Developing and Ordering Paragraphs

Developing The Paragraph

• Unity

A paragraph deals with one main idea. If you are moving away from that idea,
conclude the paragraph and start a new one.

Here is an example of how not to organize your paragraphs:

As an adult living at Thornfield, Jane learns the secret of a hidden room containing
the insane Bertha Rochester. There are no windows, rendering it dark and loathsome.
The figure of Bertha stands out in the gloom as an unrecognizable beast that
"grovel[s] and growl[s] like some strange wild animal" (220). This image compares to
that of the unrecognizable mirror image in the red room. Jane takes in the episode of
the hidden room and waits until she returns to her own room to think about it. Even
though Jane is in love with Rochester, she refuses to compromise her morals and
become his mistress. However, just as she is leaving she stops at his door, but moves
on. Thus she encounters the greatest challenge to her self-control, but overcomes it in
the end.

Part of the problem with this paragraph is that it is too dependent upon plot summary.
Because these incidents occur next to one another in the novel, the writer has put them
into the same paragraph; there is, however, no connection made between them. The
paragraph begins by talking about the hidden room, and ends with Jane's decision to
stay away from Rochester. There is no unity because the writer is merely wandering
between events.

The reader has a similar problem when confronted with short, inconclusive
paragraphs. As an example, these two paragraphs would read better had they been
combined into one:

The ball takes place in a secluded abbey, and the Prince has locked himself and his
guests inside the grounds. This setting suggests that everyone in the story is hiding
from reality. The locking of the masqueraders behind cold iron gates creates a
harrowing sense of doom.

The abbey's structure and its adornments also have an eerie effect on the mood of the
story. The fact that the Red Death kills all the people from all seven chambers
suggests that it is killing all of the seven seas and the seven continents; it is wiping out
the planet.

Both paragraphs discuss what the abbey represents in Poe's "The Masque of the Red
Death," but the two observations are too sketchy to stand on their own as paragraphs;
they should be part of a single paragraph about the abbey. The problem is probably
caused by the lack of a tight topic sentence: the paragraphs are about Poe's use of
suggestive symbolism, but instead of a sentence that focuses the discussion, the first
begins with an undirected narrative sentence. The effect on the reader is of reading
notes rather than an essay.

As this example shows, the first thing you must determine about each paragraph is its
focus. Once you have done so, you should never allow yourself to veer away from
that governing idea.

• The Topic Sentence

To make the significance of each paragraph clear, you must include a topic sentence.
The topic sentence of this paragraph is the previous one because it includes the crucial
words "You must include a topic sentence." Most often the topic sentence comes first,
and the point made in the topic sentence is developed and supported by the rest of the
paragraph. Without some kind of topic sentence, the paragraph is rudderless and the
reader is lost.

Undeveloped essays may contain entire paragraphs of topic sentences, combining

several expandable ideas into one block of unsupported assertions. If an idea is
important enough to mention it is important enough to develop; if a general statement
is worth making, it is worth supporting in detail.

• Developing Your Topic Sentence

After the topic sentence, the rest of the paragraph supports the point you wish to
make. Inexperienced writers often fail to construct effective paragraphs because they
make an assertion without backing it up. The following paragraph provides a topic but
no development:

Jane is relieved to find that Mrs. Fairfax is in fact a nice lady, and that she does not
own Fairfield. Perhaps she wants to live as an equal, or maybe she is tired of having
authority figures looking over her, as they have done for her entire life.

The writer does not develop the statement in the first sentence; rather the discussion
fizzles out into speculation with no specific reference to the text.

In an expository essay especially, you may be able to refer to objective support for
your position; if you are writing a paper about birth control, you might find it useful
to include statistical information to strengthen your argument. Never state without
supporting evidence; aside from the problem of proof, you will end up with a short
essay.

The Functions of Paragraphs

• Paragraphs That Analyze

This paragraph subdivides the subject and analyzes each sub-topic:

Every student who attends university needs three types of education: general
education, liberal education, and specialized education. By general education I mean
that education which is required to become an effective member of the human race; it
provides us with the means of communication with one another, with an
understanding of the relationships between human beings and the institutions which
they establish, with an analytical approach toward the physical universe of which we
are all a part, and with a concept of the position which we hold in the stream of time
and history. By liberal education I mean the education that frees us from the confines
of the group, the patterns, the conventions, and enables us to become truly an
individual; it is therefore the education which discovers our greatest abilities and
interests and then develops them to the highest capacities which we can achieve. By
specialized education I mean the education which will enable us to make a living in a
competitive economic world; especially in America there is very little leisure class,
and every educated person is expected to have some place in which to render a
valuable service .

• Paragraphs That Contrast And Compare

This pattern may be the basis of an entire essay, but it can also occur within one
paragraph. In the first paragraph below, the construction of the Cheops and the Grand
Coulee dam is compared and contrasted, aspect by aspect. The pattern here could be
diagrammed thus:

A1/B1, A2/B2, A3/B3

and so forth. The use of balanced sentences intensifies the effect of the comparison. In
the second paragraph, primitive medicine is first described and then modern medicine
is described by contrast. The pattern here could be diagrammed thus:

A1 A2 A3/B1 B2 B3.

The use of a transitional device ("On the other hand") is very important to signal the
shift in this pattern of comparison.

[1.] One of the masses is built of cut stone, the other of poured concrete. One took
50,000 men twenty years to build, the other will take 5,000 men six years, in a task
not only three times greater but vastly more complex and dangerous. Both structures
relied on the labor of those who would otherwise have been unemployed. Egyptian
peasants in the off season built Cheops; American workingmen and engineers shelved
by a great depression are building Grand Coulee. Pyramids were houses for the dead.
Dams are centers of energy for the living. It is better, I think, to live in the age of the
Great Dams than in the age of the Great Pyramids.

