Writing-April-2020

What is a paragraph?

Topic sentence (FOCUS)

supporting sentence1 supporting sentence 3 supporting sentence 3

examples
reasons
explanations
data
statistics
stories

Five elements of a good paragraph.

1. UNITY
TOPIC SENTENCE- 'The paragraph is unified around this idea'

2. ORDER
The way you organize the supporting sentences.

3. COHERENCE
Make your paragraph understandable. Connect ideas, make ideas flow.

transitions
connectors
lexical items/ pronouns/ synonyms/antonyms/ sentence structures

4. COMPLETENESS
Ask yourself whether the paragraph is WELL-DEVELOPED, that is, whether your topic sentence
is well-supported.

WRITING PROCESS

1. Planning your paragraph

Read the question carefully.
Think about it.
Write a topic sentence down.
Topic sentence: …………………………………………………

Think about supporting sentences (SS), and write them down.

 Writing-April-2020

SS1: …………………………………………………
SS2: …………………………………………………
SS3: …………………………………………………
Note down examples, reasons, … further develop these SS.

SS1: …………………………………………………
examples /reasons
explanations/
data/
statistics/
stories

SS2: …………………………………………………

examples /reasons
explanations/
data/
statistics/
stories
SS3: …………………………………………………

examples /reasons
explanations/
data/
statistics/
stories
Write down a concluding sentence
(CREATE AN IMPACT IF YOU CAN!)

…………………………………………………
2. Write your paragraph

3. Check your paragraph

Check:
unity order coherence completeness
Check:
Lexical use/ +grammar
Check punctuation + spelling
 Writing-April-2020

Some people say emails are very useful in our daily life. Others argue that emails also have their
drawbacks. What do you think?
Write a short paragraph to express your opinion. Before you write your paragraph, you should start
outlining your paragraph by jotting down some ideas in each of the following parts. You don’t need
to write full sentences, except the topic sentence.

TOPIC SENTENCE:

………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
SS1:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
examples ____________________________________________________________

reason ____________________________________________________________
…

SS2:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
examples ____________________________________________________________

reason ____________________________________________________________
…

SS3:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
examples ____________________________________________________________

reason ____________________________________________________________
…
CONCLUDING SENTENCE
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Write your paragraph
 Writing-April-2020

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