PARAGRAPH WRITING - CHARACTERISTIC - ITS FEATURES

WHAT IS PARAGRAPH

A paragraph is a unit of information unified by a controlling idea. The paragraph is a good one only if the reader completely understands the unit of information it contains and if controlling idea is a completely develop: OALD mention that paragraph is a section of a piece of writing usually consisting of several sentences dealing with a signal subject. The first sentence of a paragraph starts is combination of many sentences with a single central idea. In the same way, CALD ( Cambridge Advance  Learner's Dictionary) says that paragraph is a short part of a text consisting of at last one sentence and beginning on a new line. It usually deals with a single event, description, idea, etc.

According to Narayanaswami ' A paragraph is a unit of composition in which one idea or thought is developed by means of examples of supporting details' . The above definitions given by scholars can be summed up as a paragraph is a unit of language having a series of sentences relating to the same idea. A paragraph usually has an idea or thought that is further strengthened by means of supporting details. This central idea of a paragraph can be expressed in a single sentences, which can be called topic sentence. As anything if the world has its own characteristics, paragraph also has the following characteristics.

1. Topic sentences:

A sentence which name the central idea or controlling is called topic sentence . It may support and strengthened by other sentences. It may be as first sentences of  a paragraph, in middle or at the end.

2. Length:

A paragraph can be whole text, that is , an independent and complete composition. A short, a story essay, a short description can be written with in a paragraph. And, on the other hand, a paragraph  part of a large text. There is no hard and fast rule about the length of a paragraph. It can be very short just a single sentences and it may be very long the whole text. The varied  length of paragraph is one of the important characteristics of a good writing.

3. Variety:

A paragraph should avoid monotony, this is, it should contain sentences of different types. There should  be simple complex and compound sentences, and there should be long sentences. The sentences should represented and complex ideas should be expressed by complex sentences.

4. Unit of thought:

Unity of thought means selection and gradation of ideas, and all the ideas should be hooked by meaningful sentences. For example; if the central idea is introduced in first paragraph, the same idea can be developed by supporting details. Language should flow just like water of river.

6. Coherence:

A good paragraph must have coherence, that is the ideas should be ordered in natural order and the sentences should be well connected together. One sentences should lead the next, and there should be a continuous, logical progression in thought. Certain words and expressions for example, hence, to begin with but and then therefore, on the other hand, still, nevertheless etc can used.

7. Order:

The idea of the paragraph should be arranged in a proper order. If an event is dealt with, it should be arranged in order to time and if something is described the most important all most distinctive features arrange your material from near to far, from outside to insight.

8. Cohesion:

The words " cohesion" is a Latin word which mean " cling together" . It means process of clinging the sentences together is cohesion. In the other words, the transitional expressions and other devices to guide readers and show how the parts of composition relates to one another called cohesion.

This big part of  story should stick together, but  small parts need some stricken as well when the big parts fit, we called that good feeling.

Refers to internal patterning, repetition of items used to create relationship of meaning within a text. In other words, cohesion in the relationship between sentences in a text there must be cohesion of intro paragraph created cohesion.

When sentences connect, we call it cohesion. Cohesion is achieved when writers connect their organization parts with sufficiently clear and two types of cohesion as discussed below:

i) Grammatical cohesion:

Grammatical cohesion concerns shatters as reference, ellipse, substitution and conjunction. Substitution normally substitutes pronoun instead of noun/ phrases/ clauses reference refers to be used of who, whose, which, where, etc conjunctions contains because although in order to of etc.

ii) Lexical cohesion:

The semantic  conceitedness of the lexical items or unit in a paragraph is simply known as lexical cohesion. It can be said semantically of a text. Lexical cohesion concern such features as aynonymy, antonymy, antonym, collocation, repetition etc.

Therefore, writing must have not only coherence and effective design but also cohesion and explicit set of " hooks" and " ties" that ensure a reader's interest and comprehension. Cohesion is a result of giving readers to a right kind of explicit help in figuring out the design. Cohesion gives reader the clues of discovering coherence.