classification of book owners in the following paragraph:
There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers --- unread, untouched. This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books. The second has a great many books --- a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance. The third has a few books or many --- everyone of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. This man owns books.
Often showing cause or effect is used to develop a second or third paragraph. A paragraph developed by causal analysis must not only raise the question "why" but answer it to the satisfaction of the reader. The cause or causes must satisfactorily explain the result. In the following paragraph the opening sentence raises the question of why the Norman Conquest did not, as might have been expected, make England a French--speaking country. This sentence thus states an effect or result of the Conquest. The sentences that follow develop the controlling idea by showing causes to account for the result.
One might wonder why , after the Norman Conquest, French did not become the national Languages replacing English entirely. The reason is that the Conquest was not a national migration, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon invasion had been. Great numbers of Normans came to England, but they came as rulers and landlords. French became the language of the court, the language of the nobility, the language of polite society, the language of literature. But it did not replace English as the language of the people. There were hundreds of towns and villages in which French was never heard except when visitors of high station passed through.
Use a combination of methods to develop a paragraph. Many good paragraphs are developed not by any one specific method but by a combination of methods. Some good paragraphs almost defy analysis. The important consideration is not the specific method used but the adequacy of the development. Notice how the following paragraph combines both cause and effect and comparison and contrast.
I wonder why American towns look so much alike that I sometimes mix them up in my memory. The reference to the standard influence of mass production whose agents are the traveling salesman, the mail-order houses, the five-and-ten cent stores, the chain stores, the movies, is not sufficient. If you stay two days in Bologna and in Ferrari, or in London and in Avignon, you will never mix them up in all 'your life. But it may well happen that after you spend two days in St. Louis and in Kansas City the images of these towns soon merge into one. I think the real reason for this is that these towns have not yet had time enough to individualize and to crystallize visible local traditions of their own.