Three elements of the Praragraph

1. A paragraph defined

A paragraph defined

   A paragraph is a group of closely related sentences in a larger body of work ( essays, books etc..) that develops a central idea, topic or a theme.

  Furthermore, a paragraph is defined as the building block of writing for it helps the writer to organize his/her thoughts as well as enable the reader to follow writer’s train of thought   ( De Mark Connelly, 2012).

  When writing essays, new paragraphs are indented ( i.e., marked by making a space at the edge) to show their beginning ( each paragraph begins with a new indentation).

     Example :

An Immigrant in the Family

    One of the people that I admire the most is my great-grandmother Carla. She came to the United States from Italy in 1911 as a young woman on a large ship. She had little money and no property. Soon after landing at Ellis Island in New York, she began working as a seamstress in Brooklyn. She met and married my great-grandfather not long after that. They immediately began their large family. Great-grandma Carla had eight children—five boys and three girls. In addition to taking care of such a large family in a new country, my great-grandmother survived discrimination as an immigrant, two world wars, the Great Depression, and a long list of illnesses. However, she rarely complained, and she was very happy with her new life in America. Whenever I think of my greatgrandma Carla, I am always filled with admiration for her.

   The example above shows a set of sentences closely and meaningfully gathered to express the writer’s opinion of his great-grand mother. The first announced sentence called the topic sentence introduces and highlights the writer’s main idea of the paragraph, followed by a combination of relevant sentences known as the supporting details or sentences to support the writer’s opinion, and finally the last sentence, is a concluding sentence which wraps up the paragraph and allows the reader to know that the paragraph has ended.

2. The Purpose of Paragraph Writing

2. Four Purposes of Writing

  Mainly, the purpose of writing a paragraph is to express one’s thought in a clear and special way about a particular point related to the topic of the essay. Purpose is the reason why we write, and we write for many different purposes. the writer's purpose of writing can be narrative, descrptive, expository or persuasive.

1.Narration (narrative writing): Narration is story telling. In many ways it is the easiest kind of writing because it comes so naturally to most people. Practically everyone enjoys telling and hearing stories. Narratives usually progress chronologically, and must have a clear beginning, middle and end. Short stories, novels, personal narratives, anecdotes, and biographies are all examples of narrative writing.

2.Description (descriptive writing): Think of description as painting a picture with words. Of course, when you use words, you can paint more than what you see, but also what you feel, hear, smell and taste. The idea of description is to make the thing described seem real to your reader’s imagination. Not much writing is purely descriptive; writers typically weave description into longer narrative works. Some essentially descriptive writing, however, might include certain forms of advertising, character sketches, and photograph captions.

3.Exposition (expository writing): Exposition is writing that explains or informs. It is a practical kind of writing (the kind you are reading right now!). Examples of expository writing include encyclopedia entries, news reports, instruction manuals, informative essays, and research papers.

4. Persuasion (persuasive writing): Persuasive writing seeks to convince the reader of a particular position or opinion. Persuasive writing is in many ways the most difficult to do well because it requires knowledge of the subject, strong convictions, logical thinking, and technical skill. Some examples of persuasive writing include literary essays, editorials, advertisements,  and book, music or movie reviews.

3. Basic Elements of the Paragraph

3. Elements of a paragraph

  A good paragraph consists of three basic elements:

1. A topic sentence announces one main idea
2. Supporting sentences use specific details to develop the idea
3. A concluding sentence