Body Paragraphs

How are Body Paragraphs Composed?

Because essays are composed of multiple body paragraphs, writing and organizing good paragraphs is super important.

"Body paragraph" refers to any paragraph that follows the introduction and comes before the conclusion. Essays consist of multiple body paragraphs wherein the main information is presented, and the longer an essay is, the more body paragraphs there will be. 

Well-developed paragraphs have

• A clear topic sentence: A topic sentence generally appears in the first sentence. It's like a mini thesis statement for each paragraph and serves to unify the contents of the paragraph. Everything that follows in the paragraph should relate to, or give evidence for, the topic sentence.

• Specific evidence or supporting details: Body paragraphs need to be fully developed. Supporting details can come in the form of personal examples, definitions of key terms, statistics, and quotes or paraphrases from credible sources.  

• Transitions between sentences and paragraphs

• A concluding sentence that ties the evidence or details back to the essay's thesis AND/OR transitions into the next paragraph

Guide for Well-Developed Paragraphs

Guide for Persuasive body paragraphs

see our Persuasive Essay page

Fill-in-the-blank Essay Mapping Tool 

created by Charles Darwin University

This tool is sort of like a mad libs game, but for writing your essay! Fill in the blanks and the mapping tool will bring all of your sentences together in a pdf.