Are you writing strong paragraphs or just sentence hopping along to get your point across?
Keeping a paragraph in line can be tricky sometimes as they often have an unruly mind of their own and end up somewhere other than the destination.
Today we’re going to look over basic paragraph structure. We’ve discussed Using Basic Journalism Structure to Write Great Articles and The Order of Your Writing; Chronological, Spatial and Logical. Now we’re going to break down the paragraph and see if we can get it under control and tight.
What is a paragraph? What’s its purpose? In books and other printed material it’s the section that’s indented, but in web writing we simply use white space most of the time. Other than remembering to indent, have we given much thought lately to what makes up a paragraph? Do they have a specific place in our writing?
A paragraph is a cluster of sentences that group single related statements/ideas together. It sounds easy enough but all too often our paragraphs contain more than one topic; they aren’t general enough because we haven’t grouped one main idea into them. If we’re talking about widgets and trying to give our readers some basic information about color, usability, etc. One paragraph needs to be about the available colors and another paragraph should be about the usability or features. These two should not be grouped into one paragraph because they are not related statements.
Now that we’ve talked about what a paragraph is lets move on to the types of paragraphs. Knowing that paragraphs have more than one type or function can help you hone your writing skills by making sure your paragraphs are focused on the point at hand and group together single related statements.
The types of paragraphs are: introductory, development, transition and concluding.
Our article begins with the introduction, also known as the introductory paragraph. It presents the material. This is where we gain the readers attention and set the tone of the article. The introductory paragraph does not go into detail, it just gives a general idea of the material and lets the reader know what areas it will cover.
After the introductory paragraph we move to the body of our article where we will have mostly development paragraphs but we could also have transition paragraphs.
The development paragraph is the one most often used in writing. They are the basic building blocks of writing and has two jobs; they define each new stage of the article and gives the concrete details of the material. The development paragraph usually begins with a topic sentence. The topic sentence states what the paragraph is about.
The transition paragraph is usually short and not all articles need transition paragraphs. They are used to emphasize change. It’s a dividing line when you need to move from one aspect of the subject to another. Most of the time a transition paragraph is simply one sentence. There’s no need to go into detail about changing gears, just a simple notation to let the reader know change is coming.
The concluding paragraph is where you wrap it all up and reiterate the high points, but you do not want to create an abrupt stop here. The concluding paragraph should bring the reader full circle.
Understanding the basic types of paragraphs and working to keep our ideas and statements grouped in single paragraphs will improve our writing and make reading our material easier. I conclude.
Write On!
Patti
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Excellent article, Patti! I enjoyed reviewing the principles of smart paragraphs.
Excellent article, Patti! I enjoyed reviewing the principles of smart paragraphs.
This article is playing a huge role in my learning process. Thank you!
I'll subscribe you feeds right now!
This article is playing a huge role in my learning process. Thank you!
I'll subscribe you feeds right now!
This article is playing a huge role in my learning process. Thank you!
I'll subscribe you feeds right now!
it is a dust answer
its exciting and fun . i learned many things about it ..