Basic paragraph structure

HOW TO WRITE
PARAGRAPH?

1. TOPIC SENTENCE 2. DEVELOPMENT

OR EXPLANATION
The first sentence where
you introduce the Sentences where you
paragraph’s purpose and explain the meaning of
your main point. the topic sentence and
develop ideas in a
paragraph.

4. CLOSING 3. EVIDENCE
SENTENCE
Sentences were you
This is the last sentence support the main idea with
of the paragraph, where facts, examples, studies,
you state the experiments, arguments,
implications or quotes etc.; where you
consequences and link explain what the evidence
back to the topic means and how it relates to
sentence. the main idea.

EXAMPLE

When Louis Braille entered the school for the blind in

Paris, in 1819, he learned of a system of  tangible  writing
using dots, invented in 1819 by Captain Charles Barbier, a
French army officer. It was called night writing and was
intended for night-time battlefield communications. In
1824, when he was only 15 years old, Braille developed a six-
dot “cell” system. He used Barbier’s system as a starting
point and cut its 12-dot configuration in half. The system
was first published in 1829; a more complete elaboration
appeared in 1837.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2020. Braille writing system. Retrieved on Aug. 27, 2020.

The number, length and order of your sentences will

depend on what you are writing, but each paragraph must
be:
all the sentences relate to one central
UNIFIED point or idea, one paragraph = one
idea.

COHERENT the sentences are logically organized

and clearly connected.
the paragraph supports the overall
RELEVANT
theme and purpose of the paper.

AUA Freshman Seminar

 Mark points 1-4 in the structure of the following
paragraph.

Braille’s system was immediately accepted and used by his

fellow students, but wider acceptance was slow in coming.
The system was not officially adopted by the school in
Paris until 1854, two years after Braille’s death. A universal
Braille code for the English-speaking world was not
adopted until 1932, when representatives from agencies
for the blind in Great Britain and the United States met in
London and agreed upon a system known as  Standard
English Braille, grade 2. In 1957 Anglo-American experts
again met in London to further improve the system.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2020. Braille writing system. Retrieved on Aug. 27, 2020.

YOU WILL ALSO USE COHESIVE

DEVISES TO SUPPORT YOUR LOGIC IN
YOUR PARAGRAPH

ALSO
TO SIGNAL A FOR EXAMPLE
REINFORCEMENT IN OTHER WORDS
OF IDEAS MOREOVER
IN ADDITION
MORE IMPORTANTLY

BUT
INSTEAD
TO SIGNAL A ALTHOUGH
CHANGE IN IDEAS ON THE OTHER HAND
NEVERTHELESS
HOWEVER

THUS
IN CONCLUSION
TO SIGNAL A TO CONLUDE
CONCLUSION THEREFORE
FINALLY
ULTIMATELY

One cannot establish on the basis of the laws and statutes

quoted so far, when old age was considered to begin. But
since the law is an expression of the self-image of a society
and the old are singled out for mention within the law, it is
evident that despite the low life expectancy of the period, the
aged were a component in the self-image of medieval society.
It should be borne in mind that the low life expectancy at
birth in pre-industrial Western society was due to the very
high mortality rate of infants and small children. But those
who survived into their early twenties had a fair chance of
surviving into their sixties and even their seventies.
Shahar, S. (1993). Who were old in the Middle Ages. Social History of Medicine, 6 (3), 313-341.

AUA Freshman Seminar