Paragraph Architecture: Topic Sentences, Paragraph Structure, PEEL, Unity & Order

For beginners · ages 5–8

Sentences that live together

A paragraph is a group of sentences about one idea. Every sentence in it is about that same idea.

On a page, you can see where a paragraph starts. Its first line begins on a new line, and it often starts a little way in from the edge, with a small gap. Some books leave a blank line between paragraphs instead. Both tell the reader the same thing: a new group starts here.

This chapter has a four-question test for every paragraph, called the Paragraph Check. Its first question starts right here: what is the one idea these sentences are all about?

You can see a paragraph before you even read it. Writers use the page to show where one group ends and the next begins.

Notice three things. First, a paragraph is more than one line on the page. A long paragraph can fill many lines, and each new sentence carries on straight after the last one, on the same line, until the group is finished.

Second, the gap or the blank line is only a sign. It does not make a paragraph on its own. If a writer puts a gap in front of sentences about four different things, the gap is there, but the group still does not live together.

Third, a paragraph can be about a person, a place, an animal, a thing or something that happened. "My cat", "the school garden" and "our trip to the zoo" are all ideas a paragraph can be about. What matters is that there is one of them, and that every sentence in the group is about it.

Picture a row of houses on a street. Each house is a paragraph, and the people inside it are the sentences. Everyone in one house belongs to the same family: they live together. A new family lives in the next house along. The gap between two houses is like the gap at the start of a new paragraph. You would not put a stranger to sleep in a family's house just because there was a bed free.

This section gives you the idea of a paragraph: sentences about one idea, kept together. The next sections build on it. Section 2 shows that a new idea needs a new paragraph. Section 3 finds the one sentence that tells you what the idea is. Sections 4 and 5 check that every other sentence adds more about it, and find the one that does not belong. Section 6 puts the sentences in a sensible order.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Some sentences can seem to belong to two different paragraphs. Read this group: "Mira has a pet rabbit. The rabbit is white with pink ears. Mira also has a goldfish." Is it about Mira's rabbit? The first two sentences are. But the third is about a goldfish. So is this group one idea or two? It depends on what the paragraph is about. If the idea is "Mira's rabbit", the goldfish sentence does not belong. It should go in its own paragraph, about the goldfish. But if the idea is "Mira's pets", then the rabbit and the goldfish both belong, because both are her pets. So the same sentence can live in one paragraph and not in another. It all depends on the one idea. That is why the first question is always the same: what is this paragraph about? Say the idea in a few words first. Then look at each sentence and ask if it belongs to that idea. When the idea is small, like "Mira's rabbit", fewer sentences fit. When the idea is bigger, like "Mira's pets", more of them fit, but they must still all be about that one idea.

Did you know that the word paragraph once meant a little mark written beside the lines? It comes from two old Greek words: para, which means "beside", and graphein, which means "to write". Long ago, writers did not always start a new line for a new idea. Instead, they wrote a small mark beside the text to show where a new idea began. One of those marks is still around today. It looks like a backwards letter P with two lines, like this: ¶. It is called a pilcrow, and you can still find it in some writing tools. So a paragraph began life as a little sign beside the words. Today the sign is a new line, a gap or a blank line, but the job is the same: it tells the reader that a new group of sentences is starting.

A paragraph is about one idea. Sentences that only sit next to each other on the page are not a paragraph for that reason alone. The gap at the start, or the blank line above, shows where a paragraph begins. It does not make the sentences belong together. Different books show a new paragraph in different ways. Some use a small gap at the start of the line, and some use a blank line between groups. Both are right. In this band you will meet short paragraphs of three to five sentences. Later you will meet longer ones, but the idea stays the same.

1. Read the whole group of sentences once before you decide.
2. Ask what all the sentences are about.
3. Say the idea in a few words, like "my cat".
4. Check that every sentence is about that same idea.
5. Look for the new line, the gap or the blank line that starts a paragraph.
6. Remember that a paragraph can fill many lines.
7. Do not decide just because sentences sit next to each other.
8. Name the idea as small as it really is, not "everything".
9. When you write, keep sentences about one idea together.
10. Start a new line when you start a new idea.

