Abstract
You may find it difficult to answer this question and may be forgiven for thinking that paragraphs are just chunks of prose which are used purely to break up a page of solid print by indenting every so often in a fairly arbitrary way. But paragraphs, like sentences, form the building blocks by which we construct a well-organized piece of writing out of a jumbled assortment of ideas. The construction process is at three levels: the sentence, the paragraph and the composition as a whole. Any writer in setting out to write a letter, a report, an essay or even a book must have an overall purpose — a main idea. (In a longer piece of work he may divide his material into sections or chapters, each of which should also have a main idea.) This main idea is then divided into sub-ideas. It is these sub-ideas which form the basis of each paragraph.
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© 1986 Nicki Stanton
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Stanton, N. (1986). Constructing effective paragraphs. In: What Do You Mean, ‘Communication’?. Pan Breakthrough Books. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10555-7_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10555-7_14
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-48149-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10555-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)