GUDANG BACA

Today's Topic : Paragraph Structure

»» Definition of Paragraph
          Paragraph is a series of closely related sentence discusses one single idea. These sentences adequately develop the central or controlling idea of the paragraph. The central or controlling idea, usually stated in a topic sentence, is necessarily related to the purpose of the whole composition.

The purposes of paragraph are to give information, to explain something, to tell a story and to convince someone that our idea is right.

»» Structures of a Paragraph
          A paragraph has a least three major structural parts : a topic sentence, supporting sentence and a concluding sentence.

📍Topic Sentence
          A topic sentence is a clear statement that gives the main idea. When we want to write a good topic sentence, we need to pay attention to these two hints; first, get the readers attention and second, avoid unnecessary word.

A topic sentence ia a sentence that states the main idea of the paragraph. It should be carefully worded to express a limited main idea. It helps us focus our idea and helps the readers understand the main idea quickly.

A topic sentence doesn't always have to come at the beginning of the paragraph, it can come at the middle or at the end. It is the most important sentence in the paragraph. Usually, it consists of a complete sentence that contains a subject, verb, and usually a complement and express a complete thought.

📍Supporting Sentence
          Supporting sentence is a sentence that gives more information about the topic sentence. They develop the topic sentence and also called development sentences. All the sentences must be related to the topic sentence and explain the topic sentence by giving reasons, illustration, example, fact, statistics and quotation.

There are at least two kinds of the supporting sentence; first, a major support sentence that develop the controlling idea of the paragraph by telling the readers something new or different about the idea and it directly supports the controlling idea by making the idea easy to understood. Second, a minor support sentence that develop the controlling idea. It directly supports it's major support sentence by making it more easily understood.

📍Concluding Sentence
          A conclusion is a judgement based on the evidence and must be logical. The last sentence of a paragraph is concluding sentence. It doesn't add new information to the paragraph, it repeats the main idea or idea using slightly different word. It signals the end of the paragraph and summarizes the importance point briefly.

          There are some steps for building the paragraph. First, selecting the topic. Second, writing a general statement (topic sentence) about the topic. Third jotting down possible details about the topic. Fourth, developing those details into supporting sentence. Fifth, reading the whole paragraph and make whatever changes we fell will improve our writing.

»» Types of Paragraph
          There are some kinds of paragraph. I will tell some of those kinds,
🔖Narrative Paragraph, is one of four basic types of prose which tells a story by relating a series of events in chronological order, to narrative is to tell a story, to tell what happened.
🔖Descriptive Paragraph, is type of writing in which the ideas are arranged on the basic of space or location, such as in the description of a person, a landscape, a building and so on.
🔖Expository Paragraph, is a paragraph that presents a certain amount of information about a subject. In expository paragraph, the writer provides information about a particular subject.
🔖Persuasive Paragraph, is a special type of paragraph that gives reasons. It is also called argumentation, it usually contains a signal of its purpose in the topic sentence. It may also contain word such as, should or ought to, or word that express judgement about a thing or idea. To persuade is to convince someone that a particular opinion or point of view is the right one.