Effective

Paragraph Writing
Writing Process
 Prewriting – generates
ideas from multiple sources
Drafting – develops draft by
categorizing ideas, organizing
them into paragraphs.
 Revising – elaborates, deletes,
combines, and rearranges text.
This also includes developing
relationships among ideas using
parallel structure.
 Editing – ensures standard
usage, varied sentence
structure, and appropriate word
choice. Proofread for grammar,
punctuation, capitalization, and
spelling.
Publishing
Writing Purposes
1. Narration (Narrative Writing) – tells
stories – short stories, novels, personal
narratives, anecdotes, and biographies.
2. Description (Descriptive Writing) –
paints a picture with words – character
sketches and photographs.
3. Exposition (Expository Writing) – explains
or informs – encyclopedia entries, news
reports, manuals, and research papers.
4. Persuasion – (Persuasive Writing) – seeks to
convince or express an opinion – literary
essays, editorials, advertisements, and books,
music or movie reviews.
 Sentence Structure
• Write in complete sentences.
• Use varied sentence types and sentence openings.
• Identify and use parallelism.
• Use subordination, coordination, apposition and other
devices to indicate clearly the relationship between ideas.
Grammar
Ensure correct Standard English usage,
including S-V Agreement, noun/pronoun
agreement and the 8 parts of speech – noun,
pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective,
conjunction, preposition, interjection).
Use regular and irregular verb tenses
appropriately and consistently such as
present, past, future, perfect, and
progressive.
* Use adjectives (comparative and superlative
forms) and adverbs appropriately to make
writing vivid or precise.
 Punctuation
• Punctuate correctly to clarify and enhance
meaning such as using hyphens, semicolons,
colons, apostrophes, quotation marks.
* Write with increasing accuracy when using
apostrophes in contractions (doesn’t) and
possessives (Madeline’s).
 Capitalization
• Capitalize correctly to clarify and enhance
meaning.
• Observe correct rules on capitalization.
 Spelling
• Use knowledge of spelling rules, orthographic patterns, generalizations,
prefixes, suffixes, and roots.
• Spell derivatives correctly by applying the spellings of bases and affixes.
• Spell frequently misspelled words correctly (e.g., their, they’re, there).
• Understand the influence of other languages and cultures on the
spelling of English words.
• Use dictionary, thesaurus, or other resources as necessary and spell
accurately in final drafts.
 Penmanship
Write fluidly and legibly in cursive
or manuscript as appropriate.
Basic Paragraph Structure
•Topic Sentence
•Supporting Sentences
•Concluding Sentence
Topic Sentence
•A topic sentence usually comes at the
beginning of a paragraph; it is usually the
first sentence in a formal academic
paragraph.
•It is the most general sentence in a
paragraph and it introduces an overall idea
about the paragraph.
 My hometown is famous for several
amazing natural features. First, it is noted for
the Wheaton River, which is very wide and
beautiful. Also, on the other side of the town
is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual because it is
very steep.
Assess:
My hometown is famous because it is
located by Wheaton River, which is very wide,
and because it is built near an unusually steep
hill called Wheaton Hill.
Assess:

There are two reasons why some people

like to buy cars with automatic transmission
and two reasons why others like cars with
manual transmission.
Assess:

Clouds are white.

Supporting Sentences
My hometown is famous for several
amazing natural features. First, it is noted
for the Wheaton River, which is very wide
and beautiful. Also, on the other side of the
town is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual
because it is very steep. The third amazing
feature is the Big Old Tree.
 My hometown is famous for several amazing natural features. First, it
is noted for the Wheaton River, which is very wide and beautiful. On either
side of this river, which is 175 feet wide, are many willow trees which have
long branches that can move gracefully in the wind. In autumn the leaves
of these trees fall and cover the riverbanks like golden snow. Also, on the
other side of the town is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual because it is very
steep. Even though it is steep, climbing this hill is not dangerous, because
there are some firm rocks along the sides that can be used as stairs. There
are no trees around this hill, so it stands clearly against the sky and can be
seen from many miles away. The third amazing feature is the Big Old Tree.
This tree stands two hundred feet tall and is probably about six hundred
years old.
 Concluding Sentences
In formal paragraphs you will sometimes
see a sentence at the end of the paragraph
which summarizes the information that has
been presented. This is the concluding
sentence. You can think of a concluding
sentence as a sort of topic sentence in
reverse.
 My hometown is famous for several amazing natural features. First,
it is noted for the Wheaton River, which is very wide and beautiful. On either
side of this river, which is 175 feet wide, are many willow trees which have
long branches that can move gracefully in the wind. In autumn the leaves of
these trees fall and cover the riverbanks like golden snow. Also, on the other
side of the town is Wheaton Hill, which is unusual because it is very
steep. Even though it is steep, climbing this hill is not dangerous, because
there are some firm rocks along the sides that can be used as stairs. There are
no trees around this hill, so it stands clearly against the sky and can be seen
from many miles away. The third amazing feature is the Big Old Tree. This
tree stands two hundred feet tall and is probably about six hundred years
old. These three landmarks are truly amazing and make my hometown
a famous place.
 My Dog Romeo is so much fun to play
with. One reason he’s fun is because he loves to
play catch. What’s also fun is that he follows me
around the house with a toy and drops it on my
foot, so I will kick it. Additionally, he can catch just
about anything, but his favorite thing to catch is a
Frisbee. Finally, he loves it when I pretend like I’m
falling dead, and he runs over to lick me. All these
reasons show why I really have fun playing with
Romeo.
 A Note on Formality
TOO INFORMAL
ACCEPTABLE
(Do not use)
don't do not
doesn't does not
aren't are not
weren't were not
can't cannot
couldn't could not
won't will not