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4 Build effective paragraphs.

Except for special-purpose paragraphs, such as intro-ductions and conclusions (see 2a and 2c), paragraphsare clusters of information supporting an essay’s mainpoint (or advancing a story’s action). Aim for para-graphs that are clearly focused, well developed, orga-nized, coherent, and neither too long nor too short foreasy reading.

4a Focus on a main point.

A paragraph should be unified around a main point.Thepoint should be clear to readers, and all sentences in theparagraph should relate to it.

Stating the main point in a topic sentence

As readers move into a paragraph, they need to knowwhere they are— in relation to the whole essay—andwhat to expect in the sentences to come. A good topicsentence, a one-sentence summary of the paragraph’smain point, acts as a signpost pointing in two directions:backward toward the thesis of the essay and forward to-ward the body of the paragraph.

Like a thesis sentence (see 1c and 2a), a topic sen-tence is more general than the material supporting it.Usually the topic sentence (italicized in the followingexamples) comes first in the paragraph.

Nearly all living creatures manage some form ofcommunication. The dance patterns of bees in theirhive help to point the way to distant flower fields orannounce successful foraging. Male stickleback fishregularly swim upside-down to indicate outrage in acourtship contest. Male deer and lemurs mark territo-rial ownership by rubbing their own body secretionson boundary stones or trees. Everyone has seen afrightened dog put his tail between his legs and run inpanic. We, too, use gestures, expressions, postures, andmovement to give our words point. [Italics added.]

—Olivia Vlahos, Human Beginnings

Sometimes the topic sentence is introduced by atransitional sentence linking it to earlier material. Inthe following paragraph, the topic sentence has beendelayed to allow for a transition.

2

But flowers are not the only source of spectacle inthe wilderness. An opportunity for late color is providedby the berries of wildflowers, shrubs, and trees. Bane-berry presents its tiny white flowers in spring but inlate summer bursts forth with clusters of red berries.Bunchberry, a ground-cover plant, puts out red berriesin the fall, and the red berries of wintergreen last fromautumn well into winter. In California, the bright red,fist-sized clusters of Christmas berries can be seengrowing beside highways for up to six months of theyear. [Italics added.]

— James Crockett et al., Wildflower Gardening

Occasionally the topic sentence may be withhelduntil the end of the paragraph—but only if the earliersentences hang together so well that readers perceivetheir direction, if not their exact point.The opening sen-tences of the following paragraph state facts, so they aresupporting material rather than topic sentences, butthey strongly suggest a central idea. The topic sentenceat the end is hardly a surprise.

Tobacco chewing starts as soon as people beginstirring. Those who have fresh supplies soak the newleaves in water and add ashes from the hearth to thewad. Men, women, and children chew tobacco and allare addicted to it. Once there was a shortage of tobaccoin Kaobawa’s village and I was plagued for a week byearly morning visitors who requested permission tocollect my cigarette butts in order to make a wad ofchewing tobacco. Normally, if anyone is short oftobacco, he can request a share of someone else’s al-ready chewed wad, or simply borrow the entire wadwhen its owner puts it down somewhere. Tobacco is soimportant to them that their word for “poverty” translatesas “being without tobacco.” [Italics added.]

—Napoleon A. Chagnon,Yanomamo: The Fierce People

You will find that some professional writers, espe-cially journalists and informal essayists, do not alwaysuse clear topic sentences. In college writing, however,topic sentences are often necessary for clarifying thelines of an argument or reporting the research in a field.In business writing, topic sentences (along with head-ings) are essential, since readers often scan for infor-mation.

Try to develop a flexible approach to writing. Al-though it is generally wise to use topic sentences, at

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times they are unnecessary, even in college papers. Atopic sentence may not be needed if a paragraph con-tinues developing an idea clearly introduced in a previ-ous paragraph, if the details of the paragraph unmis-takably suggest its main point, or if the paragraphappears in a narrative of events where generalizationsmight interrupt the flow of the story.

TIP: If you’re not sure what key idea to express in thetopic sentence for each paragraph, try jotting down aninformal outline before you begin writing your paper;then write a topic sentence for each major point in theoutline. Or after you have written a draft, go back andmake an outline, checking that each paragraph has atopic sentence reflecting one main point. If you discoverthat you are making more than one point in a para-graph, consider breaking the paragraph into severalshorter paragraphs.

