Paragraph Writing

The Building Blocks of Great Prose

What is a Paragraph?
PURPOSE - Chapters, essays and other prose
compositions are broken up into paragraphs
to make reading easier and interesting.

NOT ARBITRARY DIVISIONS - The beginning

of a new paragraph marks a change of topic
or idea, or a step in the development of an
argument or of a story.

DEFINITION - A paragraph is a number of

sentences grouped together and relating to
one topic.

NO FIXED LENGTH - Unlike stanzas of verse

Paragraph Writing - Features

UNITY (One paragraph = One topic/

idea) - Every sentence in the
paragraph must be closely connected
with the main topic of the paragraph.

ORDER - Maintenance of logical and

temporal sequence of thought, in the
order of importance

VARIETY - Have different lengths of

sentences to avoid monotony
Paragraph Writing - Format

TOPIC SENTENCE - The first sentence

which states the topic, theme or idea of a
paragraph. Importantly, it is also called
the key-sentence because it unlocks the
topic to be dealt with in the paragraph.

INTER-RELATED SENTENCES - With

logical sequence of thought

CONCLUDING SENTENCE - The full and

rounded final sentence to sum up the
topic
 Exercise

Read a chapter in a book and give

a title to each paragraph which will
express the topic of the paragraph
Happy to Help!

Reach out:
Rahul Jain
Junior Research Fellow (PhD Candidate)
Department of English and Cultural Studies
Panjab University
Chandigarh UT, India

rahuljain2301@icloud.com