Writing Effective Paragraphs

Paragraph Shape
Indent
½”
Paragraph Focus
 The topic sentence presents your main
idea in a complete sentence.
 It introduces your topic + your position
on the topic.

TOPIC Your position on topic

 Paragraph Unity

TOPIC
Be careful! Don’t
lose sight of your
main idea.

Unrelated details
 Paragraph Development
Topic sentence
1 or 2 general ideas
Conclusion

Topic sentence

Put lots of
“meat” in
your
paragraph
sandwich!

Conclusion
Finding Ideas To Write About
 Freewriting
 Brainstorming
 Clustering
 Journal writing
 Other?
Arranging Your Ideas
 Time

 Space

 Importance
Paragraph Importance

The paragraph is the building block of

any document. Think carefully about
what you put into each paragraph and
where you break up your text.
Too short: feels choppy and
disconnected.
Too long: loses the main point.