Once your outline is complete, you can begin drafting your paper. Paragraphs, units of related sentences, are the building blocks of a good paper, and as you draft you should keep in mind both the function and the qualities of good paragraphs. Paragraphs help you chart and control the shape and content of your essay, and they help the reader see your organization and your logic. You should begin a new paragraph whenever you move from one major point to another. In longer, more complex essays you might use a group of related paragraphs to support major points. Remember that in addition to being adequately developed, a good paragraph is both unified and coherent.Unified ParagraphsEach paragraph must be centered around one idea or point, and a unified paragraph carefully focuses on and develops this central idea without including extraneous ideas or tangents. For beginning writers, the best way to ensure that you are constructing unified paragraphs is to include a topic sentence in each paragraph. This topic sentence should convey the main point of the paragraph, and every sentence in the paragraph should relate to that topic sentence. Any sentence that strays from the central topic does not belong in the paragraph and needs to be revised or deleted. Consider the following paragraph about ethnicity and Othello:At the heart of Othello is the theme of race. Indeed, it is possible to say that the play's tragedy is built on a careful, multifaceted analysis of the implications of Othello's blackness in white Venice. Certainly the play opens by foregrounding the theme of race through Iago's crude slurs and innuendos against Othello. We learn in these opening scenes that Iago is a character driven by hate, though we may not apprehend the origins of that hate. It may be that we can do no better than Samuel Coleridge's declaration of Iago's "motiveless" evil. However, it is vital that we attempt to find some meaning behind Iago's actions in order to better understand the play's vision of hate and evil. Although the paragraph begins solidly and the second sentence provides the central theme, the author soon goes on a tangent. The mention of Iago appears to trigger within the author a divergent set of musings that distract the reader from the projected topic of race. While Iago certainly does belong in an essay about race—he works hard to make Othello insecure about his ethnicity—the broader discussion of Iago and the theme of hate does not belong in this paragraph. Just as whole essays need structure and strong transition to provide continuity, so too do individual paragraphs.Coherent ParagraphsIn addition to shaping unified paragraphs, you must also craft coherent paragraphs, paragraphs that develop their points logically with sentences that flow smoothly from one to the other. Coherence depends on the order of your sentences, but it is not strictly the order of the sentences that is important to paragraph coherence. You also need to craft your prose to help the reader see how sentences are related. Let us imagine that a writer revised the paragraph above to create a unified passage, but the text he settled on brought up a different problem:Othello is a play about race. The problems that befall Othello do so not because of any tragic flaws but because of racism. This includes his own feelings of difference and inadequacy. The white Venetians appear to accept Othello by and large because of what he offers them. What does Desdemona see in Othello? Even where racism seems absent, it is playing a vital role. He believes she loves him because of his differences. Iago is able to make Othello feel deeply insecure about the position of a black man married to a white women in Venice at that time. This paragraph demonstrates that unity alone does not guarantee paragraph effectiveness. The argument is hard to follow because the author fails both to show connections between the sentences and to indicate how they work to support the overall point.A number of techniques are available to aid paragraph coherence. Careful use of transitional words and phrases is essential. You can use transitional flags to introduce an example or an illustration (for example, for instance), to amplify a point or add another phase of the same idea (additionally, furthermore, next, similarly, finally, then), to indicate a conclusion or result (therefore, as a result, thus, in other words), to signal a contrast or a qualification (on the other hand, nevertheless, despite this, on the contrary, still, however, conversely), to signal a comparison (likewise, in comparison, similarly), and to indicate a movement in time (afterward, earlier, eventually, finally, later, subsequently, until).In addition to transitional flags, careful use of pronouns aids coherence and flow. If you were writing about The Wizard of Oz, you would not want to keep repeating the phrase the witch or the name Dorothy. Careful substitution of the pronoun she in these instances can aid coherence. A word of warning, though: When you substitute pronouns for proper names, always be sure that your pronoun reference is clear. In a paragraph that discusses both Dorothy and the witch, substituting she could lead to confusion. Make sure that it is clear to whom the pronoun refers. Generally, the pronoun refers to the last noun you have used.While repeating the same name over and over again can lead to awkward, boring prose, it is possible to use repetition to help your paragraph's coherence. Admittedly, it takes some practice to use this technique effectively. You may find