TexasDesign.com

Contributed by Chuck Lustig, of ExcitingWriting Communications

Well-formed paragraphs have a unified focus. While reading well-formed paragraphs, you never wonder what their subjects are. Your attention does not wander. Well-formed paragraphs are clearly about one subject. When you read a writer who knows how to write paragraphs with a unified focus, you trust that writer. Perhaps you think, “That person knows what he is writing about.” As a result, writers who know how to do this are more effective writers than those who don’t. They are more persuasive because readers trust them. Trust always precedes influence.

The following paragraph drifts from one surface topic to another. It lacks development. When you’re finished reading it, you hardly know what it is about.

Greek statues were often sculpted to celebrate gods. Some of the more important Greek gods were Zeus, the god of thunder, and Eros, the god of love. People would keep statues in their homes and pray to their favorite gods. Images of these gods were often drawn on urns. Ancient Greeks had a personal relationship with their gods through this artwork.

Do you get the sense that the writer is trying to cover too broad a topic in too few words, and is not up to the task?

The following paragraph is more focused, thus better formed.

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of beauty, love, pleasure and procreation who lived on Mount Olympus with other Greek Gods. She was depicted as a beautiful woman usually accompanied by the winged Eros, god of love. Symbolic aspects of Aphrodite’s personality included a dove, apple, scallop shell and mirror. In classical sculpture and fresco she was often depicted nude.

You could argue that the subject of that paragraph drifts somewhat. Consider this paragraph. It is even more unified.

Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of beauty, love, pleasure and procreation. It is said Aphrodite could make any man fall in love with her. All they had to do was look at her. By the late 5th Century B.C.E., Aphrodite developed into twin myths. Aprodite Ourania was born from the foam after Cronus castrated Uranus. Aphrodite Pandemos was born from the union of Zeus and Dione. Today, Aphrodite Ourania figures as the celestial Aphrodite, representing the love of body and soul, while Aphrodite Pandemos is associated with mere physical love.

Don’t you get a sense that the writer of the later two paragraphs is in control of his subject? Don’t you trust the writer of the second and third paragraphs more? I submit to you: It’s all because the second and third paragraphs are better formed than the first.

Well-formed paragraphs have a topic sentence that lets you know what they are about. Sometimes the topic sentence is at the beginning of the paragraph; sometimes it is at the end of the paragraph. In those cases it is often called a “clincher” sentence. Sometimes it is somewhere in the middle of the sentence. And sometimes topic sentences of well-formed paragraphs don’t appear in the paragraph; instead, they are implied. Regardless of the kind of paragraph you are writing, the topic sentence (whether present or implied) gives the reader a strong indication of what the paragraph is about and doesn’t leave its meaning to chance.

Paragraphs with topic sentences at the end can be thought of as examples of deductive reasoning. These paragraphs describe a number of facts or thoughts leading overwhelmingly to a conclusion at the end. For example:

The stairway leading up to his room was littered with forgotten grocery bags with unopened food packages; nothing in the room made sense to me, as every inch was cluttered with belongings placed there on a whim in helter-skelter style. I wondered how the disorganization all around him reflected the state of his life and his tenuous grasp of reality.

Paragraphs with topic sentences at the beginning can be thought of as using inductive reasoning. Begin with a topic. Add thoughts (sentences) one after the other that develop the topic and seem to prove or justify the appropriateness of the topic sentence.

After you’ve written a paragraph, ask yourself:

• What is the topic of the paragraph?
• Does it cover more than one topic?
• Does each sentence support the topic?
• Does the paragraph develop to a conclusion?

Well-formed paragraphs develop into something more. There is that word “develop” again. What does it mean for the ideas in a paragraph to “develop?” It means they take flight and become more than what they are. Consider this example, from Stiff by Many Roach, a book about the dead. Facts are woven into an emotional confrontation with the nature of death itself.

“Before the embalming begins, the exterior of the corpse is cleaned and groomed, as it would be were this man to be displayed in an open casket or presented to the family for a private viewing. (In reality, when the students are through, no one but the cremation furnace attendant will see him.) Nicole swabs the mouth and eyes with disinfectant, then rinses both with a jet of water. Though I know the man to be dead, I expect to see him flinch when the cotton swab hits his eye, to cough and sputter when the water hits the back of his throat. His stillness, his deadness is surreal.”

Well-formed paragraphs are not choppy; they have a shape that is both smooth and cohesive. Consider:

“The digital revolution is a conundrum. If you participate in e-commerce over the Web, you give out valuable information about yourself. Without that information, organizations can’t provide you with personalized service. Yet once that information is out, it’s out. How can you be sure sensitive information will be kept safe and not hacked, stolen or given to others without your permission? And how can you be sure that the information you give out won’t end up worsening a condition called information overload? Welcome to the real digital divide, the tug of war between privacy on the one hand and personalized service and information overload on the other. We will discuss the tension between these topics in this white paper, the second in a three-part series.”

“A strong ideological fixation is not a promising basis for a responsible foreign policy. During their first four years, President George W. Bush and his administration made intransigent unilateralism, American exceptionalism and preemptive military action the watchwords of foreign policy, with abysmal results. The position of the United States in the world was drastically weakened. The unique respect and the authority as a world leader that the U.S. had enjoyed since World War II were severely compromised, and the U.S. military establishment was overstretched without achieving any strategic advantage.”

–From “One Angry Man” by Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books, March 6, 2008.

Three strategies for writing well-formed paragraphs:

Use repetition.

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
-Winston Churchill, address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941.
(Think of that sentence the next time you consider deleting word you may have repeated just twice for emphasis!)

Use parallel structure.

“In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will.”
–Winston Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm

Use details.

Someone actually classified the kinds of paragraphs, coming up with descriptors such as: narrative, cause and effect; classification, compare and contrast, classify, definition and descriptive. Ask yourself: What kind of details are most appropriate for each kind of paragraph? What kind of sentence structures are most appropriate to each kind of paragraph? The answers are obvious if you only think about them and then apply them to your writing.

You can overcome this thing called writing, actually succeed at it, if you can concentrate and if you want to succeed at it. The principles of well-formed paragraphs are available to you. Use them!