WRITING A PARAGRAPH

1 Unity

Good writing must express a single thought.

So plan the one topic each paragraph will cover.

1. Having planned your essay, you should have:

a) A summary sentence & abstract paragraph for your essay.
b) A structure for your argument, with sections.
c) A plan for how many paragraphs are in each section.
2. Now you can expand your essay plan into an essay outline, by writing a topic sentence for each paragraph.
a) A topic sentence describes what each paragraph achieves.
b) In each section the first paragraph connects the section to the main question, the last paragraph
leads onto the following section.

Example (NB I have made all this up):

Essay Question: How does Nehemiah 8 contribute to an evangelical view of secular leadership?
Essay length: 5000 words
Essay Summary: ...
Abstract Paragraph: ...
Logical Presentation: as a composite of themes

Essay plan Essay outline

Introduction (4-5ps)
1) Nehemiah 8 (DATA) (4ps)
2) Describe & Evaluate A (4ps)
3) Describe & Evaluate B (4ps)
4) = C (4ps)
Conclusion (2-3ps)
• Christian theology has shaped secular approaches to leadership in
Ethiopia as far back as at least the Kebre Negast. (significance)
• Since evangelical theology is shaped by the Bible, how do evangelicals
make use of Nehemiah, a text commonly applied to leadership to
continue this Ethiopian tradition?
• I will assume that the Bible is normative for evangelicals, and that
Nehemiah is applicable to leadership, etc. etc...
• This essay will examine Nehemiah 8, and making use of contributions
suggest by Asefa and Tessema suggest a new synthesis.
• Nehemiah 8 has been applied to leadership by 5 scholars in studies in
the past 7 years, which will shape my engagement with this question.
• Vv. 3 and 8 present Nehemiah's approach to leadership challenges.
• A further theme common to most discussions of leadership in Neh 8 is
the priesthood.
• The following sections will consider how these aspects of leadership in
Neh 8 are treated by two key authors.
etc.

At the end of this exercise, you should have one sentence for every paragraph in what will become your essay.

You can look back over your essay plan and outline and assess whether your overall argument will make sense,
whether it is the right length, etc.

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 2 Universality and Necessity

Good writing must express a plausible thought.

So plan how you will use evidence to justify what you say.

1. Using your research matrix, you should have a list of sources and references for each theme.
2. Having created an essay outline, you now have a topic sentence for every paragraph in your essay.
3. Using this, you can plan what citations, quotations, summaries and paraphrases you could use for every
paragraph in your essay.

E.g. for the first paragraph of section 1 in the above example (again, I have made all this up):
Topic: Nehemiah 8 has been applied to leadership by 5 scholars in studies in the past 7 years, which will shape
my engagement with this question.
Evidence: Tessema (2016); Afework (2018); Ayelew & Daniel (2020), ch 11; "Nehemiah 8 is a touchstone text for
evangelicals thinking about leadership" Smith (2017), p. 111; Anderson (2015) references Nehemiah 8 in his
critique of modern American evangelical politicians, etc. etc.

3 Completeness

Good writing must express a complete thought.

A well written paragraph has the following four elements in this order:

Topic Sentence The first sentence says what the paragraph is about.
Position in The next sentence says how the paragraph fits into the argument. Sometimes you can
Argument work this into the first sentence.
Evidence & Reason The body of your paragraph presents the data and reasoning that justify your claim.
Summary & The last sentence in the paragraph summarises the point of the paragraph again and leads
Leading Sentence onto the next part of the argument.

E.g. for the first paragraph of section 1 in the above example. (Remember, all this is made up):

Topic Sentence Nehemiah 8 has been applied to leadership by 5 scholars in studies in the past 7 years,
which will shape my engagement with this question.
Position in I begin here by briefly surveying these contributions.
Argument
Evidence & Smith (2017) remarks on the significance of Neh 8 for our topic that it "is a touchstone text
Reason for evangelicals thinking about leadership" (p. 111). Anderson (2015) referenced Neh 8 in
his critique of modern American evangelical politicians, finding the rise of Trumpism a
controversial topic among Christian commentators. Tessema (2016) and Afework (2018)
both compared themes in Neh 8 with the Kebre Negast, though Afework's analysis is
significantly coloured by the rise of Abiy Ahmed. In a broader discussion of a theology of
leadership, Ayelew & Daniel (2020) dedicate ch 11 of their work to Neh 8, largely using the
text to support the traditional perspective on Ethiopian politics from the Kebre Negast.
Summary & From the perspectives of these 5 scholars who apply Neh 8 to the issue of leadership, two
Leading Sentence main themes emerge, which I will now discuss in turn.

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 4 Scale

Good writing must express a thought of appropriate size.

The paragraph I have written for this example is 174 words:

Nehemiah 8 has been applied to leadership by 5 scholars in studies in the past 7 years, which will
shape my engagement with this question. I begin here by briefly surveying these contributions. Smith
(2017) remarks on the significance of Neh 8 for our topic that it "is a touchstone text for evangelicals
thinking about leadership" (p. 111). Anderson (2015) referenced Neh 8 in his critique of modern
American evangelical politicians, finding the rise of Trumpism a controversial topic among Christian
commentators. Tessema (2016) and Afework (2018) both compared themes in Neh 8 with the Kebre
Negast, though Afework's analysis is significantly coloured by the rise of Abiy Ahmed. In a broader
discussion of a theology of leadership, Ayelew & Daniel (2020) dedicate ch 11 of their work to Neh 8,
largely using the text to support the traditional perspective on Ethiopian politics from the Kebre Negast.
From the perspectives of these 5 scholars who apply Neh 8 to the issue of leadership, two main themes
emerge, which I will now discuss in turn.

The absolute bare minimum size for a proper paragraph is 3 sentences, this example is 49 words:

As I have already explained above,1 the topic sentence explains what the paragraph is about. In a 3
sentence paragraph you can then give some evidence with a reason why this supports your view in one
sentence. The last sentence summarises the paragraph and leads to what comes next.

A paragraph of 350 words or more will cover about 2/3rds of an A4 page with double line spacing. If you find you
have written a paragraph this long, then almost always this is because your paragraph is bloated and badly
written. Only under very rare circumstances will it be good to keep the paragraph as it is. If so, then you should
try to split the paragraph half way, to make it easier for the examiner to read. Try to arrange the material into
two halves. Example:

This is my topic sentence for a paragraph (that exists in 2 parts) that is 350 words or more. This is my
sentence explaining the position of the paragraph in the wider argument. These are sentences with evidence and
reasoning preferably on theme 1. These are sentences with evidence and reasoning preferably on theme 1. These
are sentences with evidence and reasoning preferably on theme 1. These are sentences with evidence and
reasoning preferably on theme 1. The first half of the paragraph does not have a summary and leading sentence.
The second half of the paragraph does not have a topic sentence. These are sentences with evidence and
reasoning preferably on theme 2. These are sentences with evidence and reasoning preferably on theme 2. These
are sentences with evidence and reasoning preferably on theme 2. These are sentences with evidence and
reasoning preferably on theme 2. The last sentence summarises the paragraph (that exists in 2 parts) and leads
to what comes next.

1 This is an example of putting how the paragraph fits into the argument into the topic sentence.

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