A guide for writing

The type of paragraph depends on the purpose• Is it to: inform/explain, influence/persuade,

express, or entertain

Uses chronological order to tell a story or relate a sequence of events• Tells the reader what your paragraph is going to

be aboutExample:

In 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh, an ambitious adventurer, launched a second colony at Roanoke. The original location of the colony was to be in the Chesapeake Bay area, but unexpected winds caused the ships to veer off course and land at Roanoke Island. Upon their arrival, 118 men and women, under the leadership of John White, built shelters and began to fish and hunt for game. The colonists seemed to thrive in their new home. However, between 1587 and 1590, something mysterious happened to the settlers. When a ship from England arrived at Roanoke in 1590, all of the colonists were gone without a trace….The fate of the original settlers or Roanoke remains a mystery to this day.

Seeks to reveal information about a subject Can list facts, show cause and effect,

compare and contrast, or explain instructions• Example

Some early American settlements were in poor locations. Roanoke, for example, was on an island that proved hard to reach. Rough ocean currents and storms made the voyage difficult for ships to bring much-needed supplies. The site for a later colony, Jamestown, also had problems. Jamestown sat on a marshy, disease-ridden piece of land. Because of its location, Jamestown’s settlers had to endure increased incidents of illness as well as a salty water supply. However, despite the negatives, Roanoke and Jamestown shared one important advantage: The semi-hidden location of both colonies aided against surprise attacks.

Creates an accurate picture of the subject by including sensory details and adjectives• Details that appeal to the five sense

ExampleBoston slowly opened its eyes,

stretched, and woke. The sun struck in horizontally from the east, flashing upon weather vanes – brass cocks and arrows, here a glass-eyed Indian, there a copper grasshopper – and the bells in the steeples cling-clanged, telling the people it was time to be up and about.

Seeks to convince the reader to agree with an opinion or to take a certain course of action• Example

The battle is not won by the strong alone. It is won by the alert, the active, the brave. Besides, we have no choice. Even if we were cowardly enough to desire it, it is now too late to back down from the conflict. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable – and let it come! I repeat, let it come!

Decide what type of paragraph each one is…

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn’t pointed it out, Harry wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside. For a famous place, it was dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in.—from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic, 1999)

Nothing gives the English more pleasure, in a quiet but determined sort of way, than to do things oddly. They put milk in their tea, drive on the wrong side of the road, pronounce Cholmondeley as “Chumley” and Belvoir as “Beaver,” celebrate the Queen’s birthday in June even though she was born in April, and dress their palace guards in bearskin helmets that make them look as if, for some private and unfathomable reason, they are wearing fur-lined wastebaskets on their heads.—from Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, 1995)

During the final years of his life, [Franz] Kafka’s health deteriorated rapidly. In 1923 he fell in love with Dora Dymant and settled in with her in Berlin; he asked Dora’s father for permission to marry her but was refused. In the winter of 1923-24 he moved into a series of clinics and sanitariums. He died, Dora at his side, on June 3, 1924, at a sanitarium in Kierling, near Vienna. His surviving family, including his sisters, all perished several years later in Nazi concentration camps.—from “The Modern Period” of Literature of the Western World, Vol. II, 3rd edition. Eds. Brian Wilkie and James Hunt (Macmillan, 1992)

The use of wedding rings has evolved as the latest of all the bridal traditions. From the earliest times, kings used initial rings to sign documents because they were unable to write. Since the initial, or signet, ring had the potency of the king’s signature, anyone possessing a facsimile was put to death immediately. Later, during Greek times, when Alexander the Great died, his vast kingdom was, according to his instructions, divided among his generals. They also got copies of his signet ring. They used these themselves and even allowed trusted advisors to use them when they served as the generals’ proxies. Eventually, rulers even allowed their courtiers to wear copies of their royal signets. Finally, the custom spread among the common people, and nearly everybody who couldn’t write signed official documents with a signet ring. Rings thus became a sign of contractual agreement, which meaning was eventually applied to wedding rings.

Chris Bohjalian’s Water Witches (Scribner, 1997): Some people say that my wife’s sister is a witch.

My father, for one. My brother, for another. And while I will not dispute their use of the term when they are merely alluding to her somewhat contrary nature, I do take issue with them when they use the word to malign what she believes is her calling. After all, it is a calling that to a lesser extent my wife hears as well. No, my sister-in-law is no witch, at least not literally. She, along with my wife and my mother-in-law, is simply a dowser. She is capable of finding underground water with a stick. She is capable of divining underground water with a stick. And unlike my wife and my mother-in-law, she is an active dowser. She does not merely have the power, she uses it.

“Let’s walk,” she says serenely, slipping her arm in mine and heading into Central Park. As she strolls along, folks check her out and occasionally point. She is tall, strong, and straight-backed, glowing with vegan health and moving confidently through the crowds in her all-black ensemble. In videos and photos, she looks like she has a prominent jaw, but in person it is much softer, as are her other features (Windex-blue eyes, glossy black hair). Her voice is gentle and melodious, and she looks you square in the eye when she speaks.—from Jancee Dunn’s “The Cole Truth,” Rolling Stone 786, May, 1998.

Many of the Jews of Iberian origin had long ago been robbed of the knowledge of their rituals, forced, during the time of the Inquisition, to convert to the Catholic faith. These so-called New Christians were sometimes sincere in their conversions, while others had continued to practice their religion in secret, but after a generation or two they often forgot why they secretly observed these now-obscure rituals. When these secret Jews fled Iberia for the Dutch states, as they began to do in the sixteenth century, many sought to regain Jewish knowledge. My father’s grandfather had been such a man, and he schooled himself in the Jewish traditions—even studying with the great Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel—and he raised his children to honor the Jewish traditions.—from A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss (Random House, 2000)

None of it came up until my early thirties, when I got involved with a woman. Her name was Jeanne. We had been classmates at Cornell, both pre-med, both of us seeing someone else. Years afterward I was working for a drug company in N— that was coming under fire for manufacturing an anti-depressant that had bad side effects. We were trying to gather some support for the drug from the medical community, and I met Jeanne again at a conference. She had become a shrink. Excuse me, a psychiatrist. And yes, she had done a lot of research on posttraumatic psychosis and even had a healthy share of Holocaust survivors and incest victims and Vietnam veterans among her clients.—from Pink Slip, by Rita Ciresi (Delta Publishing, 1999)