Master the paragraph and you've mastered the essay. Good ideas can be made emphatically and clearly with well positioned, ordered, and developed paragraphs. These suggestions will help you write and teach better paragraph writing.
I received this letter from a former student:
Dear Teacher:
You may not remember me. I swam in high school and did pretty good. I got bored my sophomore year and decided to quit. My speedo, swim goggles, and cap were in my backpack and ready to turn in right after your class. You gave a lesson on methods of paragraph development, varying paragraph lengths, and using different ways to organize a paragraph. Your lessons on writing a paragraph changed my life. Instead of quitting, I varied the length of my swims and developed different swim strokes. I think you should share this gold medal winning lesson plan on writing a paragraph, methods of paragraph development, and varying paragraph length with the world.
Sincerely,
Michael
This olympic size plea will not go unheralded:
No matter how fancy your methods of paragraph development become, there comes a time when going back to the basics solves the problem:
- Write the topic sentence first. You don't need to have the topic sentence first, but why make your life difficult? Writing the topic sentence first helps the writer (and the reader) focus.
- Generalizations should exist only in the topic sentence. Each paragraph needs to make one point. If you're having trouble focusing on one main point, write a limiting sentence after the topic sentence to narrow the topic (see part 1).
- Each paragraph should contain only one main idea.
- Do not worry about transitions in the first draft.
- Organize your information logically.
Note: Special thanks to Schaum's Quick Guide to Essay Writing for helping me organize this section.
When writing a paragraph the author should organize it using one of the following methods:
- General to Specific: Start with a generalization and follow it with specific examples.
- Specific to General: Start with specific examples and finish with a generalization.
- Order of Importance: Paragraphs can begin with either the most important idea first or the least important idea first.
- Chronological: Order facts according to when they occurred.
- Spatial: Very effective for description, spatial order moves directionally.
- Order of Familiarity: Knowing the audience is critical for this method of organization. The paragraph can begin with either the least familiar or most familiar concept.