Paragraph Structure

When we draft, we tend to put the sentences down as they occur to us, which isn't always the best order to read them in.

There's a relevant discussion of structure in a famous dialogue by Plato called Phaedrus. Here is a paraphrase.

Soc. Lysias appears to have jumbled his sentences, begun at the end instead of the beginning. Don't you think, Phaedrus?
Phaedr. Yes, indeed, Socrates; he begins at the end.
Soc. There's no logical order to the sentences. He seems to have written them down as they occurred to him. Every discourse ought to be a living creature, having a body of its own and a head and feet; there should be a beginning, a middle, and an end, adapted to one another and to the whole?
Phaedr. Certainly.
Soc. Consider the following poem:

I am a maiden of bronze and lie on the tomb of Midas.
So long as water flows and tall trees grow.
So long here on this spot by his sad tomb abiding.
I shall declare to passers-by that Midas sleeps below.

Soc. In this rhyme whether a line comes first or comes last makes no difference.
Phaedr. Indeed.

The point: If the order of a paragraph's sentences can be shuffled with no loss of meaning, the paragraph is unnecessarily hard to read.

Meaning is created sentence by sentence. The first sentence in a paragraph should be self-evidently meaningful. Each subsequent sentence should modify that subject in a clear way. If you were to remove a sentence from a well-structured paragraph, it would seem to have a hole in it, like something important was missing. If you were to move the sentences around, the meaning would change because the structure changed.

Writing, or at least the construction of well-formed paragraphs, is thus a practice of sorting and organizing ideas into known patterns. That sounds easy, but it is not. One doesn't always know what the pattern should be and often several patterns are possible. Think of a drawer full of silverware tossed in at random. If you need a fork, you have to search for a fork, distinguish one item from another until you spot a fork. Now consider searching for a fork in a drawer that has one of those plastic organizers in it; spoons in this slot, forks in that one, knives here. Spoons go with spoons, knives with knives. Because everything is organized, searching is trivial. Fork? Slot two. Done. But how do you sort different kinds of knives? Do you put butter knives with butcher knives? What if some forks have three tongs instead of four? Should you sort by size? Function? Place where it is used? Age? Cost? Quality? Handle type?

Well-formed informational paragraphs tend to have specific characteristics.

1. The first sentence in a well structured paragraph states the subject (typically a concrete noun or an abstract, but specific idea). Each subsequent sentence modifies that subject in some way. Because repetition creates coherence and variation creates ambiguity, you should tend to state the subject in the same way throughout. If you find yourself wanting to use a synonym for the subject, resist and repeat the subject or, better yet, combine the sentence with the previous one so restatement is unnecessary. If you have in fact switched subjects, you need a separate paragraph for the intruder. If you have discovered two ways of expressing the subject, you haven't yet clearly understood the subject. Refine the two variations into one complete and correct subject, or pick one, delete the other, and move on.
   Whenever we write about a subject for the first time, we tend to create paragraphs that say more or less the same thing in different ways, rather than saying one thing fully.
   Each paragraph should develop only one idea.
2. When you start a sentence with a pronoun, make sure it clearly refers to the subject in the previous sentence. If there are two people, "she" could be ambiguous. "It" and "this" are more often ambiguous because they could refer to anything.
   Don't make you readers look back to the previous sentence
3. The structure of a paragraph should be evident to your readers. If moving a sentence from one place in a paragraph to another doesn't change the meaning, either the paragraph is imperfectly structured or the sentence isn't important.
4. Use signals (aka transitions) to indicate structure, to show how ideas are organized, how each idea relates to the others. Structure makes ideas easier to understand and remember.
   • subordinate: indicate that what they are reading now is less important than what they are about to read:
     while
     although
     it is important ... but
     instead
     different from
     in spite of
     nevertheless
   • coordinate (parallel): indicate that what they are about to read is as important as what they just read, often used for comparing, emphasizing similarities rather than differences, which is what contrastive transitions do.
     on the one/the other hand
     at the same time (simultaneity in this context is a metaphor)
     keep in mind
     and
     or
   • contradict: -- no
     but
     however
     seems ... but in reality
     in fact
   • concede: -- yes, but
     admittedly
     granted
     and yet
     that being said
     all the same
     nevertheless
   • condition: -- if
     if
     when
     except for
     alternatively
     until
     unless
     provided that
   • consequence:
     therefore
     thus
     thereby
     so
     as a result
     consequently (be careful: causality and temporality can be easily confused. If/then does not mean when/therefore)
   • label: identify what they are about to read:
     in the beginning
     first of all
     for example
     in conclusion
     to sum up
     caution
     danger
     warning
   • emphasis: indicate the importance of what they are about to read
     especially
     importantly
     significantly
     surprisingly
     above all
     essentially
     to be clear
     obviously
     that is not to say
     in short
   • location:
     space (next to, to the left, to the right, above, beside, below)
     time (when, while, during, before, after, not yet,)
   • frequency:
     often
     regularly
     periodically
   • Enumeration: words indicating number in a sequence. Enumeration is most helpful when speaking, to help speaker and audience organize and remember, and when giving directions or providing a recipe.
5. While signals are important, you need to use them judiciously. If a reader can see there are three paragraphs, do you need to write, firstly, secondly, in conclusion? Often we use signals to help us grasp the structure we are trying to create or identify. Once the structure is clear to us, these signals should be removed -- as I just said, that is to say, in a moment I will. Signals that help the writer don't necessarily help the reader.
6. The last sentence in a paragraph should recap, forecast, or both.
   If a paragraph is very long or complex, a recap ending is best. If you can think of a short, tight, memorable sentence that encapsulates the whole idea, that is often perfect.
   If you recap, the opening sentence of the next paragraph needs to be the next logical step in what you are talking about.
   If you forecast at the end of a paragraph, the first sentence of the next can simply pick up the thread.

