Constructing paragraphs
The paragraph is a great art form. I’m very inter-
ested in paragraphs and I write paragraphs very,
very carefully.
Iris Murdoch^5
One thought alone occupies us: we cannot think
of two things at the same time.
Blaise Pascal^6A paragraph is a unit of thought. In English writing, much
more than in many other languages, the pattern of paragraphs
is a very critical element in making an argument look coherent
and well organized. In general a paragraph should make one
point, or one component part of a single broader point. Where
a paragraph handles instead miscellaneous unconnected
points, as is sometimes necessary to round out an argument,
this role should be explicitly signalled to readers – because they
will not expect it. Normally readers will expect a paragraph to
have a single focus and one role. Overlong paragraphs, with too
many sentences in them, have numerous drawbacks. Your text
becomes underorganized and difficult to follow. And the inter-
nal focus of the paragraph becomes blurred, with too many
different elements stuffed into a single bulging bag.
But paragraphs must not become too short either. A paragraph
is not a sentence. It is a grouping of sentences, a way of carving
them up into connected sets so as to reduce the diversity of
your thought to manageable proportions. If paragraphs reduce
to just one or two sentences, then they cease to have this organ-
izing rationale and become heteronomous cogs, turning as your
argument progresses but not doing any useful work. For
English-speaking readers, short paragraphs in academic work
will also make your work look bitty, fragmented and uncertain.
You will appear to be casting around for what to say, starting to
make points but then not properly developing them.
The optimal length for paragraphs varies a great deal from
one kind of writing to another. In journalism paragraphs will be
short, often around 50 words and never more than 100 words,
because newspapers and magazines are set in narrow columns.
WRITING CLEARLY◆ 111