How to write a paragraph?

Thế nào là một đoạn văn trong Tiếng Anh? Một đoạn văn cơ bản trong tiếng

Anh có cấu trúc như thế nào?

What is a paragraph?

A paragraph is a group of sentences organized around a central topic. In fact, the

most important rule of paragraph writing is to focus on one idea.

A paragraph supports or develops a single controlling idea, which is expressed in

a sentence called the topic sentence.

Basic Paragraph Structure

A paragraph typically contains the following three components:

1. The Topic Sentence

Function: To introduce and clearly state the main idea/point of the paragraph.

Position: A topic sentence usually comes at the beginning of a paragraph; that

is, it is usually the first sentence in a academic paragraph.

Let ‘s look at the paragraph:

Ha Noi city has many attractive places to visit. The first place is Guom lake

at the center of the city, which is wide and beautiful. Standing around the lake are

great and high green trees with large shadows on sunny days. Moreover, on the

side of the city is the Red river or Hong river, which is very romantic. Along the

river side are peaceful villages.The third interesting one is Ba Vi national park, a
beautiful mountainous region in the Northwest of Ha Noi. These landmarks are

really nice and make Ha Noi a good place to visit.

--> The topic sentence is : “Ha Noi city has many attractive places to visit.”

It is placed at the beginning of the paragraph. It introduces the overall idea of the

paragraph. In other words, it introduces the point you want to discuss later in the

paragraph “attractive places to visit in Ha Noi”.

2. Supporting Sentences

Function: To elaborate the idea or point that you have introduced in topic

sentence.

Position: They often come after the topic sentence.

Consider the above paragraph:

Ha Noi city has many attractive places to visit. The first place is Guom lake

at the center of the city, which is wide and beautiful. Standing around the lake are

great and high green trees with large shadows on sunny days. Moreover, on the

side of the city is the Red river or Hong river, which is very romantic. Along the

river side are peaceful villages. The third interesting one is Ba Vi national park, a

beautiful mountainous region in the Northwest of Ha Noi. These landmarks are

really nice and make Ha Noi a good place to visit.

When you reads a topic sentence “Ha Noi city has many attractive places to

visit”, do you have any questions in your mind?

In this case, the question should be like, "What are attractive places to visit in

Ha Noi". You may then expect that the rest of the paragraph will give an answer to

this question.

Now look at the sentences after the topic sentence.

- The first place is Guom lake at the center of the city, which is wide and beautiful.

Standing around the lake are great and high green trees with large shadows on

sunny days.

- Moreover, on the side of the city is the Red river or Hong river, which is very

romantic. Along the river side are peaceful villages.

- The third interesting one is Ba Vi national park, a beautiful mountainous region

in the Northwest of Ha Noi.

--> These sentences gives an answer to the question " What are attractive places to

visit in Ha Noi?". That is, they gives some explanation for the fact that “Ha Noi

has many beautiful places to visit”.

These sentences are called supporting sentences. They are called "supporting"

because they "support," or explain, the idea expressed in the topic sentence.

Of course, paragraphs in English often have more than two supporting ideas.

3. The Concluding Sentence

The concluding sentence summarizes the information that has been presented.
Let's see how a concluding sentence (in bold font) might look in our sample

paragraph about Ha Noi:

Ha Noi city has many attractive places to visit. The first place is Guom lake

at the center of the city, which is wide and beautiful. Standing around the lake are

great and high green trees with large shadows on sunny days. Moreover, on the

side of the city is the Red river or Hong river, which is very romantic. Along the

river side are peaceful villages.The third interesting one is Ba Vi national park, a

beautiful mountainous region in the Northwest of Ha Noi. These landmarks are

really nice and make Ha Noi a good place to visit.

Note: Not all academic paragraphs contain concluding sentences, especially if the

paragraph is very short. However, if your paragraph is very long, it is a good idea

to use a concluding sentence.

Details in Paragraphs

The short paragraph in this lesson is a fairly complete paragraph, but it

lacks details. Whenever possible, you should include enough details in your

paragraphs to help your reader understand exactly what you are writing about.

In the paragraph about Ha Noi, three landmarks are mentioned, but we do not

know very much about them. For example, we could add one or two sentences
about Ba Vi concerning HOW it is beautiful or WHY it is beautiful. Consider this

revision (and note the additional details in bold):

Ha Noi city has many attractive places to visit. The first place is Guom

lake at the center of the city, which is wide and beautiful. Standing around the lake

are great and high green trees with large shadows on sunny days. Moreover, on

the side of the city is the Red river or Hong river, which is very romantic. Along

the river side are peaceful villages.The third interesting one is Ba Vi national

park, a beautiful mountainous region in the Northwest of Ha Noi. The weather in

Ba Vi is always cool and makes us feel relaxed and comfortable. Visitors can

explore deep caves hidden in the mountains or climb the Ba Vi peaks that rise up

to 1,296 meters.These landmarks are really nice and make Ha Noi a good place to

visit.

If we wished, we could also add more details to the paragraph to describe the

Guom Lake and Red river.

Why are details important? The more details the paragraph has, the more

persuasive the paragraph is.

Practice:

Describe a place that you have visited recently?

Adjectives that you may use to describe a place:

-ancient:

-Beautiful/ stunning/ impressive:

-bustling (=a busy and crowded place)

-Charming (a nice, pleasing place)

-contemporary (modern, very up to date)

-compact (not very huge but contained within a small area)

-Crowded (very full of people)

-exciting

-expensive (costing a lot of money).

-famous = well-known

-fantastic (= wonderful)

-huge: Big

-lively

-inexpensive ( not costing very much)

-popular (liked by many people)

-amazing/ attractive
Useful phrase to use:

-It offers ….

-you shouldn’t miss…/ people can enjoy…

-it’s located in….

-It’s far away from…

-The views are…

-The good thing about this place is…

-It’s close to..

-It’s will-known for/ famous for…

-It’s possible to…

-Location: In the centre/ heart/ middle of; In the south/ north/ east/ west of…;