Writing PracticeWhat does a good paragraph look like?

What have you been taught?

Kaar Model for a good paragraph One paragraph = one idea

One point you’re trying to make One example you’re trying to explain

Relatively short Business writing: 10 typed lines, MAX. Academic writing can run longer

But not a lot… gets hard to read/ hard to understand Tight.

Topic sentence sets the stage Body information is all relevant Last sentence connects to your thesis

“Tight” is the goal to work on It’s easy to get lost in an essay or paper

Too many examples Unrelated info

It’s easy to have too big of an idea Which requires lots and lots of examples

Look at most of your writing Paragraphs could get split out.

The general form is the same It’s no different from what you’ve been taught

Topic sentence that presents the point you’re trying to make

Body sentences that contain evidence/ facts Some explanation of those examples

Why do they support your point? Make connections

Closing sentence explains how this paragraph connects to your thesis

What IS different?

We teach beginners to re-state the question Lots of time, the first sentence is a very basic idea

“George Washington was a good man.” BUT...A re-stated thesis is BORING. AP readers want more sophistication than that.

Go ahead and write it if you need to get started But cut it when you edit.

A pretty good, not perfect example

But Carnegie's drive for efficiency also led to an armed confrontation at Homestead. In contract talks in 1892, Henry Clay Frick, the superintendent of the Carnegie Steel Company, proposed to cut workers' wages, arguing that increased efficiency had inflated salaries. At the time, unskilled mill workers, who were mainly eastern European immigrants, made less than $1.70 for a 12-hour day. Skilled workers earned between $4 and $7.60 a day. Frick also wanted to eliminate the union from the plant.

Source: Mintz, S. “Homestead”. DigitalHistory 2007, University of Houston. 23 October, 2011. WEB < http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=229>.

Break it down

But Carnegie's drive for efficiency also led to an armed confrontation at Homestead.

In contract talks in 1892, Henry Clay Frick, the superintendent of the Carnegie Steel Company, proposed to cut workers' wages, arguing that increased efficiency had inflated salaries. At the time, unskilled mill workers, who were mainly eastern European immigrants, made less than $1.70 for a 12-hour day. Skilled workers earned between $4 and $7.60 a day.

Frick also wanted to eliminate the union from the plant.

Another Good ExampleThe richest silver deposit in American history was discovered in 1857 in Nevada. Two brothers, Evan and Hosea Grosh, found the deposit, but died before they were able to record their claims. Henry Comstock, a sheepherder and prospector who cared for the brothers' cabin, unsuccessfully tried to find gold on the land, sold his claims within months and died a poor man. But the silver lode came to bear his name.

While the Comstock claim did contain some gold, miners were unable to get to it because it of an abundance of bluish clay. It turned out that the clay was silver of exceptional purity. This discovery triggered a rush of thousands of miners to the area. A railroad was quickly built and the area became one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the West.

Source: Mintz, S. “The Comstock Lode and the Minimg Frontier”. DigitalHistory 2007, University of Houston. 23 October, 2011. WEB < http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=179>.

Another exampleThe resulting boom turned Virginny Town into Virginia City, the most important settlement between Denver and San Francisco; and the grubby prospectors into instant millionaires who built mansions, imported furniture and fashions from Europe and the Orient, and financed the Civil War. With the gold and silver came the building of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad, which ran from Reno to Carson City to Virginia City and later to Minden. The investments made in mining on the Comstock in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s fueled the building of San Francisco. William Ralston and Crocker, founders of the Bank of California made their money in Virginia City. Names like Leland Stanford, George Hearst, John Mackay, William Flood and many others made their fortunes in Comstock mining.

Bush, Don. “History of Virginia City, Nevada and the Comstock Lode”. 1992, Clarity Publications. 23 October 2011. WEB. <http://www.vcnevada.com/history.htm>

What was missing? Organization

What is the paragraph about? Topic sentence talked about the city and the

millionaires Little else about the city Info on what the money was spent on A list of millionaires’ names– meaningful?

How about this?During the 1880s, the continuing search for cheap labor combined with renewed persecutions in eastern Europe to bring a noticeable change in the source of immigration, one fraught with meaning for American social history. Before 1880 immigrants were mainly of [Germanic] and Celtic origin, hailing from northern and western Europe. But by the 1870s there were signs of a change. The proportion of Latin, Slavic and Jewish peoples from southern and eastern Europe rose sharply. After 1890 these groups made up a majority of the newcomers, and by the first decade of the new century they formed 70 percent of the immigrants to this country. Among these new immigrants were Italians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Russians, Romanians, and Greeks– all people of a markedly different culture and language stocks from those of western Europe, and most followers of different religions, including Judaism and Catholicism.

Tindall, George Brown, and David E. Shi. America, a Narrative History, vol. 2, 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 939. Print.

OK, so the model has to be flexible!

In general, try to keep your paragraphs short, tight! If you have one that stretches long, check it carefully.

Summary: “tight paragraphs” Relatively short

Aim for 10 lines or less, typed. ONE TOPIC apiece!

Lots of self-discipline If your topic takes 17 lines, re-think it.

Organize it: Topic sentence Evidence Analytical comment