1. Academic Skills Adviser
The Perfect Paragraph
Mel Kinchant
Academic Skills Adviser

2. What are paragraphs for?
Paragraphs are for communicating individual ideas in short, digestible parcels – reading a large piece of continuous text is potentially exhausting and confusing. Conversely, very short or ‘single sentence’ paragraphs should also be avoided in academic writing as they can interrupt the flow and make writing feel disjointed.
Paragraphs help to divide a larger idea, or piece of work, into its individual parts.
When strung together, paragraphs help to demonstrate a clear line of reasoning, leading towards a sensible and clear conclusion (hopefully!)

3. What are paragraphs for?
When discussing the ideas of other people (i.e. citing others’ work), paragraphs can help separate different viewpoints and show the way they relate to one another, for example one paragraph might convey a particular point of view and then the following one might present further evidence to support this view or present a contrasting one.
Paragraphs take your reader on a journey. Using these smaller pieces of writing makes it easier for your reader to travel through. Your paragraphs help you to build your overall argument, with each paragraph contributing something else towards this.

4. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
A topic sentence
Topic sentences serve as the paragraph’s ‘mini introduction’.
They summarise, as briefly and clearly as possible, which idea / main point the paragraph will deal with or focus on.
They are typically, though not always, at the beginning of the paragraph.

5. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Explanation or clarification of the idea in question
Support sentences are used to explain, clarify and provide further information about the idea or point that you are making. They expand upon the topic sentence.
It is very important to ensure that the idea within each paragraph has relevance to the overall argument you are presenting. A common pitfall is to include something which is related and interesting, but not directly relevant. The relevance of your point should be explicit to the reader and you can use support sentences to help you to do this.

6. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Commentary
Further commentary which might be included within a paragraph -
You may wish to include a brief critique of the evidence you have included on some occasions (you might briefly highlight strengths and / or limitations of that evidence).
You may wish to acknowledge an alternative perspective, possibly using further evidence to refute it.

7. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Evidence to support
You must include evidence (and / or examples, depending on your purpose) to support each point you present.
The sources you cite must be of an appropriate academic quality. There should be no ‘unsupported statements’ within your paragraphs as your ideas must be informed by the academic literature related to the topic.

8. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Evidence to support
Avoid using direct quotes wherever possible and if you do use them, keep them short. Wherever possible, you should paraphrase information and cite the source.
If you’re depending on a single source for a lot of evidence, break it up into chunks and spread across multiple paragraphs if possible. You need to demonstrate a synthesis of different information from a variety of appropriate sources.
Be very clear with your citations, especially when alternating between different sources.

9. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Summary statement
At the end of some of your paragraphs you might provide a ‘mini conclusion’. You may make reference to the broader aims, questions, themes of the essay, report etc. You could highlight how this point or idea contributes towards your overall argument for example.
Alternatively, you may provide the reader with a brief indication of the content to follow in the next paragraph.

10. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Summary statement
Restate, in clearer or more forceful terms, the key idea, e.g. ‘Based on this, it is difficult to dispute that…’
Gesturing forwards or backwards, e.g. ‘This further underlines…’ or ‘This reinforces the idea that… as discussed above’ or ‘This idea will be discussed in greater detail below’

11. What’s in the perfect paragraph?
Linking words / phrases
Use these to gesture ‘forwards’ and ‘backwards’ within your writing.
Linking words and phrases (Furthermore, However, alternatively, For this reason…) can be used to signpost the direction of your ideas to the reader and can be used to make effective links between different points.
They can be used to make links between sentences within a paragraph and also used in summary statements and topic sentences to make links between one paragraph and the subsequent or preceding one.

12. Finally, how long is a paragraph meant to be?
There’s no definitive rule for how long a paragraph should or shouldn’t be; if an idea is complex, it will demand a longer paragraph; if it is simple, a shorter one. Remember to avoid ‘single sentence’ paragraphs and ones which cover whole pages however!
An average might be around five or six sentences which could include for example:
1 for the topic sentence
1 to provide further explanation or clarification
1 or 2 to submit some evidence
1 or 2 to comment on the evidence
1 to sum up and/or gesture towards the next idea