• Riya has a red kite. It has a long tail. She flies it on the roof every Sunday.
• Our class went to the zoo. Arjun likes cricket. We saw two tigers and a tall giraffe.
• Nani makes rotis every morning. She rolls them flat and round. Then she cooks them on a hot pan.
• Sam has a goldfish called Bubbles. Bubbles is orange. Sam's mum drives a blue car.
• The park near Lily's house is big. It has three swings and a slide. Ducks swim in its pond.
• Tomas loves the beach. He builds sand castles. Apples grow on trees.

• Ishaan's school bag is blue. It has two pockets. His lunchbox fits in the big one.
• It rained all day in Kolkata. The streets filled with water. Ananya's favourite colour is green.
• Dadi tells a story every night. Tonight it was about a clever crow. We all laughed at the end.
• Jack's bike is red. It has a bell and a basket. Jack's sister plays the piano.
• Ella's birthday party was fun. Her friends came at four. They ate cake and played games.
• Mateo's grandpa keeps bees. The bees make sweet honey. Snow is cold.

One idea, one paragraph

One idea goes in one paragraph. When the idea changes, a new paragraph begins.

Look at the brother and sister row. Both are in the same family, but each one is a new idea, so each gets a paragraph. This is the fourth question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: has a new idea started? If it has, a new paragraph starts too.

New ideas often start in a few common ways. When you see one of these, check whether the idea has changed.

Notice three things. First, the new idea is often a new person, place, time or thing. These are the easiest changes to see.

Second, a new name or place does not always mean a new idea. In "Riya's kite flew high. Her brother Dev held the spool while she ran," a new name, Dev, appears, but it is still all about flying the kite. Ask what the sentence is about, not only who is in it.

Third, the sentences after a change all go into the new paragraph, until the idea changes again. A long piece can have three, four or many paragraphs, one for each idea. A writer does not fit every idea into one paragraph, and does not give one idea five paragraphs either.

Picture a train with carriages. Each carriage is a paragraph, and it carries one kind of load: one carriage carries apples, the next carries books, the next carries chairs. You would not throw chairs into the apple carriage. When the load changes, a new carriage begins. The join between two carriages is the start of a new paragraph.

In section 1 you learned that a paragraph is a group of sentences about one idea. This section adds the next step: when the idea changes, a new group begins. Section 3 shows the one sentence that often tells you what a paragraph's idea is. Later, in section 9, you will think about how long a paragraph should be, and in Craft you will learn to judge harder cases where a paragraph has slowly grown a second idea.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a new idea grows out of the old one. Read this: "Ammu planted a mango seed. She watered it every day. After many weeks, a small tree grew. Now the tree gives sweet mangoes. Ammu shares them with her friends." Is this one idea or two? The seed and the tree are linked: the tree grew from the seed. But look at the last sentence. Sharing mangoes with friends is a little different from growing the tree. Here is a way to decide. Try to name the whole group in a few words. "Ammu's mango tree" fits every sentence, even the sharing one, because she shares the tree's mangoes. So this can stay as one paragraph. Now change the last sentence: "Ammu's friends play cricket after school." Cricket is not about the mango tree at all. Now the name "Ammu's mango tree" does not fit, so that sentence would start a new paragraph. So the test is not whether two sentences are linked. It is whether one short name fits all of them. If one name fits, keep them together. If you need two names, you need two paragraphs.

Did you know that very old books often had no paragraphs at all? Long ago, many books were copied out by hand. Some writers ran their words together in one long block, and in some of the oldest writing, the words did not even have spaces between them. Readers had to work out where each idea started and stopped on their own. Over many years, writers found ways to help. They put a mark beside a new idea, or started it on a new line, or made its first letter big and coloured. You can still see those big, decorated first letters in some old books today. The new line we use now does the same job in a simpler way. Every time you start a new paragraph for a new idea, you are using a trick that took readers and writers a very long time to find.

A new paragraph starts when the idea changes, not after a set number of sentences. Sentences about the same person, the same place or the same day can still hold two ideas. Ask what each sentence is about, not only who is in it. A new name in a sentence does not always mean a new idea. Check whether one short name still fits the whole group. In this band the change of idea is usually easy to see: a new person, place, time or thing. Later bands will show harder cases.

