How to Write a Good Paragraph: A Step-by-Step Guide
Writing well structured academic paragraphs can be difficult. Yet, with practice, you can make remarkable improvements. The following guide shows you how to draft and explain your ideas so that you can write clearly:
Step 1: Decide the Topic of Your Paragraph
Before writing, you need to identify the purpose of your writing – what you are writing about. Look at the question or the input given to you and try to make notes of key terms and phrases that are repeated. Then, ask yourself:
- What topic am I supposed to write about?
- What do I know about it?
- Where can I find more about it?
- Why do I write this paragraph?
By asking these questions, you will understand more about the topic and will know why you are writing.
Step 2: Develop a Topic Sentence for your paragraph
Before writing the paragraph, it is very essential to think about the topic and what you want to say about the topic. The topic is very easy. However, what you want to say about the topic is what is challenging – this is called the controlling ideas. Good topic sentences always include a topic and a controlling idea.
- The topic – The main subject matter or idea covered in the paragraph.
- The controlling idea – This idea focuses on the topic by giving a direction to the paragraph.
The following sentences include both a topic and controlling ideas:
- Effective writers use different strategies. (effective writers = topic + different strategies = controlling idea).
- Great teachers are characterized by several qualities. (great teachers = topic + several qualities = controlling idea).
Step 3: Demonstrate Your Point
After writing your topic sentence, you need to develop ideas to clarify, explain, and exemplify your point.
Ask these questions:
- What details and examples I can I use to support my point?
- How can support my ideas with specific examples?
- What kind of information does the reader know?
You can also add some of this information to your paragraph:
- Quotes
- Statistics
- Facts
- Proverbs
- Polls
- Questions
Step 4: Give Your Paragraph Meaning
After giving the reader enough information to understand your point, you have to explain why this information is meaningful.
- Ask yourself these questions:
- What does the information mean?
- Why is this information important?
- How does it help explain the main idea?
Step 5: Conclude your paragraph
The last thing you will need to write is a concluding sentence. The Concluding sentence summarises your paragraph and makes it unified. Concluding sentences play two roles:
- They summarise your paragraph by shedding light on the topic.
- They link the paragraph to the next one in case you are an essay.
Step 6: Look Over and Proofread your paragraph
- Proofread and edit your paragraph.
- Make sure your work includes no mistakes before you submit it.
- See whether you answered the question given sufficiently.
