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paragraph in the first place. Remember that old rule about one idea to a paragraph? Well, it’s not a bad rule, though it isn’t exactly right because sometimes you need more space than a single paragraph can provide to lay out a complicated phase of your overall argument. In that case, just break wherever it seems reasonable to do so in order to keep your paragraphs from becoming ungainly. Two paragraphs can be about the same thing, the first half and then the second half. This paragraph, for example, might have been easier to process if we had broken it right before the question about that old rule.

Paragraphs are a relief not just for your readers: they also give the writer a break. When you draft, start a new paragraph whenever you feel yourself getting stuck: it’s the promise of a fresh start. Paragraph breaks are like turning a corner to a new view, even when the thinking is continuous. They also force the writer to make transitions, overt connections among the parts of his or her thinking, and to state or restate key ideas. Paragraph indentations allow readers to scan essays, searching for connecting words and important ideas.

It can be extraordinarily useful to draft a paper in phases, as a series of paragraphs:

Break up the larger interpretation or argument into more manageable pieces.

Give yourself space to think in short sections that you can then sequence.

When you revise, use paragraphs to clean up your thinking by dividing it into its most logical parts.

A short paragraph will always provide emphasis, for which most readers will thank you. (You should, however, use very short paragraphs sparingly.)

Paragraphs need to justify their existence. A paragraph break should remind you to check that you have suggested to the readers why they need to know this information. Ask yourself why you are telling them what you are telling them. How does the thinking in the paragraph relate to the overall idea that your paper is developing? A good way to check if your paragraph is really advancing your claims is to ask and answer “So what?” at the end of the paragraph.

PARAGRAPHS ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: SOME COMMON PATTERNS

The simplest way of thinking about paragraph organization draws on a slightly extended version of what is known as the traditional rhetorical modes: Exemplification, Narration, Description, Process, Comparison/Contrast, Classification/Division, Definition, Cause/Effect, Problem/Solution, and, of course, Analysis.

You have been studying the characteristic shape of analytical thinking throughout this book. It consists of seeing the parts of something in relation to the whole. In practice, this means finding a significant pattern of detail and explaining what this pattern reveals about the nature and purpose of whatever it is you are studying. The practice we call 10 on 1 (see Chapter 10) is typical of analytical paragraphs. It consists of close scrutiny of a single representative example wherein the writer notices as much as possible about the example and then interprets his or her observations by asking and answering the question “So what?”

Because analysis typically focuses on relationships among the parts and between those parts and the whole, classification and division are well-suited to analytical writing. In the organizational pattern called division, the writer breaks a subject into its component parts. Classification explains how the parts relate to each other by putting them into categories. In practice, classification and division tend to occur together, often in conjunction with definition. When we define something we locate its defining traits, the features that make it what it is.

Here is a brief example of classification and division going on in the same paragraph:

The United States has never had a pure growth-directed model of education. Some distinctive and by-now-traditional features of our system resist being cast in those terms. Unlike virtually every nation of the world, we have a liberal-arts model of university education: instead of entering college to study a single