a paragraph includes how many sentences
The decision about what to put into your paragraphs begins with the germination of a seed of ideas; this “germination process” is better known as brainstorming. There are many techniques for brainstorming; whichever one you choose, this stage of paragraph development cannot be skipped. _____________________________________________________________________________. _____________________________________________________________________________. 3. Write a sentence further explaining what the reader needs to understand about the. controlling idea. A supporting detail, quote, or example to illustrate your controlling idea. o Example: Oysters are an especially common ingredient in Taiwanese food. They appear in dishes such as oyster omelet and oyster vermicelli, both of which are popular street foods. The information in each paragraph must be related to that idea. In other words, your paragraphs should remind your reader that there is a recurrent relationship between your thesis and the information in each paragraph. A working thesis functions like a seed from which your paper, and your ideas, will grow. Ultimately, a paragraph is a sentence or group of sentences that support one main idea. In this handout, we will refer to this as the “controlling idea,” because it controls what happens in the rest of the paragraph. Beginning a paragraph with a topic sentence ensures your reader recognizes early in the paragraph what larger idea the paragraph is going to demonstrate. Expert writers may not introduce the topic until the middle or end of the paragraph, and often imply their topics without ever writing a topic sentence. Each paragraph should be designed around a central controlling idea that dictates what information will be found in the paragraph. An essay about a country’s cuisine, for example, might contain paragraphs with controlling ideas such as common ingredients, traditional foods, and foreign influences. Typically, paragraphs in academic essays consist of the following elements: A controlling idea, which is the main point of the paragraph. The controlling idea often appears in a topic sentence. o Example topic sentence: Taiwan’s coastal geography greatly influences Taiwanese cuisine. Kinds of sentences in a paragraph. Thinking about paragraphs rigidly in terms of length may lead to formulaic writing. Instead, as you revise your draft think about how each sentence is functioning in your paragraph, and whether your paragraph has sufficient functional sentences to make its point. Transition sentences guide your reader smoothly from the topic of the preceding paragraph into the topic of your new paragraph. Paragraph development begins with the formulation of the controlling idea. This idea directs the paragraph’s development. Often, the controlling idea of a paragraph will appear in the form of a topic sentence. In some cases, you may need more than one sentence to express a paragraph’s controlling idea. In a first draft, it may make sense to set a goal for length. For example, you can set a goal of writing four to six sentences per paragraph: in that number of sentences you can announce an idea, prove that idea with evidence, and explain why this evidence matters by linking it to the overall goal of your paper.
Four to six sentences