Sticking to the point

Sentences that do not support the topic sentence de-stroy the unity of a paragraph. If the paragraph is oth-erwise well focused, such offending sentences can sim-ply be deleted or perhaps moved elsewhere. In thefollowing paragraph describing the inadequate facilitiesin a high school, the information about the word pro-cessing instructor (in italics) is clearly off the point.

As the result of tax cuts, the educational facilitiesof Lincoln High School have reached an all-time low.Some of the books date back to 1985 and have longsince shed their covers. The lack of lab equipmentmakes it necessary for four or five students to work atone table, with most watching rather than performingexperiments. The few computers in working ordermust share one dot matrix printer. Also, the word pro-cessing instructor left to have a baby at the beginningof the semester, and most of the students don’t like thesubstitute. As for the furniture, many of the uprightchairs have become recliners, and the desk legs are sounbalanced that they play seesaw on the floor. [Italicsadded.]

Sometimes the solution for a disunified paragraphis not as simple as deleting or moving material. Writersoften wander into uncharted territory because theycannot think of enough evidence to support a topicsentence. Feeling that it is too soon to break into a new

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paragraph, they move on to new ideas for which theyhave not prepared the reader. When this happens, thewriter is faced with a choice: Either find more evidenceto support the topic sentence or adjust the topic sen-tence to mesh with the evidence that is available.

EXERCISE 4–1: Underline the topic sentence in the follow-ing paragraph and cross out any material that does notclarify or develop the central idea.

Quilt making has served as an important meansof social, political, and artistic expression for women.In the nineteenth century, quilting circles provided oneof the few opportunities for women to forge socialbonds outside of their families. Once a week or more,they came together to sew as well as trade small talk,advice, and news. They used dyed cotton fabrics muchlike the fabrics quilters use today; surprisingly, quil-ters’ basic materials haven’t changed that much overthe years. Sometimes the women joined their efforts inthe support of a political cause, making quilts thatwould be raffled to raise money for temperance soci-eties, hospitals for sick and wounded soldiers, and thefight against slavery. Quilt making also afforded womena means of artistic expression at a time when they hadfew other creative outlets. Within their socially ac-ceptable roles as homemakers, many quilters subtlypushed back at the restrictions placed on them by ex-perimenting with color, design, and technique.

4b Develop the main point.

Though an occasional short paragraph is fine, par-ticularly if it functions as a transition or emphasizesa point, a series of brief paragraphs suggests inade-quate development. How much development isenough? That varies, depending on the writer’s pur-pose and audience. For example, when she wrote aparagraph attempting to convince readers that it isimpossible to lose fat quickly, health columnistJane Brody knew that she would have to present agreat deal of evidence because many dieters want tobelieve the opposite. She did not write:

When you think about it, it’s impossible to lose—as many diets suggest—10 pounds of fat in ten days,even on a total fast. Even a moderately active personcannot lose so much weight so fast. A less active per-son hasn’t a prayer.

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This three-sentence paragraph is too skimpy to be con-vincing. But the paragraph that Brody wrote containsenough evidence to convince even skeptical readers.

When you think about it, it’s impossible to lose—as many diets suggest—10 pounds of fat in ten days,even on a total fast. A pound of body fat represents3,500 calories. To lose 1 pound of fat, you must expend3,500 more calories than you consume. Let’s say youweigh 170 pounds and, as a moderately active person,you burn 2,500 calories a day. If your diet contains only1,500 calories, you’d have an energy deficit of 1,000calories a day. In a week’s time that would add up to a7,000-calorie deficit, or 2 pounds of real fat. In ten days,the accumulated deficit would represent nearly 3pounds of lost body fat. Even if you ate nothing at allfor ten days and maintained your usual level of activ-ity, your caloric deficit would add up to 25,000 calories.. . . At 3,500 calories per pound of fat, that’s still only 7pounds of lost fat.

— Jane Brody, Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book

4c Choose a suitable pattern of organization.

Although paragraphs (and indeed whole essays) may bepatterned in any number of ways, certain patterns oforganization occur frequently, either alone or in combi-nation: examples and illustrations, narration, descrip-tion, process, comparison and contrast, analogy, causeand effect, classification and division, and definition.There is nothing particularly magical about these pat-terns (sometimes called methods of development). Theysimply reflect some of the ways in which we think.

