Journal 9 - Parts of a Paragraph

A paragraph is a unit of writing. It is one of the most common units in the world of literature. It tends to have multiple sentences, although in cases of dialogue, it may be as short as 1 word. The type of paragraph we are talking about today would be the paragraph in an essay. An essay is a multi-paragraph piece of writing. What is an essay should be covered in the previous journal, so here are the parts of a paragraph. A paragraph starts out with a topic sentence. The topic sentence acts as a thesis to the paragraph. It talks about or comments on the subject that is going to be in the paragraph. Then, there is the chunk. The chunk is the smallest unified group of thoughts that you could write. It is made up of the concrete detail and the commentary. There is usually a ratio to the amount of concrete detail and commentary to the paragraph. The ratio would be 1 to 2 or more, concrete detail and commentary respectively. The concrete detail is the backbone of your paragraph. Almost all of the parts are built up from the concrete detail. It is a specific detail from the subject you are talking about. The commentary is your comment on the concrete detail. It can be an opinion, an inference etc. Lastly, there is the concluding sentence. It is the last sentence of the paragraph and it is all commentary. It gives a sense of conclusion to the paragraph.