How to Build a Paragraph

A paragraph is a team of sentences all working on one idea. The topic sentence usually leads the team: it states the main idea in one clear line. Dogs make wonderful pets is a topic sentence - everything that follows should help prove or explain it.

The middle sentences are the support. They give reasons, examples, facts, and details that back up the topic sentence. Dogs make wonderful pets because they are loyal, they encourage exercise, and they can be trained to help people - each supporting sentence adds another brick to the same wall.

A strong paragraph often ends with a closing sentence that wraps the idea up. And the golden rule: one paragraph, one main idea. When your writing jumps to a new idea, start a new paragraph. Readers follow you far more easily when each paragraph does one job well.