Examples and illustrations

Examples, perhaps the most common pattern of devel-opment, are appropriate whenever the reader might betempted to ask, “For example?” Though examples arejust selected instances, not a complete catalog, they areenough to suggest the truth of many topic sentences, asin the following paragraph.

Normally my parents abided scrupulously by “TheBudget,” but several times a year Dad would dip intohis battered black strongbox and splurge on some ir-rational, totally satisfying luxury. Once he bought overa hundred comic books at a flea market, doled out to

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us thereafter at the tantalizing rate of two a week. Healways got a whole flat of pansies, Mom’s favoriteflower, for us to give her on Mother’s Day. One day aboy stopped at our house selling fifty-cent raffle tickets on a sailboat and Dad bought every ticketthe boy had left— three books’ worth.

—Connie Hailey, student

Illustrations are extended examples, frequentlypresented in story form. Because they require severalsentences apiece, they are used more sparingly than ex-amples. When well selected, however, they can be avivid and effective means of developing a point. Thewriter of the following paragraph uses illustrations todemonstrate that Harriet Tubman, famous conductor onthe underground railroad for escaping slaves, was a ge-nius at knowing how and when to retreat.

Part of Harriet Tubman’s strategy of conductingwas, as in all battle-field operations, the knowledge ofhow and when to retreat. Numerous allusions havebeen made to her moves when she suspected that shewas in danger. When she feared the party was closelypursued, she would take it for a time on a train south-ward bound. No one seeing Negroes going in this di-rection would for an instant suppose them to be fugi-tives. Once on her return she was at a railway station.She saw some men reading a poster and she heard oneof them reading it aloud. It was a description of her,offering a reward for her capture. She took a south-bound train to avert suspicion. At another time whenHarriet heard men talking about her, she pretended toread a book which she carried. One man remarked,“This cannot be the woman.The one we want can’t reador write.” Harriet devoutly hoped the book was rightside up. —Earl Conrad, Harriet Tubman

Narration

A paragraph of narration tells a story or part of a story.Narrative paragraphs are usually arranged in chrono-logical order, but they may also contain flashbacks, in-terruptions that take the story back to an earlier time.The following paragraph, from Jane Goodall’s In theShadow of Man, recounts one of the author’s experi-ences in the African wild.

One evening when I was wading in the shallowsof the lake to pass a rocky outcrop, I suddenly stopped

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dead as I saw the sinuous black body of a snake inthe water. It was all of six feet long, and from the slighthood and the dark stripes at the back of the neck Iknew it to be a Storm’s water cobra — a deadly rep-tile for the bite of which there was, at that time, noserum. As I stared at it an incoming wave gently de-posited part of its body on one of my feet. I remainedmotionless, not even breathing, until the wave rolledback into the lake, drawing the snake with it. Then Ileaped out of the water as fast as I could, my hearthammering.

— Jane Goodall, In the Shadow of Man

Description

A descriptive paragraph sketches a portrait of a person,place, or thing by using concrete and specific detailsthat appeal to one or more of our senses —sight, sound,smell, taste, and touch. Consider, for example, the fol-lowing description of the grasshopper invasions thatdevastated the midwestern landscape in the late 1860s.

They came like dive bombers out of the west.Theycame by the millions with the rustle of their wings roar-ing overhead. They came in waves, like the rolls of thesea, descending with a terrifying speed, breaking nowand again like a mighty surf. They came with the forceof a williwaw and they formed a huge, ominous, darkbrown cloud that eclipsed the sun. They dipped andtouched earth, hitting objects and people like hail-stones. But they were not hail.These were live demons.They popped, snapped, crackled, and roared. Theywere dark brown, an inch or longer in length, plumpin the middle and tapered at the ends. They had trans-parent wings, slender legs, and two black eyes thatflashed with a fierce intelligence.

—Eugene Boe, “Pioneers to Eternity”

Process

A process paragraph is patterned in time order, usuallychronologically. A writer may choose this pattern eitherto describe a process or to show readers how to performa process.The following paragraph describes what hap-pens when water freezes.