Unless we think systematically before we start writing, creating outlines or topic lists, we will tend to write paragraphs sentence by sentence as each sentence occurs to us, which isn't always the best order to read the sentences in. We think associatively often with huge leaps that we don't notice because the assumptions those leaps are based on are implicit A psychologist at Stanford invented this simple game. Volunteers were given one of two roles:"tappers" or "listeners". Tappers received a list of twenty-five well-known songs, such as "Happy Birthday to You" and "The star-Spangled Banner." Each tapper was asked to pick a song and tap out the rhythm to a listener (by knocking on a table). The listener's job was to guess that song, based on the rhythm being tapped.

Try it. What are the chances of someone guessing what you are tapping?

Most people guess 50%. In practice, the success rate is roughly 2.5% in our own thinking but absent from the words we write down. But once the sentences are down, they can look and sound right to the writer even when they won't to a reader. You need to read your own writing cold. Walk away for the rest of the day and pick it up in the morning. Alternatively, shuffling the sentences can make the structure or lack of structure more apparent to you. You can more readily see where a sentence should go, where a transitional word would help connect two ideas, and what sentences need their own paragraphs.

Select a paragraph from the drop down box. See if you can figure out what the original order is. If you want to challenge yourself, you can drag and drop the sentences to make them read the way you think the paragraph should. Then hit "go" to check your order against the original. If they match, the word "Awesome" appears on the screen. If not, a try again button will appear and you can go back and think some more. If you get frustrated, you can reveal the original by clicking "view original".

In a couple of cases, the original is no better than scramble. The author of those examples needed to revise the draft more than they did. Example Paragraphs example example 1 example 2 example 3 example 4 example 5 example 6 example 7 example 8 example 9 example 10 example 11 example 12 example 13 example 14 example 15 example 16 example 17 example 18 example 19 Try your own paragraph

Because editing other people's writing is not the same as editing your own, after you have tinkered with some of the examples, tinker with some of your own. If you are struggling with a paragraph, copy it here and see if scrambling it tells you anything about how the sentences should relate to each other. Maybe one sentence will stick out as belonging to another paragraph (in which case delete that sentence and use it to start a new paragraph later). Maybe you will see more or less the same idea said twice (in which case combine and delete or just delete one.). If you don't know why each sentence follows its predecessor, something is wrong.