Organizing Paragraphs and Creating Coherence

• Author: Edwin Scott Fruehwald
• Profession: Law Professor at the University of Alabama
• Pages: 103-127

Chapter Goals

1. To make you aware of the importance of paragraph unity.

2. To show you how to make sure your paragraphs are unied.

3.

To teach you how to start a paragraph with a striking topic sentence.

4. To make you aware of the importance of paragraph organization.

5. To help you understand how to organize a paragraph.

6.

To show you how to put the sentences in a paragraph in logical order.

7. To introduce you to paragraph patterns.

8. To make you aware of the importance of coherence and ow within

paragraphs.

9. To show you how to create coherence and ow within paragraphs.

10. To continue to help you carefully read and edit your writing.

Introduc tion

The structure of writing is hierarchical: Writing is organized on several

levels—the phrase, sentence, paragraph, subsection, section, chapter, and

so on. A good writer considers structure on all levels. Here are the typical

levels of organization:

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Chapter 6

Organizing Paragraphs and

Creating Coherence

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Book

Chapters

Sections

Subsections

Sub-Subsections

Sub-Sub-Subsections

Paragraphs

Sentences

Clauses

Phrases

Words

Previous chapters have concentrated on words, phrases, clauses, and

sentences. I have shown you the various sentence patterns that exist in

the English language, and how you can use particular patterns to create

emphasis. This chapter will discuss three related topics: (1) paragraph unity,

(2) paragraph organization, and (3) paragraph coherence and  ow.

The paragraph is the basic unit of composition. Paragraphs indicate that

you have switched to a new idea or subidea. A paragraph should not be too

long; paragraphing helps readability. Similarly, paragraphs should not be

too short. If a paragraph is too short, it means that you have not developed

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