Are your paragraphs powerful?

What are the building blocks of writing? Letters, words, sentences? Arguments can be made for each.

But if you write to argue, persuade, or explain, the best answer is paragraphs.

Many writers think of a paragraph as collection of sentences framed by an indent and a carriage return, running perhaps 10 or 12 lines. Few have the language to describe what’s good—or bad—about a paragraph. Our techniques show you what it means for a paragraph to be unified, coherent, and well developed.

A paragraph is unified if each sentence is clearly related to the point. It is coherent if you make it obvious to your reader how each sentence is linked to the point. And it is well developed if its sentences unfold in a way that makes your argument perfectly clear to the reader.

The difficulty is putting these ideas into action. The key is recognizing and imitating the patterns of good paragraphs, which we’ll show you in future blog entries and in our online writing training.

Consider an example:

One of the best ways to make sure that a paragraph is well developed is to express the point in the first sentence and then to support it with details and examples in subsequent sentences. This method is as effective as it is popular—perhaps two-thirds of all sentences in expository writing are of this form.

But using other paragraph models (judiciously) can give your writing greater pace and power. Conclude with your point. Ask a question and answer it. Undermine a premise to make the opposite point. 

These are just a few possibilities.