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How to Write a Paragraph

Descriptive Paragraph
Descriptive Paragraph PowerPoint

There are two qualities that you need to ensure that your writing is intelligible: cohesion and coherence. Even if your writing is technically perfect, the reader may still have difficulty understanding the gist of the overall text if it is not well-structured. To make your writing easy to understand, structure your sentences and paragraphs well and arrange them in a logical order. Good grammar provides cohesion, while proper organization ensures coherence. Double-check that each sentence and paragraph is both cohesive and coherent.

Coherence means that something makes sense. In writing, it is provided by a clear and understood structuring of paragraphs and sentences. Writing is coherent when the theme or main idea of the text is understandable. Coherent writing follows an overall theme in which each part is related to the whole; each sentence is located in its proper place within the paragraph and each paragraph is ordered within the larger text. The organizational structure of each sentence, paragraph and the text as a whole provides coherence. Coherence is a crucial aspect of writing.

A well-written paragraph should be cohesive; it should contain sentences that are all related to one idea, echoing the structure of the overall essay: beginning, middle and end. The beginning of the paragraph is the topic sentence, which contains the topic and the controlling idea. The controlling idea is a fact, statement, opinion or question about the topic. The first sentence of the paragraph is an introduction to the theme and content of that paragraph. The supporting sentences operate like the middle of an essay; these are your facts, arguments or evidence supporting the controlling idea. These sentences explain or elaborate more about the topic. The end of the paragraph is the concluding sentence, which sums up the central idea of the paragraph. The concluding sentence is similar to the topic sentence and serves to bring the reader back to the main point. Using a topic, supporting and concluding sentences, your paragraph should focus on one idea, organized into three main parts.

Cohesion means that text makes grammatical sense. Cohesive devices are words like articles and conjunctions that connect words, phrases and clauses together. Cohesion occurs when the author uses appropriate and understandable links. A piece of writing can be cohesive but not coherent. For example, if each sentence is grammatically correct, but there is no overarching topic, there will be cohesion but no coherence. To improve the cohesion of both your writing and speaking, you must study grammar. 

Some examples of cohesive devices are:

Determiners and pronouns, which can refer back to earlier words

Conjunctions (and, such as, including)

Adverbs - a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there), which clarifies relations between words

Articles - words that define a noun as specific or unspecific (the, a, an)

References (it, they, them, these, those, who, which, that)

Collocations - a pair or group of words that are habitually juxtaposed (e.g. strong coffee, winding road, scenic view)

Topic Sentence

What is a Topic Sentence

The topic sentence introduces the topic and the controlling idea

Example paragraph

Supporting sentence

supporting sentence examples

supporting sentences

support for the controlling idea

Adjectives

Concluding sentence

sumarizes the paragraph

Example concluding sentence

Write a descriptive paragraph

Example controlling paragraph

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