By Joseph Cheatle

 Keep one idea to a paragraph  Unity  Single focus  Coherence  Makes the paragraph easily understandable to a reader  Logical Bridges  The same idea of a topic is carried over from sentence to sentence  Successive sentences can be constructed in parallel form

 Verbal Bridges  Key words can be repeated in several sentences  Synonymous words can be repeated in several sentences  Pronouns can refer to nouns in previous sentences  Transition words can be used to link ideas from different sentences

 When you begin a new idea or point  To contrast information or ideas  When your readers need a pause  When you are ending your introduction or starting your conclusion

 A topic sentence is a sentence that indicates in a general way what idea or thesis the paragraph is going to deal with. Although not all paragraphs have clear-cut topic sentences, and despite the fact that topic sentences can occur anywhere in the paragraph (as the first sentence, the last sentence, or somewhere in the middle), an easy way to make sure your reader understands the topic of the paragraph is to put your topic sentence near the beginning of the paragraph. Regardless of whether you include an explicit topic sentence or not, you should be able to easily summarize what the paragraph is about.

 To state the main point of a paragraph  To give the reader a sense of direction (indicate what information will follow)  To summarize the paragraph’s main point  Placement  Often appears as the first or second sentence of a paragraph  Rarely appears at the end of the paragraph

 Does the topic sentence declare a single point of my argument?  Does the topic sentence further my argument?  Is the topic sentence relevant to my thesis?  Is there a clear relationship between this topic sentence and the paragraph that came before?  Does the topic sentence control my paragraph?  Where have I placed my topic sentence?

 The topic (introduced by the topic sentence) should be discussed fully and adequately.  Paragraph should provide evidence and support for the topic sentence  Methods to make sure your paragraph is well- developed:  Use examples and illustrations  Cite data (facts, statistics, evidence, details, and others)  Examine testimony (what other people say such as quotes and paraphrases)  Use an anecdote or story  Define the terms in the paragraph  Compare and contrast

 Evaluate causes and reasons  Examine effects and consequences  Analyze the topic  Describe the topic  Offer a chronology of an event (time segments)

 Order to time (chronology)  Order of space (descriptions of a location or scene)  Order of climax (building toward a conclusion)  Order of importance (from least to most important or from most to least important)

 When you begin a new idea or point  To contrast information or ideas  When your readers need a pause  When ending your introduction or starting your conclusion

 Signposts – internal aids to assist readers; they usually consist of several sentences or a paragraph outlining what the paper has covered and where the paper is going  Transitions – usually one or several sentences that “transition” from one idea to the next. Transitions can be used at the end of most paragraphs to help the paragraphs flow one into the next

 One main idea per paragraph  Aim for four to six or more sentences per paragraph  If you have very short paragraphs, think about whether they are really part of a larger paragraph – and can be combined – or whether you can add details to support each point and thus make each into a more fully developed paragraph

 Introduce the quote  Cite the quote correctly  “….” (Woolf 50).  Your should cite the author, however, if you are using multiple works by a single author, you can cite the works themselves.  Explain the quote and why it is important to your paper

 As the symptoms of Septimus’s shell-shock continue to escalate in seriousness, Sir William Bradshaw, a noted psychologist, is called upon to help him. Sir William has, “not only prospered himself but made England prosper, secluded her lunatics, forbade childbirth, penalised despair, made it impossible for the unfit to propagate their views until they, too, shared his sense of proportion” (Woolf 97). According to Sir William, it is only through “proportion” that a person can live a prosperous life. He defines “proportion” as, “...

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