In school we learned that with few exceptions thesolid phase of matter is more dense than the liquidphase. Water, alone among common substances, vio-

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lates this rule. As water begins to cool, it contracts andbecomes more dense, in a perfectly typical way. Butabout four degrees above the freezing point, somethingremarkable happens. It ceases to contract and beginsexpanding, becoming less dense. At the freezing pointthe expansion is abrupt and drastic. As water turns toice, it adds about one-eleventh to its liquid volume.

—Chet Raymo, “Curious Stuff, Water and Ice”

Here is a paragraph explaining how to perform a“roll cast,” a popular fly-fishing technique.

Begin by taking up a suitable stance, with one footslightly in front of the other and the rod pointing downthe line.Then begin a smooth, steady draw, raising yourrod hand to just above shoulder height and lifting therod to the 10:30 or 11:00 position. This steady draw al-lows a loop of line to form between the rod top and thewater. While the line is still moving, raise the rodslightly, then punch it rapidly forward and down. Therod is now flexed and under maximum compression,and the line follows its path, bellying out slightly be-hind you and coming off the water close to your feet.As you power the rod down through the 3:00 position,the belly of the line will roll forward. Follow throughsmoothly so that the line unfolds and straightens abovethe water.

— The Dorling Kindersley Encyclopedia of Fishing

Comparison and contrast

To compare two subjects is to draw attention to theirsimilarities, although the word compare also has abroader meaning that includes a consideration of dif-ferences. To contrast is to focus only on differences.

Whether a comparison-and-contrast paragraphstresses similarities or differences, it may be patternedin one of two ways. The two subjects may be presentedone at a time, block style, as in the following paragraphof contrast.

So Grant and Lee were in complete contrast, rep-resenting two diametrically opposed elements inAmerican life. Grant was the modern man emerging;beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the greatage of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a rest-less burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden downfrom the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken ban-ner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect

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champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths andweaknesses from the people he led.

—Bruce Catton,“Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts”

Or a paragraph may proceed point by point, treating thetwo subjects together, one aspect at a time. The follow-ing paragraph uses the point-by-point method to con-trast the writer’s academic experiences in an Americanhigh school with those in an Irish convent.

Strangely enough, instead of being academicallyinferior to my American high school, the Irish conventwas superior. In my class at home, Love Story was con-sidered pretty heavy reading, so imagine my surpriseat finding Irish students who could recite passages fromWar and Peace. In high school we complained abouthaving to study Romeo and Juliet in one semester,whereas in Ireland we simultaneously studied Macbethand Dickens’s Hard Times, in addition to writing a com-position a day in English class. In high school, I didn’teven begin algebra until the ninth grade, while at theconvent seventh graders (or their Irish equivalent)were doing calculus and trigonometry.

—Margaret Stack, student

Analogy

Analogies draw comparisons between items that appearto have little in common. Writers turn to analogies for avariety of reasons: to make the unfamiliar seem famil-iar, to provide a concrete understanding of an abstracttopic, to argue a point, or to provoke fresh thoughts orchanged feelings about a subject. In the following para-graph, physician Lewis Thomas draws an analogy be-tween the behavior of ants and that of humans.Thomas’s analogy helps us understand the social be-havior of ants and forces us to question the superiorityof our own human societies.

Ants are so much like human beings as to be anembarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as live-stock, launch armies into wars, use chemical sprays toalarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves. The fami-lies of weaver ants engage in child labor, holding theirlarvae like shuttles to spin out the thread that sews theleaves together for their fungus gardens. They ex-change information ceaselessly.They do everything butwatch television.

—Lewis Thomas, “On Societies as Organisms”

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Although analogies can be a powerful tool for illu-minating a subject, they should be used with caution inarguments. Just because two things may be alike in onerespect, we cannot conclude that they are alike in all re-spects. (See “false analogy,” p. 507.)

Cause and effect

When causes and effects are a matter of argument, theyare too complex to be reduced to a simple pattern (see p.509). However, if a writer wishes merely to describe acause-and-effect relationship that is generally accepted,then the effect may be stated in the topic sentence, withthe causes listed in the body of the paragraph.