[2.] There are two philosophies of medicine: the primitive or superstitious, and the
modern or rational. They are in complete opposition to one another. The former
involves the belief that disease is caused by supernatural forces. Such a doctrine
associates disease with sin; it is an aspect of religion which conceives diseases as due
to certain forms of evil and attempts to control them by ceremonial and superstitious
measures or to drive them away by wishful thinking. On the other hand, rational
medicine is based on the conception that disease arises from natural causes; it
associates sickness with ignorance. Civilized man tries to control the forces causing
disease by material, not spiritualistic, means; he does not view disease as supernatural
or the outcome of sin against moral laws, but rather as resulting from the violation of
sanitary laws. He recognizes that knowledge is the sole means of preventing it. The
measures he relies upon both to prevent and cure disease are those which have
resulted from scientific investigation and which have been proved to be effective by
experience.

• Paragraphs That Define

In most essays there are terms to be defined. An expository paragraph may be the
beginning of a more complex argument, like this:

Sukiyaki (pronounced by the Japanese in three sylllables with no accent--shee-yah-

kee) is the dish that has proved most popular among American visitors to Japan. It is
not, as it is sometimes described, a Japanese imitation of chop suey, but is a native
concoction with a long and honorable history. Its ingredients may vary, but they
consist usually of raw beef sliced paper-thin, onions, spinach, bamboo shoots,
mushrooms, bean curd, and a kind of gelatinous noodle, with sugar and rice wine and
soy sauce as seasonings. It is the cooking and eating of sukiyaki, however, rather than
the food itself, that makes it an experience to remember. The guests gather round a
thick skillet set on a charcoal burner, and the raw ingredients (brought in beautifully
arranged on a huge plate, for the Japanese believe in eating first with their eyes) are
cooked in their presence. After part of the food has been allowed to simmer with its
seasonings for a tantalizing while, the guests reach into the common skillet with their
chopsticks, taking out whatever pieces please them and dipping them into a beaten
raw egg. Sukiyaki is not just a food, it is a social experience; for all evening long the
guests sit around the pan "cooking and eating," as the Japanese say, "and eating and
cooking."

• Paragraphs That Show Causes

This paragraph makes a claim and then provides a historical explanation for it:

The development of advertising styles was the convergence of several very

respectable American traditions. One of these was the tradition of the "plain style,"
which the Puritans made so much of and which accounts for so much of the strength
of the Puritan literature. The plain style was of course much influenced by the Bible
and found its way into the rhetoric of American writers and speakers of great power
like Abraham Lincoln. When advertising began to be self-conscious in the early years
of this century, the pioneers urged copywriters not to be too clever, and especially not
to be fancy. One of the pioneers of the advertising copywriters, John Powers, said, for
example, –The commonplace is the proper level for writing in business; where the
first virtue is plainness, •fine writingê is not only intellectual, it is offensive.” George
P. Rowell, another advertising pioneer, said, –You must write your advertisement to
catch damned fools ††not college professors.” He was a very tactful person. And he
added, –and youêll catch just as many college professors as you will of any other
sort.” In the 1920ês, when advertising was beginning to come into its own, Claude
Hopkins, whose name is known to all in the trade, said, –Brilliant writing has no place
in advertising. A unique style takes attention from the subject. Any apparent effort to
sell creates corresponding resistance... One should be natural and simple. His
language should not be conspicuous. In fishing for buyers, as in fishing for bass, one
should not reveal the hook.” So there developed a characterisitic advertising style in
which plainness, the phrase that anyone could understand, was a distinguishing mark.

• Paragraphs That Show Results

This paragraph shows the opposite side of the coin from "causes." The topic sentence
of this paragraph will provide a starting point for a series of results which comprise
the rest of the paragraph:

The cold, the dark, and the intense radioactivity, together lasting for months, represent
a severe assault on our civilization and our species. Civil and sanitary services would
be wiped out. Medical facilities, drugs, the most rudimentary means for relieving the
vast human suffering, would be unavailable. Any but the most elaborate shelters
would be useless, quite apart from the question of what good it would be to emerge a
few months later. Synthetics burned in the destruction of the cities would produce a
wide variety of toxic gases, including carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins and furans.
After the dust and soot settled out, the solar ultraviolet flux would be much larger than
its present value. Immunity to disease would decline. Epidemics and pandemics
would be rampant, especially after the billion or so unburied bodies began to thaw.
Moreover, the combined influence of these severe and simultaneous stresses on life
are likely to produce even more adverse consequences--biologists call them
synergisms††that we are not yet wise enough to foresee.

• Paragraphs That Use Analogy

This paragraph develops an idea by means of a comparison with a similar idea. (Note
that analogy is a useful tool, but using it can also lead to problems.)

Light and all other forms of radiation are analogous to water-ripples or waves, in that
they distribute energy from a central source. The sunês radiation distributes through
space the vast amount of energy which is generated inside the sun. We hardly know
whether there is any actual wave-motion in light or not, but we know that both light
and all other types of radiation are propagated in such a form that they have some of
the properties of a succession of waves.
Paragraph Order

• Paragraph Order--An Introduction

• Paragraph Order--Building To A Climax
• Paragraph Order--Familiar To The Unfamiliar
• Paragraphs Order--General To Particular
• Paragraphs Order--Particular To General
• Paragraphs Order--Narration
• Paragraphs Order--Grinding It Out
• Paragraphs Order--Chronology

Paragraph Transitions

http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/MasterToc.html#Paragraphs