Lecture Notes: Body Paragraphs

Each body paragraph should be about one main focus or idea, and only one.

Readers are easily confused when body paragraphs slip from one focus to the next in quick succession. Unstructured writing like this makes your discussion hard to follow. When body paragraphs are written to address multiple ideas, the connections between different thoughts and ideas tend to be unclear. It’s likely readers will misunderstand your message, or in particularly egregious examples, be unable to follow your discussion at all.

Students tend to break this rule by accident. You’re drafting, a related idea shows up, and you write it down where you are instead of where it belongs. Now the paragraph engages with two points while the topic sentence signposted one. Here’s a test. On a scratch paper, write out what the paragraph is about in one short sentence. If you need the word “and,” you likely have two areas of focus. If this happens, split the paragraph in two, and give each one its own topic sentence.

A topic sentence tells the reader the next step in your discussion or argument.

Every topic sentence tells the reader what the paragraph is about, and how it connects to the rest of the paper or essay. Without a clear topic sentence, your reader will likely spend the first few sentences trying to figure out where the conversation is going.

Learn more about what makes a solid topic sentence here: Lecture Notes: Topic Sentences.

Avoid paragraphs that are too long or too short.

Think about a long car ride you went on as a kid where nobody told you where you were going. If the trip had been ten minutes, it would have been fine. But after an hour, you start to ask “How much longer will this take?”

A long paragraph can create the same effect for the reader. They may feel like you’ve said too much or start to lose interest, because reading feels like a slog. For this reason, shorter punchier paragraphs with clearer focuses tend to work better. On the other hand, a really short paragraph will feel like it’s over before it started, so can also confuse readers.

Most body paragraphs run four to eight sentences. Past two-thirds of a page, stop and check whether you’ve covered more than one main point. If you have, you should split the long paragraph into two shorter paragraphs. If your paragraph is three or fewer sentences, it usually means you introduced a point but never explained it. Don’t pad it to fill space. Go back and do the explaining.