The fantastic water clarity of the Mount Gambiersinkholes results from several factors.The holes are fedfrom aquifers holding rainwater that fell decades—even centuries—ago, and that has been filtered throughmiles of limestone. The high level of calcium that lime-stone adds causes the silty detritus from dead plantsand animals to cling together and settle quickly to thebottom. Abundant bottom vegetation in the shallowsinkholes also helps bind the silt. And the rapid turn-over of water prohibits stagnation.

—Hillary Hauser,“Exploring a Sunken Realm in Australia”

Or the paragraph may move from cause to effects, as inthis paragraph from a student paper on the effects ofthe industrial revolution on American farms.

The rise of rail transport in the nineteenth cen-tury forever changed American farming— for betterand for worse. Farmers who once raised crops and live-stock to sustain just their own families could now makea profit by selling their goods in towns and cities milesaway.These new markets improved the living standardof struggling farm families and encouraged them toseek out innovations that would increase their profits.On the downside, the competition fostered by the newmarkets sometimes created hostility among neighbor-ing farm families where there had once been a spiritof cooperation. Those farmers who couldn’t competewith their neighbors left farming forever, facingpoverty worse than they had ever known.

—Chris Mileski, student

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Classification and division

Classification is the grouping of items into categoriesaccording to some consistent principle. PhilosopherFrancis Bacon was using classification when he wrotethat “some books are to be tasted, others to be swal-lowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Ba-con’s principle for classifying books is the degree towhich they are worthy of our attention, but books ofcourse can be classified according to other principles.For example, an elementary school teacher might clas-sify children’s books according to their level of difficulty,or a librarian might group them by subject matter. Theprinciple of classification that a writer chooses ulti-mately depends on the purpose of the classification.

The following paragraph classifies species of elec-tric fish.

Scientists sort electric fishes into three categories.The first comprises the strongly electric species likethe marine electric rays or the freshwater African elec-tric catfish and South American electric eel. Knownsince the dawn of history, these deliver a punch strongenough to stun a human. In recent years, biologistshave focused on a second category: weakly electric fishin the South American and African rivers that use tinyvoltages for communication and navigation. The thirdgroup contains sharks, nonelectric rays, and catfish,which do not emit a field but possess sensors that en-able them to detect the minute amounts of electricitythat leak out of other organisms.

—Anne Rudloe and Jack Rudloe, “Electric Warfare:The Fish That Kill with Thunderbolts”

Division takes one item and divides it into parts. Aswith classification, division should be made according tosome consistent principle. Dividing a tree into roots,trunk, branches, and leaves makes sense; listing itscomponents as branches, wood, water, and sap does not,for the categories overlap.

The following passage describes the componentsthat make up a baseball.

Like the game itself, a baseball is composed ofmany layers. One of the delicious joys of childhood isto take apart a baseball and examine the wonderswithin. You begin by removing the red cotton threadand peeling off the leather cover—which comes from

the hide of a Holstein cow and has been tanned, cut,printed, and punched with holes. Beneath the cover isa thin layer of cotton string, followed by several hun-dred yards of woolen yarn, which make up the bulk ofthe ball. Finally, in the middle is a rubber ball, or “pill,”which is a little smaller than a golf ball. Slice into therubber and you’ll find the ball’s heart—a cork core.The cork is from Portugal, the rubber from southeastAsia, the covers are American, and the balls are as-sembled in Costa Rica.

—Dan Gutman, The Way Baseball Works

Definition

A definition puts a word or concept into a general classand then provides enough details to distinguish it fromothers in the same class. For example, in one of its sensesthe term grit names the class of things that birds eat, butit is restricted to those items—such as small pebbles,eggshell, and ashes— that help the bird grind food.

Many definitions may be presented in a sentence ortwo, but abstract or difficult concepts may require aparagraph or even a full essay of definition. In the fol-lowing paragraph, the writer defines envy as a specialkind of desire.

Envy is so integral and so painful a part of whatanimates human behavior in market societies thatmany people have forgotten the full meaning of theword, simplifying it into one of the synonyms of de-sire. It is that, which may be why it flourishes in mar-ket societies: democracies of desire, they might becalled, with money for ballots, stuffing permitted. Butenvy is more or less than desire. It begins with the al-most frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if thepump of one’s heart were sucking on air. One has tobe blind to perceive the emptiness, of course, but that’sjust what envy is, a selective blindness. Invidia, Latinfor envy, translates as “nonsight,” and Dante had theenvious plodding along under cloaks of lead, their eyessewn shut with leaden wire. What they are blind to iswhat they have, God-given and humanly nurtured, inthemselves. —Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., Old Money

EXERCISE 4–2: After you have drafted an essay, go throughit paragraph by paragraph and identify the patterns oforganization that you have used.

