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.