Unified—All of the sentences in a single paragraph should be related to a single controlling idea [often expressed in the topic sentence of the paragraph].
There are four essential elements that an effective paragraph should consistently contain: unity, coherence, a topic sentence, and sufficient development.
Emphasis is the principle of the paragraph composition in which the important ideas are made to stand. In here it is very important that the main points of the writer should be evident inside the paragraph.
A coherent paragraph has sentences that all logically follow each other; they are not isolated thoughts. Coherence can be achieved in several ways. First, using transitions helps connect ideas from one sentence to the next.
COHERENCE. In a coherent paragraph, each sentence relates clearly to the topic sentence or controlling idea, but there is more to coherence than this. If a paragraph is coherent, each sentence flows smoothly into the next without obvious shifts or jumps.
Unity—The entire paragraph should concern itself with a single focus. If it starts with one idea it should not end with or wander into different ideas. Coherence—is the trait that makes the paragraph easily understandable to a reader.
Paragraphs should have both coherence and unity. A paragraph with unity develops a single idea thoroughly and links it to the rest of the paper. Paragraph coherence is achieved when sentences are ordered in a logical manner and when clear transitions link sentences.
The four types of paragraphs that homeschool students should study are expository, persuasive, descriptive, and narrative. These four paragraph types are the building blocks of successful compositions.
In succession, the following paragraphs are narration, exposition, definition, classification, description, process analysis, and persuasion.
Cohesion is the degree to which sentences “glue.” Coherence is the logical division of the writing into internally consistent units (usually paragraph units). In this lesson, you will learn ways to improve the cohesion and coherence of your writing.
There is a difference between cohesion and coherence: cohesion is achieved when sentences are connected at the sentence level, whereas as coherence is achieved when ideas are connected. In addition, cohesion focuses on the grammar and style of your paper.
Just as sentences are cohesive when they “stick” together, paragraphs are coherent when they contain one controlling idea. Paragraphs should contain a single focus supported by related sentences that form into a major and coherent point.
Elements of a Paragraph A paragraph is made up of a topic sentence, the developing details, and a concluding sentence. It is important to fully develop and discuss the topic of your paragraph. If your paragraph is only 2-3 sentences, there is a good chance that you have not developed it enough.
We offer three principles—storytelling, authenticity and argument—to help writers envision the story they will tell, select the data as evidence for that story and integrate quotations to guide the reader's interpretation.
To explain what a topic sentence is, we first have to outline the two basic principles of paragraphing. First, each paragraph in a text should address one topic or aspect (and not several at the same time). Second, each paragraph should have a specific purpose and add something new to the text.
The five-paragraph essay has three basic parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction is the first paragraph of the essay, and it serves several purposes. This paragraph gets your reader's attention, develops the basic ideas of what you will cover, and provides the thesis statement for the essay.
Emphasis, as the term is used here, is the use of typographical effects to call attention to text. These effects can include italics, bold, all-caps, quotation marks, color, and so on. Emphasis attracts the attention of the reader—or “cues” them—to actions they must take or to information they must consider carefully.
Coherence describes the way that the elements in our sentences and paragraphs hang together to produce meaning. Usually when we write rough drafts, we are concerned mainly with getting our thoughts on paper, not with making sure that they interconnect well so that a reader can process our reasoning easily.
coherence, a fixed relationship between the phase of waves in a beam of radiation of a single frequency. Two beams of light are coherent when the phase difference between their waves is constant; they are noncoherent if there is a random or changing phase relationship.
"A unified paragraph focuses on and develops a single main idea. This idea is typically captured in a single sentence, called a topic sentence. The other sentences in the paragraph, the supporting sentences, should elaborate on the topic sentence in a logical fashion (Hult and Huckin, The New Century Handbook, 104).
A one-sentence paragraph is simply an entire paragraph made of a single sentence.
The sentence in which the main idea is stated is the topic sentence of that paragraph. The topic sentence announces the general theme ( or portion of the theme) to be dealt with in the paragraph. Although the topic sentence may appear anywhere in the paragraph, it is usually first – and for a very good reason.