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EXERCISE 4–3: As you write a draft of your essay, exper-iment with organizing your paragraphs according to thedifferent patterns of organization. Try at least two dif-ferent patterns.

Argument

In an argument paragraph, you take a position on a de-batable topic and then defend that position. The morethoughtful, well-reasoned, and supported your argu-ment is, the better chance you have of convincing youraudience to consider your position seriously. For thatreason, a well-crafted argument does not use personalopinions or unsupported claims as evidence; it uses rel-evant examples, compelling reasons, and indisputablefacts. It sets up the arguments of the opposing point ofview as targets, and then it refutes those argumentswith powerful reasoning.

An argument paragraph usually contains threecomponents. The first is the writer’s position, or point ofview.The position does not necessarily need to be statedat the beginning of the paragraph, although it often is.The paragraph must also include support for thewriter’s position. Examples of strong support are statis-tics, relevant quotations from experts and other re-spected individuals, pertinent illustrations, and otherevidence that credibly strengthens the writer’s point.The argument should conclude with a restatement ofthe writer’s position stressing why this point of view isimportant. Consider the following argument paragraph:

Many people are enthralled to see cultural trea-sures of the ancient world in American and British mu-seums, but these irreplaceable works of art ought to bereturned to their countries of origin. Maintaining cul-tural treasures in western museums is a vestige of themindset that major western countries have inheritedthe mantle of civilization from such ancient societiesas Greece and Rome. Although it is true countries inthe ancient world were once unable to protect andmaintain their cultural treasures properly, that is nolonger the case. Many of these countries either have orare developing technologically advanced and securefacilities for housing their ancient artwork. Moreover,many cultural treasures, such as the famous Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon in Athens and nowresiding in the British Museum, were looted and arebeing held illegally by their current owners. In many

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cases, it may not even be true that cultural treasuresare better off in western museums. For example, schol-ars are re-examining the British Museum’s use ofquestionable techniques in cleaning and restoring theElgin Marbles, techniques which may harm the price-less artifacts the museum claims to preserve. Westernnations would show they are truly civilized by recog-nizing the ancient treasures of Greece, Rome, andother countries are unique antiquities that define theircultural heritage and properly and legally belong intheir countries of origin. —Bruce Thaler, student

Analysis

Analysis is just a fancy word for taking a close, in-depthlook at a subject and explaining how and why it works.An analysis paragraph is similar to a division para-graph — it separates something into its parts — but theanalysis paragraph also goes further by interpretingthe meaning and importance of the parts it describes.An analysis paragraph also shares similarities withcause and effect paragraphs and even process para-graphs, but, again, the analysis paragraph digs deeperby evaluating, uncovering, and essentially getting to theheart of the object of analysis. Consider the followinganalysis paragraph:

President Abraham Lincoln’s perceptive sense ofthe public mood is especially apparent in his handlingof the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all theslaves in America. Lincoln did not just sign and an-nounce the Proclamation; he personally handled itspublic issuance. Lincoln decided during the summer of1861 to deliver the Proclamation—a full six months be-fore it was actually issued. Why the wait? Over thesummer, the Union suffered a series of military set-backs, and Lincoln realized emancipating the slaveswould be more favorably received if it were publiclyannounced following a Union victory. This Union vic-tory finally occurred at Antietam in September 1861,and Lincoln soon announced the Proclamation wouldbe issued on January 1, 1862. The Proclamation wasimmediately attacked by politicians and journaliststhroughout the Union; they were worried the Unionmight lose slave-holding border states, such as Mary-land and Missouri, while unifying the Confederacyeven more strongly against the Union. But Lincoln,trusting his political instincts, never wavered from hisconviction that the Union was ready for emancipation.

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In fact, the Proclamation galvanized the Union public,spurring great pro-emancipation rallies in the citiesand infusing new spirit among Union supporters. Fromthe moment he decided to issue the Proclamation, Lin-coln never doubted it was the right thing to do or thatit would immensely aid the Union cause.

