Paragraph Development
Whether it is first or last or someplace in the middle, whether it has a transitional element, or whether it is explicitly stated or merely implied, the topic sentence is the point of departure for writing an effective paragraph. How you develop-clarify and support-your topic sentence depends on how you answer the question, “Why or how is this so?” Consider, for example, the following topic sentence:
Neat people are especially vicious with mail.
Applying the question, “Why or how is this so?” suggests a strategy for development: the writer needs to tell how “neat people are vicious with mail.”
Neat people are especially vicious with mail. They never go through their mail unless they are standing directly over a trash can. If the trash can is beside the mailbox, even better. All ads, catalogues, pleas for charitable contributions, church bulletins, and money-saving coupons go straight into the trash can without being opened. All letters from home, postcards from Europe, bills and paycheques are opened, immediately responded to, then dropped in the trash can. Neat people keep their receipts only for tax purposes. That’s it. No sentimental salvaging of birthday cards or the last letter a dying relative ever wrote. Into the trash it goes. - Suzanne Britt, “Neat People vs. Sloppy People”
Develop Paragraphs Fully
In expository prose (prose that explains), a paragraph is typically 100-150 words. Longer paragraphs appear in professional journals that discuss new or highly complex information requiring more in-depth explanation and evidence. Paragraphs are shorter in newspapers and magazines where the print column is narrow and needs to be broken more of ten, and where the subject matter is less demanding of the reader.
Occasionally a paragraph is too long and needs to be divided or restructured for clarity. The more common problem is the underdeveloped paragraph that leaves the reader wanting more information.
Underdeveloped
It is considerably easier to forge a cheque in your name than you might think. Forgery is a form of fraud, and the number of fraud-related offences has climbed from 17436 in 1971 to 875250 in 1991, the last year for which figures are currently available. It’s also easy for a fraud artist to use your credit card number.
The topic sentence in the preceding paragraph sets up an idea and a plan for developing it, but more information is needed to convince the reader to be careful when writing cheques. A fully developed version of the paragraph follows. The writer adds details about cheque forgery, showing how easy it is to forge a name or an amount on a cheque.
Well Developed
It is considerably easier to forge a cheque in your name than you might think. Many people make it a lot easier for the forgers by not paying attention to proper procedures for protecting themselves. For instance, a pickpocket is able to obtain a copy of your signature when your wallet is stolen, and can easily forge this signature on a blank cheque made out to Cash. Cheques that have been filled out and signed can be altered with little difficulty: simply add zero to $20, for example, if you have left room for extra figures on your cheque. This type of forgery is common: the number of fraud-related offences in Canada climbed from 17436 in 1971 to 875 250 in 1991. So be careful when writing your cheques: someone may be waiting to take advantage of your carelessness.
To be sure you have provided enough information to enlighten and convince the reader-and thus communicate all you intend-ask a friend to read your composition and point out anything that is not explained clearly or fully enough.
A paragraph may be only a sentence or two long and still be well developed. Such paragraphs often function as transitions from one section of a composition to another. Sometimes, too, as in the following example, a very short paragraph is used to emphasize a point.
From modest beginnings more than two decades ago, computer networks have spread to form an enormous global web. Many users log on to Internet, a system of tens of thousands of networks crammed with scientific and scholarly information as well as thousands of discussion forums or news groups. - Mark Nichols, “Welcome to Cyberspace”
In his next paragraph, one of normal length, Nichols continues by discussing the spread of Internet across Canada and the world.
