Let's talk about what makes for a great
paragraph. And the first thing that we
need in a paragraph is we need
something called coherence. And coherence
is one of these favorite terms of
writing instructors, and what it means is
basically just something that's
logical, unified, and consistent. In other
words, your paragraph should have one
point, just one central point, and
everything should flow from that. And you
can see that this paragraph deals with
the gruesome aspects of the trade in
smoked heads in the early 19th century in
New Zealand, and every single sentence
that follows afterwards is going to be
kind of under the umbrella of this topic.
So that's the first point: we want
coherence and we want things to flow
naturally and logically. The second thing
we want is we want some kind of topic
sentence. So our topic sentence is
typically our first sentence or two and
it announces what the essay [paragraph] is going to
be about. So it functions a little bit
like a road sign or some kind of marker
and it kind of says, in this direction, this
is what you can expect to see. So that's
very helpful for the reader. The third
aspect that we
need is we need some kind of evidence; we
need clear evidence. And there are a number of
things that are said in this paragraph
that might back up this point, but
probably our best evidence in this case
is the quotation over here from Michael
King. So we found a great quote, we're
going to use it, and then we're going to
cite it as well. And we've cited it here using
the Chicago Manual of Style, which is
what's used in history.
There should actually be a little note
there as well, a
little number one that points us to the
footnote, and the footnote would be
at the bottom of the page. If
you're using, let's say, the MLA
guidelines, you would have a different
form of citation, so it really depends on
what the field is that you're working in.
The fourth thing that we need in a
strong paragraph is we need good
transitions. And transitions have to do
with how our sentences kind of develop
the point that we're interested in. You can
see how some of these sentences use a
kind of phrase, or a few words, to point
back to what came before. So we have
things like "in addition" or, at the end,
"[g]iven this gruesome practice," and this
kind of says, you know what, something
came before and we're tying this to the
previous bit. Now beginning writers can
often over do this, so they'll use the
word a lot of words like "thus," and
"therefore," and so on.
Many of these by the way are conjunctive
adverbs, which can be quite useful. So as
you become more experienced as a
writer, try to let the ideas speak for
themselves:
let the ideas through the talking and
then you can minimize the use of some of
these phrases and conjunctive adverbs ...
because if you use these too much, it
sounds a little bit stilted at times. And
then the last thing that we need is we
need some form of closure. So the fifth
thing is closure. And I don't use the
word summary here because if you just
summarize everything you've said before,
that's going to be kind of boring. If you
end with, "and now I have argued this and
this and this," the reader, I think, is
going to be a little bit annoyed with
you. Especially in a short paragraph, it's
very easy to see what you've just been
arguing, so we want a bit more of a
creative way of still maybe introducing
something new
(you don't have to), but really of just
trying to give a sense of closure and
drawing things to an end.
What you can see is that we have
repeated this word, "gruesome," which we had
at the beginning, so that can be one
interesting strategy.
Another thing that we've done here is
we've used this evocative imagery of a
warrior, let's say being taken captive, and
then potentially being paraded before
collector looking for an interesting
tattoo.
This, of course, is new information. We
haven't talked about this
possibility before, but given everything
that came before, it's definitely
something that is a potential fact that
we can sort of bring in. So try to
create closure by not just repeating
yourself but by still being interesting
and fresh. And then the last thing to
notice about the final sentence or two
is that you don't have to introduce the
next paragraph. So if you're thinking
about the next paragraph, and that's the
symbol for paragraph, you don't have to
say anything about it yet. Just wait until
you start the next paragraph and then
introduce your next topic or idea.