Q&A for How to Write a Paragraph

Start with a hook that really grabs the reader's attention. Once you have their attention, give them context about what you're going to talk about, how you're going to talk about it, and why they should care. At the end, state the claim that you're going to prove. You have to commit to a particular side of an argument if you're doing a persuasive essay.

A paragraph expresses a single idea. An essay consists of several paragraphs. It typically consists of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

It depends on the tense of the whole piece. it's for a formal essay for a class like English or literature, past or present is fine, as long as it remains consistent. For a scientific paper, past is almost always the tense you should be using.

Yes, you can. If you writing an essay and need to introduce examples in order to support your claim, you will usually introduce them by saying "for example..."

You can use the hamburger effect or PEE. The hamburger effect shows you how to set your paragraph. Top bun - Starting sentence (Your point). First topping - Support sentence 1 (Your quote). Second topping - Support sentence 2 (Explaining the quote). Last topping - Support sentence 3 (More detail ). The last bun - Conclusion (Finishing your point). PEE stands for Point, Evidence, Explain. Point: The character Amy in the text shows that she was uneasy the fact that kids broke into the shop. Evidence: "Jim picked up a rock and threw it at the store window, he then passed one to Amy but she looked with an expression of regret and sadness". Explain: The quote shows that Amy ...

You do not need to be skilled. You can start off with the small paragraph starts you are given like "The writer of this text is showing that the character ..." and you may work on from that or "The character known as ___ is feeling ____, Shown by [Quote] which explains ..." As you get use to writing these paragraphs you are able to not need starters! Keep in mind that you shouldn't start off with hard words and confusing quotes that you are unable to explore.

Read your paragraph out loud or ask someone else to read it and give you feedback.

Yes you can for example: "My father's expression was full of rage and embarrassment after what I did..." The quote shown was through the portion of ___ in the story/text/book. Furthermore, the writer has done this to show off how the father was like when seeing what ___ has done and how wrong/right it was in the first place .... etc. Do it as if it were PEE, meaning Point, Evidence, Explain. P: In the text the writer shows that the character Jimmy was a cruel and selfish boy. E: "Jimmy then shoved me out the way and took all of the color pens on my table..." E: This effects the reader by ....

That depends, if it is fiction, then probably something like, "I have always questioned my existence" just something to hook the readers. If it is non fiction, then you will have to do some research. For example if you were to do something about turtles, then you would write something like, "The shell of the turtle is a rock, and the insides would be the twigs". Write something to hook the reader.

There isn't an exact number, but three sentences with 10-35 words in each is a good rule of thumb for most people.

Your main idea has to be about what you're writing about or it won't sound correct. So, always have the correct main idea.

That is entirely up to the author. The point of view, however, should be clearly identified.

"PEEL" stands for Point, Evidence, Explain, Link. (1) Make your point. (2) Cite evidence. (3) Explain how the evidence supports your point. (4) Link your point back to the main question or to the next point you want to make.

A quote is someone's exact words. The quote is placed between quotation marks (" or ').

This is a matter of contention and personal opinion. Some would find these words helpful in organizing thoughts. Others may consider them unnecessary or unsophisticated.

Printed books and articles invariably indent the first line of a paragraph three or four spaces. In private writing, paragraphs often are not indented at all, but a blank line is inserted between paragraphs.

You can, but you run the risk of a teacher or other reader discounting your work if you present the quote as legitimate but they suspect it's fake.

See Write an Essay .

Each paragraph provides information about and support for the essay's thesis.

If you're using standard formatting, you should indent the first line of each paragraph.

Not particularly. If you think a quote would be effective in capturing the reader's interest or attention, you could certainly use a quote. However, it's not a common technique.

Follow all of the normal rules of punctuation.

There's no standard number. One would be enough if it's powerful support. Two or three would generally suffice.

There's really no rule-of-thumb. One paragraph might contain a single sentence (particularly when presenting dialogue). Another might have ten or twelve short sentences. A typical paragraph will run from three to six sentences. Having a central theme is more important than the number of sentences.

Consider breaking it up into more than one paragraph.

End it with appropriate punctuation.

Keep practicing. Read aloud what you have written. (Hearing it spoken can make mistakes obvious.) Ask others to critique your writing.

Yes. A paragraph contains one narrow subject. An essay may touch on many narrow subjects while exploring one larger subject. Thus, an essay will probably contain many paragraphs.

See Speak English and the many related wikiHow articles.