2.3 Meaningful Chains Of Paragraphs

Arrange your paragraphs in meaningful order.

Paragraphs do not work on their own; in good writing a link or bridge exists from one paragraph to the next. You convey your main topic by creating meaningful links between paragraphs. You create such links using your concluding sentences.

As noted in Section 2.2, a concluding sentence relates to the topic sentence in the same paragraph. However, the one paragraph’s concluding sentence also provides a bridge to the next paragraph’s topic sentence. Figure 2-3 illustrates one concluding sentence’s links to two topic sentences. The links connect paragraphs together, creating a meaningful chain.

For example, you can create a meaningful chain of paragraphs by ordering your paragraph topics according to breadth. The first paragraph communicates the broadest topic, the next paragraph communicates a narrower topic, and so on. You smoothly move your reader from general points to more specific details, all the while keeping the paragraph chain on the larger topic. Figure 2-4 illustrates the approach by placing the paragraph chain inside a larger cone. The larger cone’s narrowing represents the focusing of paragraph topics as one moves through the paragraph chain. The paragraph chain communicates the larger narrative’s topic.

Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988) organize their introduction according to Figure 2-4. The paragraph topics in Table 2-1 become more focused as you move down the table. For instance, Fodor and Pylyshyn begin by stating many find connectionism interesting. They then focus by noting certain researchers find connectionism particularly interesting to certain researchers. They focus again by claiming connectionism attracts such researchers because connectionism differs from traditional approaches. They continue to focus throughout their introduction.

You can now see my Table 2-1 example reveals a detailed structure. The outline provides topics in order; the chain of topics moves smoothly from more general points to more detailed claims. The outline expresses each topic with a topic sentence and a concluding sentence. Links between concluding sentences and topic sentences establish the introduction’s narrative structure. How can you create such a nicely structured outline – from scratch?