The Basic Building Blocks: Creating Effective Paragraphs
Paragraphs are the basic materials out of which you build your paper. Just like a house will collapse if the bricks used to build it are not solid bricks, your paper will fall apart if your paragraphs are not good paragraphs. Rules 1-4 are the most essential.
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Each paragraph must have just ONE “Big Idea”. In other words, each individual paragraph must meet the Principle of Cohesion!
Just like a paper is not a haphazard collection of semi-related ideas, each paragraph is not merely a collection of semi-related ideas. Although you will mention multiple “sub-ideas” or facts in each paragraph, these sub-ideas must make sense together as a cohesive group – they must all be in service to the Big Idea of the paragraph.
2. The counterpart to #1 is that each Big Idea must have its own paragraph! You should not have a Big Idea scattered in bits and pieces across multiple paragraphs.
Another way of thinking about this: each Big Idea deserves to have its own paragraph! Otherwise you will not have sufficient room to explain it thoroughly enough. If you don’t adhere to this rule, you will be randomly jumping back and forth between different ideas, your reader will have a hard time keeping track, and your paper will be confusing to read.
3. You need to know (and it must be clear to the reader) what the Big Idea of each paragraph is. If you cannot answer this, then your paragraph is likely just a collection of random ideas, and it is not cohesive!
You need to either (1) place these ideas into other paragraphs or (2) “glue” them together by making it clear to the reader how they all connect into one Big Idea.
4. You need to know (and it must be clear to the reader) how the Big Idea of each paragraph is contributing to the thesis.
Remember rule #3 above! If you cannot answer this question, you need to revise the paragraph. If the paragraph is multi- tasking, consider splitting it into multiple paragraphs.
5. Ideally, paragraphs should be neither too long nor too short.
For tips about paragraph length, click here:
6. All paragraphs need either a topic sentence(s), a transition sentence(s), or both.
For guidelines on transitions and topic sentences, click here:
7. Not every paragraph will need a concluding sentence, but some will. Concluding sentences indicate what the reader should take away from the paragraph; they summarize the Big Idea and indicate how this idea helps the Thesis.
The extra bit of summary which concluding sentences provide is particularly helpful when the Big Idea of a paragraph is complicated, or when you have discussed multiple sub-ideas and need to remind the reader what the Big Idea is.
8. Be aware of inner-paragraph ordering! Within every paragraph, you will mention multiple ideas, facts, or considerations. You must take care that you present these ideas in a logical order so that the reader can easily understand.
9. Be aware of inner-paragraph transitions! In addition to making sure that the ideas within each paragraph are ordered logically (see rule #8 above), you must make sure that the ideas flow smoothly.
Often all that is needed is a transition phrase or clause at the beginning of the following sentence.
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It is much easier to have smooth inner- paragraph transitions if your inner- paragraph ordering is in shape!
10. Avoid starting a paragraph with “Also”, “Additionally”, “Furthermore”, “Next”, and similar phrases.
These words indicate to the reader that while you know there is some connection between the ideas you are discussing, you don’t actually know WHAT this connection is. In other words, they reveal a lack of understanding. This undermines the reader’s trust in you.