Hello, I'm Scott.
Today we're looking at paragraphs and how to use
them in an essay.
It's important to understand the structure of a paragraph in an academic
essay or else your writing might not make much sense.
Having an idea of structure helps you communicate your ideas clearly
and effectively.
And this skill is useful for academic study and exams.
Let's take a look at the steps involved. First,
we need to brainstorm ideas for the essay topic.
Sometimes the topic can be in the form of a question like here.
I've chosen the question: what are the benefits of studying online?
So the topic is benefits
of studying online. Here are some benefits I've come up with.
I have put in point form for now.
I've come up with five good ones.
You don't have to have too many but a few good ones will do. Ideally,
one idea makes one paragraph.
So make sure your ideas are strong. Here are my five points
can do it anywhere.
Less travel time to and from school. Can
study when it suits you. More
choice of courses and topics. And lastly,
more access to resources.
Remember that planning is very important.
Here is a planning table you can follow.
This is my plan for the main idea of being able to study anywhere.
I'm arguing that that is one benefit of studying online.
I have the main idea: can study anywhere.
Explanation one:
use any device can be far from school. Example one:
rural students can study at a city university without moving,
different from past. Explanation two:
can study during travel restrictions. Example two:
study from home during a pandemic.
Concluding sentence:
no online study equals no study for many.
It's a good idea to have at least two explanations and related examples in one
paragraph to support your main idea as it helps you argue your point.
Now you've got the ideas you want to discuss,
it's time to think about how to put it into a paragraph.
But first, what is a good paragraph?
A good paragraph should focus on one main idea.
This should be clear at the start of the paragraph in the topic sentence.
The rest of the paragraph should explain that main idea and give
examples.
You can finish a paragraph with a concluding statement,
which gives a summary of the main idea. So in summary,
a good paragraph has these four important parts -
a topic sentence, an explanation,
an example and a concluding sentence.
Here is an example of a good paragraph.
I'm going to show you why it's good because it's got the four elements we
just talked about.
You can see the topic sentence right at the top.
One of the main benefits of studying online is that it can be done anywhere.
Then there are a few more sentences explaining this main idea of
studying online from anywhere with the widespread use of the
internet. Students can log into their classes via their home computers,
laptops or even iPads or smartphones from anywhere in the
world.
This means that more students can study regardless of how far they are from
their school.
Now there's an example here which explains and supports this idea further.
I have used the sentence starter, for instance,
to indicate that I'm going to give an example of what I'm saying.
For instance,
many students who live far from major cities can stay at home and
continue to study at a large university. In the past,
these students had to move hundreds of kilometres away to get an education
but they can now stay at home, close to family and friends.
Then I explain my main idea further to develop my argument.
I can use discourse markers like on top of this to
indicate that I'm developing my main idea further.
On top of this, by studying online,
students can continue to study when travel is restricted.
And another example to back it up.
I've used a different sentence starter here to indicate I'm giving another
example so that my writing is not repetitive.
A good example is how students continue to study during a pandemic.
When international borders were closed,
students were able to continue studying or even start studying online.
Then I write my concluding sentence to summarise my main idea
without the availability of online classes,
many of these students would have missed out on their education.
Let's take a look at a paragraph here. What do you think is wrong?
Yes.
The supporting example does not link with the main idea.
The main idea is one of the main benefits of studying
online is being able to study whenever it suits you.
But look at the supporting example. For example,
when students need to access materials from the school library,
they don't have to spend time traveling to the library and searching for what is
needed.
So you can see that while the main idea is about being able to study at
any time,
the example is about not having to travel to school.
This is an example of what we should not do in our writing.
Our explanations and examples need to support our
ideas.
Let's go back to our brainstorm list.
What did we have as other benefits of studying online?
Let's look at more access to resources.
Let's see how we can develop that idea into a paragraph using
the tools we have learned so far.
Remember this is the structure we're following: topic
sentence, explanation,
example and concluding
sentence. Let's first do up our plan.
Our main idea is more access to resources.
So what can our explanation be? Perhaps by more access,
we mean students have access to resources from
everywhere as opposed to just physical copies in the past.
Let's think of some examples to support this explanation.
Some examples are: own school library,
other school libraries, academic databases, search engines.
And finally our concluding sentence.
As we said before,
there are more opportunities to learn due to more resources while learning
online. Here's how that looks in a paragraph.
The main idea is another important benefit of online learning
is the wide range of resources that are available.
You can use the sentence starter: Another important benefit is...
because this is paragraph two in the essay.
Then you can explain further by talking about how studying
was before and how it has changed now.
When studying face-to-face with no online resources,
students were limited to the physical copies of resources that a school had in
its library. However,
when studying online students have a much wider range of resources available.
And
you could write out your examples that you had listed in your plan.
For example,
not only can students access online copies of resources available in the
school's library but they also have access to resources from
other schools and research via online academic databases.
On top of this, students can also use everyday search engines,
such as Google and even find lectures from other schools on YouTube.
And finally, you can make your conclusion for that paragraph.
As a result,
students now have greater opportunities to learn via a broader
range of available resources.
Here are some tips to keep in mind.
Always plan before you start writing. Edit
and proofread your own writing to make sure the ideas fit together.
Read good academic writing and notice how it's organised.
Practise writing paragraphs in your own time and get feedback from a
teacher or friend.
Thanks for joining today. Now that you have some tools to use,
to write a good paragraph. Give it a go. See ya.