—Bruce Thaler, student

The above analysis paragraph is similar to a cause andeffect paragraph in that it shows the effects of Lincoln’shandling of the Emancipation Proclamation’s public is-suance. The paragraph also has elements of a processparagraph as it depicts the steps in the Proclamation’sissuance — the decision of when to issue the Proclama-tion, the attacks by politicians and journalists, and thenthe pro-emancipation rallies. Furthermore, this para-graph goes behind the scenes by examining Lincoln’sreasoning for delaying the public announcement (wait-ing for a Union victory) and Lincoln’s unwavering be-lief, despite the attacks against him by politicians andjournalists, that the public was ready for emancipation.This deeper examination supports the main idea of theanalysis paragraph: Lincoln’s perceptive sense of thepublic mood.

Data and Historical Facts

Writing a paragraph offering data or historical factspresents a special challenge.The data or facts, of course,must be accurate and incontestable. The challenge is tostate these data or facts in a way that engages the readerand keeps him or her interested throughout the entireparagraph. A straight recitation of facts, one after an-other, can be repetitive and boring. Facts and data needa little help from useful devices in the writer’s toolkit:transitions, sentence variety, and explanations or inter-pretations. Consider the following data or historicalfacts paragraph:

People have always sought a way to escape the op-pressive heat and humidity of summer. The ancientEgyptians circulated aqueduct water through the wallsof houses to cool them. In medieval Persia, wind tow-ers captured air from the outside and directed the airover pools of water. As the water evaporated, the re-sulting cooler air was directed through the building.When did machines enter into the equation? Many be-lieve this technology began with Willis Carrier’s in-

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vention in 1902 of a mechanism using chilled coils tocool air and reduce humidity. In 1921, Carrier advancedthe technology a major step by developing a more ef-ficient AC unit that did not use toxic and flammableammonia, as did previous AC machines. Now ready forprime time, the technology was first unveiled to theAmerican public in 1924 at Detroit’s J. L. Hudson De-partment Store: Carrier had outfitted the entire storewith three large AC machines. Heavily advertised wasthe air conditioned comfort of New York’s Rivoli The-ater in 1925, and the theater itself became just as biga hit as the movies it showed. The public was sold onAC. Nevertheless, the Great Depression and World WarII caused several years of belt-tightening throughoutthe nation, so it was not until the late 1940s that win-dow air conditioners became a common addition toAmerican homes. Today, AC is no longer an addition; itis a component of our environment that many of uscannot do without. —Bruce Thaler, student

Transitions in the above paragraph such as In1921, Now ready for prime time, and Nevertheless helpemphasize the interest and importance of the facts theyaccompany. Insert transitions in your paragraph to helpyour reader follow your train of thought.

Vary sentence structure throughout your data orfactual paragraph. Each time you use a different sen-tence structure, you create a little surprise for yourreader and keep him or her alert and reading. For in-stance, you can follow a fairly long sentence stating a listof facts by a short sentence that quickly points out whythese facts are relevant. Or you can insert a questionwhen it is meaningful, such as When did machines enterinto the equation? in the example paragraph. Anotherdevice is to begin a sentence occasionally with a wordother than a noun, such as Heavily advertised was the airconditioned comfort of New York’s Rivoli Theater . . . inthe example paragraph. Be careful, however, to avoidusing passive sentences as you vary the sentence struc-ture. Active sentences will keep your audience reading.

Explanations or interpretations also engage yourreader in your fact or data paragraph. Every once in awhile, break up your recitation of facts by explainingwhy the facts are relevant and implying why it is a goodidea to keep reading for additional facts. In the exampleparagraph, this is accomplished by the sentence Never-theless, the Great Depression and World War II caused

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4c 17Paragraphs

several years of belt-tightening throughout the nation, soit wasn’t until the late 1940s that window air conditionersbecame a common addition to American homes.

One trick to writing an engaging data or historicalfact paragraph is to test it on yourself. For every sen-tence, ask yourself: Does this sentence keep me alert andreading? Will a transition, different sentence structure, orexplanation help this to flow more smoothly? Assume thatyour reader has a very short attention span, and youcould lose his or her attention at any moment. Use thesewriting devices to bring your paragraph to life and tomake it difficult for your reader to stop reading.

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4c18 The writing process

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