that reading your prose aloud can help you develop an ear for effective use of repetition.To see how helpful transitional aids are, compare the paragraph below to the preceding paragraph about race in Othello. Notice how the author works with the same ideas but shapes them into a much more coherent paragraph whose point is clearer and easier to follow. The result is a paragraph that is both unified and coherent.At the heart of Othello is the theme of race. Indeed, it is possible to say that the play's tragedy is built on a careful, multifaceted analysis of the implications of Othello's blackness in white Venice. Particularly important here is the irony of Othello's own heightened sense of difference and inadequacy. While the white Venetians broadly appear to accept Othello, he has internalized his sense of "otherness" in a way that leads to paranoia. For example, he frequently asks what Desdemona could possibly see in him. He appears to believe that she was drawn to him precisely because he is racially different or exotic. Moreover, Iago is able to increase Othello's sense of inferiority by consistently and craftily causing him to reflect on the racial dynamics of his marriage. In other words, Othello becomes the principle mouthpiece of the latent racism that surrounds him in Venice. Sample Body Paragraphs1. Initially, it appears that Honoria would be better off with her aunt Marion and the Peters family than with her father, Charlie. With the Peters, Honoria has both a mother and a father figure as well as siblings with whom she gets along quite well. If her father were to regain custody, she would have only him and perhaps his sister to care for her. Additionally, while the Peters family is by no means wealthy, the parents have provided Honoria with a safe, comfortable, stable home where she seems to be prospering. When Charlie goes to see her, he finds a cozy family scene: "The three children moved intimately about, playing through the yellow oblongs that led to other rooms; the cheer of six o'clock spoke in the eager smacks of the fire and the sounds of French activity in the kitchen." In contrast, judging from Charlie's past behavior, it does not seem as though he would provide a good home for his daughter. Charlie is an alcoholic; the reason Honoria is with the Peters at all is that Charlie was in a sanatorium when her mother died. Further, Charlie's irresponsible behavior contributed both to his financial ruin and the death of his wife, Honoria's mother.2. In "Young Goodman Brown" Hawthorne argues that humanity is neither wholly good nor wholly evil. The devil tells Brown, "Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind," but there is enough evidence in the story to show that this statement does not represent the author's belief. Brown's wife, Faith, is one example. As a character, Faith is described in positive terms. She is Brown's "dear Faith," and Brown says, "after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven." Clearly, Hawthorne also means her to be an allegorical character. Brown loses his faith on his trip into the forest to meet the devil. Had Goodman Brown not left his faith, Hawthorne seems to indicate that he might have found salvation along with his wife. Additionally, when Brown returns to the village, the narrator's descriptions of the townspeople emphasize the contrast between the Browns' opinions and the narrator's. The narrator tells of Brown's meeting with "the good old minister" who "bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown." Brown, however, "shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema." Similarly, the narrator calls Goody Cloyse an "excellent old Christian." But as she "stood in the early sunshine … catechizing a little girl" Brown "snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself."3. Slim's theory about the scarcity of friendships is, perhaps, half right: Fear might very well lead to distrust and prevent friendships. In the world of migrant workers, though, the greatest impediment to friendship is the individual's need to survive in a world where he has very little power. This fact is made evident when Candy's old dog is shot. Infirmity makes the dog unpopular in the bunkhouse, and when Carlson offers (really, threatens) to euthanize the dog, Candy's need to remain with the group prevents his stopping Carlson. George is likewise unable to save Lennie after the latter's accidental killing of Curley's wife. In fact, the same weapon is used, symbolically, to euthanize Lennie. George has a need to survive, and Lennie's mistake is too grave for George to mend (as George has had to do with Lennie's mistakes in the past). The mob is looking for Lennie either to commit him to an mental institution or, more likely, lynch him for killing Curley's wife; this mob is heard in the background as George prepares to kill Lennie and thereby prevent any future cruelty the world might do to him. As George narrates the story of the farm, the story that always soothed both himself and his friend, the mob's "footsteps" are heard "crashing in the brush" (103). George pulls the trigger just as the other men arrive. George tells them that he has wrestled the gun away from Lennie and killed him; George, in effect, does what the mob wants and thereby saves himself and spares his friend the probable lynching he would have suffered at the hands of the mob. Of course, by killing his friend, George is also sacrificing the element of his life that made it humane: friendship.
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