Supercharge Your Essay Paragraphs
by Kathleen M.
We all know what a paragraph is. But do we? We can agree that a paragraph has one main idea, has a topic sentence, evidence, and a link to the thesis. But when writing a personal essay, the thesis and topic sentence may not be as obvious as they are when you are writing an expository essay.
So how do we know when to end one paragraph and start another? And what do we do if some of our paragraphs are super long and others are short? What counts as evidence when we are talking about ourselves?
Do you remember your grade school teacher explaining the paragraph hamburger to you? If the answer is no, then run a quick search to see what I mean – or to remind yourself. The visual is a helpful reminder of what a good paragraph includes. You need an idea, you need to explain the idea, you need to offer support, and you need to tie the idea of this paragraph to your main point or the next paragraph.
Example:
I joined the math club because I needed a little help with Algebra. But then I found out that I liked math and the people in the club. So I stayed in the club even though I didn’t really have a lot of time in my already busy schedule.
Revised:
After a fairly rough start in my Algebra class, I joined the math club because I needed a little help. But once I was in the club, I found out that I liked math! I looked forward to meeting up with my study group so much that we formed a mathletes team. We competed at the school and regional levels and solved all kinds of algebraic equations together. What had started as a weakness for me turned into a strength; I am learning how to convert all of my missteps into successes.
By creating an introduction and conclusion to the paragraph and adding a few more specific details, the revised paragraph gives a more full sense of what the writer of the first paragraph was trying to communicate. Remember that specific details or examples are especially handy because they really show what you mean.
Some lessons in writing we have to learn over and over again – these reminders help us because as we do more and more complicated things in writing, it is important to remember that the simple elements are what holds it all together. Those simple things you learned in elementary school should always work as a kind of foundation for what comes next! So have fun with writing better paragraphs and bite into your paragraph hamburgers!
Resources:
“The Trouble with Topic Sentences”
