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When I taught 9th grade English one year, I assigned a 500 word paper to my students and was surprised to find that with only one or two exceptions, every student turned in a paper with exactly five paragraphs made up of 6 lines each. I had asked them to list the word count at the top of the page along with their name. Every paper had a little over 500 words.

When I inquired about this strange coincidence the next day, I found that their English teacher the previous year had told them that for a 500 word paper, they would need at least 6 paragraphs 6 lines long so they got in the habit of making 6, 6-line paragraphs. (Unfortunately, most of them didn't have a clue about separating one idea from another, but we managed to take care of that, too, after a bit of practice.)

Writing a paragraph is a lot like writing an article.

1. You need to begin with a sentence that tells your reader what the rest of the paragraph is going to be about.

2. The middle of your paragraph should be made up of one or more sentences that give your reader what you promised him in the first sentence. Nothing is more disappointing than to get all excited about a promised reward and find it missing when you arrive to pick it up, so be sure you deliver. Use just as many sentences as are necessary to get that information across and no more.

3. The last sentence of your paragraph should sum up the information contained in the whole paragraph. If you find that difficult to do, you have probably strayed from sticking to the information you promised at the beginning.

Learn more about this author, Jeanne Gibson.
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