Unless we slow down long enough to analyze it, paragraphing is not something we attend to on a conscious level. Nevertheless, it is a powerful means of directing reader attention, and you can't be an accomplished writer of academic essays without learning how to paragraph.

Writing from A to Z (fourth edition, pages 398-405) offers a short course in paragraphing built around three criteria for judging a good paragraph: unity, coherence, and pattern. It illustrates the features of unity and coherence and provides a number of patterns one can use in building a paragraph. Study it.

If you want to study a further example of good paragraphing take a look at William Lutz's "Notes toward a Definition of Doublespeak" (The Anteater Reader, Spring 2001, page 137). The opening paragraph exhibits the three criteria A to Z talks about. First, the paragraph is unified by the idea that "language is a tool." Notice that the word tool is repeated five times in eight lines without any sense that the writer is being repetitious. Second, the paragraph is made coherent by the transitional language used to move between several different ways of being a tool, which are "a tool" (sentence one), "a unique tool" (sentence two), a tool that "can be abused" (sentence three), and a tool that can "shape reality" (sentence four). Finally, the paragraph makes use of one of the patterns that A to Z illustrates. Can you determine which one? (Click for answer).

Instructors can use "Notes" (or for that matter any good essay) as raw material to build exercises in paragraphing. You might try any of the following:
 

• Scramble the sentences in a paragraph and see if the students can rediscover the original arrangement. If they produce a different arrangement, is it a workable one. What new transitions are needed? How does a different arrangement lead to a different idea.
• Shuffle sentences in a paragraph and see if students can locate the topic sentence.
• Shuffle paragraphs and see if students can rediscover the original order.
• Use The Anteater Reader for a scavenger hunt in which students look for examples of paragraphs that exemplify the patterns listed in A to Z.
• Print an essay without the paragraph breaks and see if students can locate where the breaks should be.