Good Paragraphs and Sentences

Paragraphs are the main organizational unit in writing. Their purpose is to organize a group of sentences around a single main idea. According to the survey that you looked at in the first module, sector managers and country program coordinators identified paragraph structure as the top priority for staff for improving their writing skills, so this is an aspect of your writing you will want to consider closely.

After developing your pyramid outline, you may be able to identify the main ideas of your paragraphs. You may also be able to see how these paragraphs fit together to support your overall purpose and main message.

Good paragraphs have the following characteristics:

• The sentences in the paragraph work together to support a single idea. The topic sentence, usually the first sentence, states the main message of the paragraph. 
• Effective topic sentences guide the reader from paragraph to paragraph, providing a “story line” for the document.
• An effective paragraph follows a pattern of organization that is easily recognizable and reveals the logical arrangement of the sentences.
• A paragraph connects its ideas clearly, indicating the relationship between the sentences in a paragraph and between one paragraph and the next.