Paragraphs

Your English instructor loves paragraphs and thinks they are essential components of writing. So it stands to reason that she expects you to use paragraphs thoughtfully in the work you do for this class!

One of the most effective ways for writers to improve their paragraphs is to think about audience. Research shows that readers have specific expectations of the paragraphs they read, even though they may not be conscious of them: they expect a paragraph to be unified both externally (meaning it should be connected to the paragraphs before and after it) and internally (meaning the individual paragraph should have a clear focus and the sequence of ideas should be ordered in a logical and coherent way).

Paragraphs function visually, marking a chunk or a unit of information: readers can see that there is a shift in thinking with a paragraph break. And because readers expect paragraphs to be unified internally and logically sequenced, readers instinctively know that they should pay attention to the statements at the beginnings and ends of paragraphs: they “naturally attend to end-points” (Eden and Mitchell 115).

Paragraphs vary significantly in pattern and organization and in the ways they develop ideas, as well as in length. (These variations are often based on the purpose and genre of the writing and where it will be published, as well as on the expectations of readers.) But especially in academic writing, effective paragraphs almost always have a main idea or topic that is related to the overall text.

There is a separate entry on PIE Paragraphs for more details about one, very common and useful form of academic paragraphing that we'll use frequently in our class. While there is no perfect “rule” for how many sentences there should be in a paragraph in an academic text, adequately developed paragraphs explain their points. Most paragraphs end with a sentence that concludes or sums up the idea that has been discussed, and/or helps to transition the reader to the topic of the next paragraph.

However, it's not essential for a paragraph to "wind up," as Amy Guptill explains:

The wind-up

Some guides advise you to end each paragraph with a specific concluding sentence, in a sense, to treat each paragraph as a kind of mini-essay. But that’s not a widely held convention. Most well written academic pieces don’t adhere to that structure. The last sentence of the paragraph should certainly be in your own words (as in, not a quote), but as long as the paragraph succeeds in carrying out the task that it has been assigned by its key sentence, you don’t need to worry about whether that last sentence has an air of conclusiveness. For example, consider these paragraphs about the cold fusion controversy of the 1980s that appeared in a best-selling textbook12:

The experiment seemed straightforward and there were plenty of scientists willing to try it. Many did. It was wonderful to have a simple laboratory experiment on fusion to try after the decades of embarrassing attempts to control hot fusion. This effort required multi-billion dollar machines whose every success seemed to be capped with an unanticipated failure. ‘Cold fusion’ seemed to provide, as Martin Fleischmann said during the course of that famous Utah press conference, ‘another route’—the route of little science. [Collins and Pinch 58]

In that example, the first and last sentences in the paragraph are somewhat symmetrical: the authors introduce the idea of accessible science, contrast it with big science, and bring it back to the phrase “little science.” Here’s an example from the same chapter of the same book that does not have any particular symmetry13:

The struggle between proponents and critics in a scientific controversy is always a struggle for credibility. When scientists make claims which are literally ‘incredible’, as in the cold fusion case, they face an uphill struggle. The problem Pons and Fleischmann had to overcome was that they had credibility as electrochemists but not as nuclear physicists. And it was nuclear physics where their work was likely to have its main impact. [Collins and Pinch 74]

The last sentence of the paragraph doesn’t mirror the first, but the paragraph still works just fine. In general, every sentence of academic writing should add some unique content. Don’t trouble yourself with having the last sentence in every paragraph serve as a mini-conclusion. Instead, worry about developing each point sufficiently and making your logical sequence clear.

Some writers put paragraphs into their writing while they are composing; others go back later and decide where the appropriate breaks are. (And they often change them, too.) Both approaches can be effective, as long as the writer is taking readers and their expectations into account. See also reverse outlines.

Works Cited
Collins, Harry, and Trevor Pinch. The Golem: What You Should Know About Science. 2nd ed., Cambridge UP, Canto Classics, 1998.
Eden, Rick, and Ruth Mitchell. “Paragraphing for the Reader.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no. 4, 1986, pp. 416–441. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/357912.
Guptill, Amy. "Back to Basics: The Perfect Paragraph." Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence, Open SUNY Textbooks, Milne, https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/chapter/back-to-basics-the-perfect-paragraph/

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