PARAGRAPH:

Characteristics of a good paragraph

A paragraph develops a unit through a core of sentences which are interrelated, which follow
one another in orderly and logical progression, and which are expressed in clear, unequivocal and
simple language. To do this, a paragraph should have four qualities: completeness, unity, order, and
coherence.

COMPLETENESS

A paragraph is complete when it carries out its purpose. Study this example:

This is the silliest argument I ever heard. You guys talk and talk and neither one of you knows
what the other is talking about. You say “communism,” “free enterprise’ “democracy,”
“totalitarianism” – and so on. What do these words mean? Anything? What then? Define your terms.

These supporting details make general statements, give a broader and more complete
picture of what is being described, narrated, explained, or defended. Consequently, these details
may take the form of descriptive, narrative, expository or explanatory, or persuasive details.

Descriptive Details. Descriptive details appeal to the senses. They tell what something looks,
sounds, feels, tastes or smells like. They result from your observations of the world around you.
Consequently, the other form of writing employ description, since description is translating a
perceptual experience (usually but not necessarily visual) into words.

Example:

No other natural phenomenon in the planet-not even mountains five miles high, rivers
spilling over cliffs. Or redwood forest evokes such reverence. Yet this same “all-powerful” ocean now
proves as slavishly subservient to natural law as a moth caught by candlelight or a rose seed blown
into the Atlantic. The ocean obeys. It heeds. It complies. It has its tolerance and its stresses. When
these are surpassed, the ocean falters. Fish stocks can be depleted. The nurseries of marine life can
be varied.

Narrative Details. These details aim to show action as it occurs in a story. Such details deal
with human nature- how it reacts to certain events, how its faces certain crises, what it does, what it
says. The details are grouped logically and chronologically to build up to a climax or culminating point
of action.

Example:

He stood in the rain, unable to move, not knowing if the lovers were real or simply creation
of the lightning and when it stopped, they stopped; unless of course he was dreaming one of those
dreams from which he would awaken in that pain which is also sharpest pleasure, having loved in
sleep. But the cold rain was real; so was the soft moan from the poolhouse. He fled.

Expository (explanatory) Details. These details have many uses – to illustrate a general
statement, to compare and contrast two subjects, to explain a process, to define a word or a
concept, to trace a casual relation, to interpret a statement or explain an idea.

Example;
 No cause is more worthy than the cause of huma rights. Human rights are more than legal
concept: they are the essence of man. They are what make man human. That is why they are called
human rights; deny them and you deny man’s humanity.

Persuasive Details. These details represent the “evidence” or “proof” that you need to back
up your assertions and convince others to your way of thinking. The more persuasive details you can
produce, the more eloquent becomes your plea and the more convincing becomes your stand.

Example:

A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress
it. This new civilization brings with it new family styles, changed way of working, loving, and living; a
new economy; new political conflicts; and beyond all this as altered consciousness as well. Prices of
this new civilization exist today. Millions are already attuning their lives to the rhythms of tomorrow.
Others, terrified of the future, are engaged in a desperate futile flight into the past and are trying to
restore the dying world that gave them birth.

UNITY

A unified paragraph is simply one in which the ideas all contributed toward the development
of a topic sentence. Any idea that does not fit in with central idea should be discarded. Thus, a
paragraph that is built around a controlling idea or core of ideas makes easy and clear reading.

As long as you adhere closely to your purpose, you will produce a unified paragraph. The
purpose controls your writing; it prevents you from deviating from your main thoughts, since you
operate within a certain framework.

Unity in a paragraph means singleness of subject. As readers, you should grasp the topic
sentence so that you can state categorically whether the paragraph has unity or not.

Example:

A new ere in international relations was ushered in when five Soviet-American space
ambassadors orbited the globe in the world’s first international space assembly. The unique and
historic first meeting in space between Soviet and American astronauts took place shortly after the
Soviet spaceship Soyuz and the American spaceship Apollo docked while orbiting the earth. Locked
together by jointly designed docking apparatus, the spaceships Apollo and Soyuz represented what
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev called “a prototype of future International orbital station.”

ORDER

Order in the paragraph refers primarily to the movement or sequence of sentences in the
paragraph. These sentences follow a consistent pattern either (1) from one time to the next, (2) from
one space to an adjoining space, (3) from particular statements to general statement or conclusion,
(4) from general statement to particular statements and (5) from question to answer, from cause to
effect, or from effect to cause.

Time or Chronological Order. Here, the events are narrated in the order in which they occur.
This procedure is valuable in certain instances as in storytelling.
 Space order. This, you would use if you were to describe what you see. Your description
would follow the movement of your eyes either from right to left, from top to bottom, from what is
far to what is near or vice-versa, from the most conspicuous to the least conspicuous. Whatever it is
you are describing, you must make sure that you follow the logic in your description.

Example:

In front of them was the central valley. Across the valley, on the next mountain, dark belted
pines climbed toward the sky. To the right, the clustered lights of the valley spread thinner, becoming
a line along the valley floor and finally disappearing in the distance. Beyond either end of the valley
there was the faint, far glow of lights from larger towns.

Inductive order. (particular to general) here, the writer gives a series of particular
statements which lead to a general statement or conclusion. These particular examples must not be
unrelated or trivial facts, otherwise. The generalization will not hold true. They must be so consistent
and logical that the general statement will naturally or logically follow from them.

Deductive order. (general to particular) This is the order that is usually followed in paragraph
writing. The writer begins with the general statement and gives particular examples to support the
generalization. Thus the topic sentence is found at or near the beginning of the paragraph.

Question to Answer, Cause to Effect, Effect to Cause. A paragraph that begins with a
question and proceeds to answer the same or one starts with an effect and goes back to the cause, is
not a usual construction. The pattern is a little difficult to follow especially in the second case where
the cause is given by the paragraph as a whole instead of by a single topic sentence. The order from
cause to effect is relatively common one.

COHERENCE

Coherence comes from the word cohere which means to stick together. When applied to a
paragraph, all the sentences are closely interrelated and interdependent. A thought holds them all
together, disruptions are kept to a minimum. Transitions are also done in such a way that the reader
is not kept wondering why one thought moved on to another apparently without any reason for
transition.

A coherent paragraph is necessarily a unified paragraph. It makes sense, since all its part fit
in very well together. The paragraph becomes a smooth whole with consistency in tense, number,
person, point of view and subject matter.

Transition may likewise be effective through connecting word and phrases. Specifically, it
involves:

1. Related sentence pattern. There should be consistency in point of view, voice, subject and
tense.
2. Pronoun reference. An effective device to ensure coherence is the use of pronoun in one
sentence to refer back to its antecedent. This alternating use of pronoun and antecedent
serves to produce the connecting link in the sentences within the paragraph.
3. Transitional marker. These words or phrases are placed at or near the beginning of a
sentence or clause to show the relationship between the new sentence and the preceding
one. The most common transitional words or phrases are the following.
1. Conjunctions and transitional adverbs which includes words and phrases such as and,
but, yet, however, therefore, consequently, moreover, accordingly, at the same time, as a
result, for example, on the other hand, finally.
2. Pronouns such as this, that, those, these, his, her, and its, which refer to an antecedent
in a previous sentence.
3. Repetition of key words.
4. Parallel structure, though which the reader is led back to sentence phrased in similar
form.