Paragraphs are fundamental units of every type of writing, whether creative storytelling, academic writing, or professional documents. They are longer than sentences and organize smaller ideas to make a big idea.
No matter what type of content you’re writing, each paragraph needs to be well-structured, unified, and tailored to the central theme. For this, it is important to learn how to effectively start a paragraph. In this blog, we will explain the different types of paragraphs, and a step-by-step process to start a paragraph.
What Are Different Kinds of Paragraphs?
Understanding different types of paragraphs is important to ensure that each of your paragraphs is strong and meaningful. In the below sections, we’ve explained four major types of paragraphs;
Persuasive
A persuasive paragraph is written for convincing or persuading readers to accept a particular opinion, idea, or take a specific action. It often includes emotions, claims, and evidence to support the key point.
Additionally, in this paragraph writers mostly use different linguistic strategies to persuade readers like;
- Ethos: to build credibility and authenticity of their writing.
- Pathos: to evoke the emotions of the reader for better convincing.
- Logos: to add logic for strengthening arguments.
- Facts and examples: to further support the argument.
And so on…
These kinds of paragraphs are commonly written in marketing blogs, reviews, ads, proposals, etc.
Expository
An expository paragraph is a paragraph that explains a certain topic, provides guidelines, or presents a concept. It is written unbiasedly without any personal opinion, emotion, or suggestion. Rather than this, expository paragraphs provide information via facts, examples, similarities, differences, pros, cons, etc., to clarify the subject matter.
These types of paragraphs are generally written in newspaper articles, essays, instructional manuals, informative blogs, textbooks, etc.
Narrative
A narrative paragraph is targeted to tell a story, whether real or imaginary. It has a start, middle, and end. This paragraph may entertain, surprise, or make an impact on you. The narrative paragraph uses;
- Chronological details to leave a strong effect.
- Suspense to excite readers.
- Sensory details to create a vivid image of the moment.
- Compelling wording to engage the readers.
Descriptive
A descriptive paragraph is a paragraph in which the writer uses vivid and figurative language to describe a person, place, or thing. Descriptive paragraphs create a picture of the subject matter in readers' minds, appealing to their five senses.
A Step By Step Guide to Start A Paragraph
If you are struggling to write something or want to be sure you achieve the purpose of your work, be direct in how you start each paragraph. Follow these steps:
Step 1: Determine the Purpose of Your Paragraph
Before you start a paragraph, it is important to understand the purpose. Ask yourself the below questions for determining the central idea of your paragraph;
- Why are you going to write this paragraph?
- Are you going to introduce a new concept or idea?
- Will you provide pieces of evidence in the paragraph?
- Are you writing to explain a concept?
- Are you transitioning between ideas?
Determining the purpose of a paragraph will make sure that you write clear, focused, and coherent ideas. Additionally, you can choose a relevant paragraph type based on the particular purpose of your writing.
For Example:
If you are starting an introductory paragraph for an essay, prefer an expository paragraph type. Similarly, if you are going to start a story paragraph, your preferred tone should be narrative, and so on…
After knowing the purpose of the paragraph, you should also consider its structure to properly organize your ideas.
Step 2: Choose a Transition Word
In a well-structured writing, there should be a smooth flow and connection between paragraphs. For this, transition words are used. Transition words refer to the phrases or words that are used to connect paragraphs within a writing.
If you are going to start a new idea or introduction, it is better to choose a suitable transition word. These words need to be chosen based on the purpose of the previous paragraphs and the one you are starting.
Here are some examples of transition words;
- That is why.
- Furthermore.
- In contrast,
- In addition to this.
- Generally.
- However,
- For instance,
- In summary,
And so on…
Step 3: Start Paragraph With A Topic Sentence
Now, comes the actual step of starting a paragraph. A paragraph begins with a topic sentence, which is the first line. It sets the cornerstone and overall tone of your paragraph. Follow the below tips to write an outstanding topic sentence;
- It needs to include the main keyword and reflect the topic of your paragraph.
- You should avoid over-explaining, write only what is necessary.
- Add the above chosen transition phrase at the start of the topic sentence.
- Use concise and understandable wording, avoid jargon.
- Ensure that the topic sentence states a single topic or idea, avoid targeting multiple topics in a single sentence.
Step 4: Write Supportive Sentence
After writing the topic sentence, you need to write supportive sentences to further explain the paragraph topic. In these sentences you should mention the pieces of evidence, examples, facts, quotes, etc.
Step 5: Wrap Up Your Paragraph
Lastly, write a conclusion sentence to wrap up your paragraph. The purpose of the conclusion sentence is to state the consequences, output, or result of the details stated in a paragraph. Furthermore, it explains how all the ideas tie together in a paragraph.
Below are the useful tips to effectively wrap up a paragraph with a conclusion sentence;
- In the wrap up, summarize all the main points of your paragraph.
- The end line or conclusion sentence should reinforce the topic
- It should give the sense of paragraph completion.
Step 6: Proofread and Improve Your Paragraph
Writers often can’t come up with a perfect paragraph in the first draft. It mostly has some grammatical, structural, and readability slip-ups. So, after completing your paragraph, proofread it for grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes.
Ensure that your paragraph is easier to read, simple to understand, and there is a coherency between the sentences.
If you find all the above-mentioned challenging to start a paragraph. Don’t worry, there is an advanced and effortless way to help you generate high-quality paragraphs in seconds, i.e., utilizing an AI paragraph generator. Let’s discuss it in the below section.
Use AI Paragraph Generator: An Advanced Way to Start a Paragraph
AI paragraph generator is an AI-based tool that works to automatically craft high-quality paragraphs around the provided topic or keyword. It can help you instantly generate various types of paragraphs including Expository, Persuasive, Narrative, Simple, and others.
When a topic is given to the tool, it understands the context first off. After that, it generates the paragraphs by using “Natural Language Processing” and “Machine Learning” algorithms. As a result, you’ll get a paragraph tailored to your topic.
Examples of Different Paragraphs Started and Completed by the Paragraph Generator
Example 1: Expository Paragraph
“We generated an “Expository” paragraph around the keyword “Artificial Intelligence” using the AI paragraph generator.”
Example 2: Persuasive Paragraph
Now, we selected the persuasive type to generate a paragraph around the below topic.
Topic: Importance of Extracurricular Activities for Students.
Example 3: Narrative Paragraph
Let’s create a narrative paragraph using the AI paragraph generator.
Topic: Why Exercise is Crucial for Productive Life?
Example 4: Descriptive Paragraph:
In the fourth example, we provided the topic “Benefits of Effective Communication” and generated a descriptive paragraph using the tool. As shown in the image;
Conclusion
Learning how to start a paragraph is beneficial to write effective content pieces, including essays, articles, blogs, etc. In this blog post, we first described the main types of paragraphs, knowing which will help you tailor writing strategically. Then, we explained a step-by-step process to start and complete a paragraph. At the end, we introduced a quick and effortless way to create any type of paragraph using an AI paragraph generator with some practical examples.
Following the above guidelines can improve your understanding and approach to writing paragraphs.
