While the paragraph is often thought of as a point of style, it is actually a vital compositional tool.
Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic.
(Strunk and White [1959] 1979) Scaffolding for your argument
1 Decide on the main point.
2 Define terms, elaborate.
3 Illustrate your point.
4 Discuss illustrations, examples or evidence: show how they say what you say they say.
PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE 157
This piece of advice is taken from one of the enduring classics on writing style. Every edition of Strunk’s Elements of Style has been a standard reference point (http:www.diku/students/myth/EOS/) for novice and experienced writers alike. It is perhaps better known – a bestseller – in the USA, but, apart from one or two differences in punctuation and spelling, the contents are as relevant, and useful, in other cultures. While Strunk’s intention was to help students avoid making the most common mistakes, he provided some guide- lines on how to write well. This is not just a corrective text; the qualities of good writing are defined.
The ‘lessons’ Strunk provides are models of concise writing: ‘Use the active voice . . . Omit needless words . . . In summaries, keep to one tense.’ Short illustrations support the definitions and recommendations. Many postgradu- ates do not know the ‘rules of rhetoric’ and are often at a loss as to what constitutes good writing. Many supervisors, likewise, do not know all the rules, especially in areas where writing is seen merely as the means of
‘summing up’ the research.
Debates about style often descend into what appear to be matters of personal preference, rather than ‘rules’. It is to everyone’s advantage if this debate is informed by the rules learned now, rather than the rules remembered from school days. Once we have learned the rules we can correct many of our mis- takes ourselves. This is an important professional skill. We can also deviate from them at will, if it makes our point clearer:
It is an old observation that the best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation.
Unless he [sic] is certain of doing well, he will probably do better to follow the rules. After he has learned, by their guidance, to write plain English adequate for everyday uses, let him look, for the secrets of style, to the study of the masters of literature.
(Strunk and White [1959] 1979) The best writers are surely those who know the rules, whether they deviate from them or not.
There is an interesting point here about learning the rules: we learn about writing by following the rules. If we do not know the rules, we may be all at sea, interestingly at sea, but unable to make conscious, confident choices between one form and another. The moral of the story is that it is a good idea to learn the rules of style, their uses and abuses. This learning process should show us how style can be a tool to help us make our points clearer and stronger.
Thesis writing involves many mini-experiments in style, as we adapt the way we ‘normally’ write – or the ways we have written in the past, for other tasks – to the extended argument that is a thesis.
We can design a paragraph as a unit in our argument. We do not need to wait
and see how long or short a paragraph will be; we can decide to write as much or as little as we think our point requires. Of course, we can change our minds as we go along, but the outline structure is there to guide us.
The purpose of providing this structure – apart from the fact that many postgraduates do not seem to know about the structure of a paragraph – is that it helps us order the points we want to make and strengthen the coherence at the sub-page level. The points are all connected logically.
Link words are also needed. They can make this logical structure explicit.
They lead readers through your text, making them see the connections you have put there. You do not ask them to try and work out what the link is; they cannot read your mind. They are just as likely not to see the link – or to see another link – and to attribute their ‘error’ to a deficiency in your writing skills.
You already have a repertoire of links: moreover, therefore, nevertheless, firstly . . . secondly . . . thirdly, thus and so on. Repetition can also be an effect- ive linking device, as can a synonym or pronoun, where another word stands for the key word.
Throughout this paragraph Selzer uses a variety of linking techniques to make sure the reader follows him through a complicated argument:
Paragraph structure
(1) Topic sentence . . . . . . . (2) Elaborate/define your terms . . . . . . . (3) Give an example/
evidence/illustrate . . . . . . . (4) Say how your example makes the point in your topic sentence.
Link words: illustration
For her part, the Duchess clearly stands on the side of merit; while she never challenges the concept of an ordered society, she does strive to substitute a meritocracy for her kingdom’s aristocracy. For example, she approves of the relative indifference toward degree in the French court, . . . Similarly, when Ferdinand argues . . . the Duchess gives her quick assent. Moreover, Antonio tells us that . . .
(Selzer 1981: 72) PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE 159
The link words, taken separately, illustrate the direction of the argument: a point is made, then defined further. An example follows, backed up by another. Emphasis is added to the point in a further example.
However, there are certain forms of academic writing where links are not needed. You have the choice: to link or not to link. For example, in abstracts and summaries there may be, by convention, no link words. The logical structure underpinning the abstract may be so obvious, in such a short text, that to add links would seem unnecessary. Structured abstracts may also have headings, making link words superfluous.
In writing for the web, even about our research, we may be able to dispense with verbal links in favour of visual links. The same applies to posters, dealt with in the previous chapter. These are not meant to be read in the same way as a thesis, one paragraph after another, one sentence after another. Readers – or, perhaps more accurately, viewers – can flit about from section to section. They may read them in any order. You do not, therefore, have to write them to be read in one order. Your role as writer is to direct their attention, but not necessarily in a linear text.
We can miss out one of the steps. For example, if we feel that we do not need to elaborate on the topic sentence, we can miss out step two. That may be asking readers to make a bit of a jump, to follow our thinking by making links for themselves, instead of making those links for the readers explicitly.
Topic sentence: ‘begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning’ (Strunk and White [1959] 1979).
You can also think of paragraphs as working in a series, a paragraph block, where you decide that you need several paragraphs to make a point, or where you see – or want to show – that several points are related. All the points may then be brought together in a final short paragraph. First outline the points you want to write about:
Linking
1 The semi-colon tells the reader that two points are related. While a full stop would separate the points, the semi-colon connects them.
2 The pronoun ‘she’ – referring to the Duchess in the first part of the sentence – tells us that the writer is still talking about the same topic.
3 ‘For example, . . .’ tells us how to relate two sentences: there is more specific information coming, to illustrate the point.
4 ‘Similarly’ is another example of using the link word at the start of the sentence. The reader knows, with the first word, how to link them.
5 Repetition of ‘Duchess’ makes it clear that while two other names are mentioned, she is the topic for this paragraph.
6 ‘Moreover’ is another link word, linking from the start of the sentence.
In this way, you are making a direct link between the points you want to make and the paragraphs you need to make them. Using this approach means that you put time into planning the points, their order and depth, cutting, adding and sub-dividing, as required, and only then do you start to think about writing paragraphs. The key words you have in your list go straight into your topic sentences.
This process requires you to make some decisions about content and struc- ture before you have to start deciding about style. You already know a few of the words for the topic sentence. You know your next step is probably to elaborate or define that topic sentence. Then illustrate, provide evidence. Then back to the main point, or to the clarification of it provided by your illustration.