1. Read the whole piece once before you decide anything.
2. Say what the first sentence is about.
3. Read on one sentence at a time.
4. Ask: is this still the same idea?
5. When the answer is no, put your finger on that sentence.
6. Start a new paragraph at that sentence.
7. Keep every sentence about the new idea in the new paragraph.
8. Look for a new person, place, time or thing as a clue.
9. Check that one short name fits each paragraph.
10. Do not start a new paragraph while the idea is still the same.
11. When you finish writing, read it again and point to where each new idea starts.

• Aditya has a new cricket bat. It is made of willow. He plays with it every evening. His sister Neha is learning to swim.
• Our class went to the planetarium. We saw the stars on a round ceiling. A man told us about the planets.
• In the morning, Ma made idlis for breakfast. We ate them with chutney. In the evening, we went to the temple. The bells were ringing.
• Freddie keeps two hens. They are called Polly and Pip. Freddie's best friend lives in the next street.
• Isla's kite flew higher and higher. Isla ran to keep up with it. The kite string pulled hard in her hands.
• Kofi's village has a big market on Fridays. People sell yams and bright cloth. Kofi's school has a new football pitch.

• Tanvi's grandfather grows tomatoes. He waters them every morning. Tanvi's grandmother sings old songs. Her voice is soft and sweet.
• The monsoon came to Kerala. Rain fell for days. The rivers grew full and fast.
• Rahul lost his water bottle at school. He looked everywhere for it. On Sunday, Rahul's family went to see a film.
• Mia's new bike is purple. It has a basket at the front. Mia's dog is called Rex. Rex loves to dig.
• Henry visited the castle. He climbed the tall tower. From the top, he could see the whole town.
• Yuki made paper cranes for her class. She folded twenty of them. After school, Yuki went to her piano lesson.

The sentence that says it all

The topic sentence tells you what the whole paragraph is about. Every other sentence in the paragraph tells you more about it.

Each topic sentence here comes first. That is very common, and it is the first place to look. This is the first question of the Paragraph Check: what is the one idea? When a paragraph has a topic sentence, it answers that question for you.

A good way to test a topic sentence is to ask if every other sentence fits under it.

Notice three things. First, a topic sentence is usually wider than the others. It talks about the whole thing, and the other sentences talk about one part each.

Second, a topic sentence is often short and simple. "Grandpa's garden is full of fruit." is not long, and it is not exciting, but it covers everything.

Third, the topic sentence and the other sentences work as a team. The topic sentence says what the paragraph is about, and the others give the details. In the next section you will look closely at those details. In Practice you will meet topic sentences that come in the middle or at the end.

Picture a big umbrella on a rainy day. Under it stand three or four friends, keeping dry. The umbrella is the topic sentence, and the friends are the other sentences. A good topic sentence is wide enough to cover every friend. If one friend is standing outside in the rain, either the umbrella is too small, or that friend belongs under a different umbrella.

In sections 1 and 2 you learned that a paragraph holds one idea and that a new idea needs a new paragraph. This section names the sentence that states that idea: the topic sentence. Section 4 looks at the other sentences and how they add more about it. Section 5 uses the topic sentence to find a sentence that does not belong. In Practice, section 11, you will find topic sentences that sit in the middle or at the end.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes two sentences both look wide enough to be the topic sentence. Read this: "Saturday was a busy day. In the morning I went to my dance class. In the afternoon we visited my aunt. It was a really busy day." The first sentence and the last sentence say almost the same thing. So which one is the topic sentence? Both of them cover all the other sentences. The first one tells you the idea before the details. The last one says it again after the details, to finish the paragraph. Writers sometimes do this on purpose. The first one is still the topic sentence, because it is the one that tells you the idea at the start. The last one is a closing sentence that brings you back to it. Now try a different case: "In the morning I went to my dance class. In the afternoon we visited my aunt. Saturday was a busy day." Here there is no sentence at the start that covers everything. The last sentence is the topic sentence. It comes at the end, like an answer. So the topic sentence is usually first, but the real test is not where it sits. It is whether it covers all the other sentences.

Did you know that the word topic comes from an old Greek word for a place? The Greek word was topos, and it meant "a place". Long ago, teachers of speaking talked about the "places" a speaker could go to find ideas for a speech. Over a very long time, the word came to mean the subject that something is about. You can still hear topos in other English words. A topographic map is a map that shows the shape of a place, with its hills and valleys. So a topic sentence is a little like a map pin. It shows the reader the place where the whole paragraph lives. Once you have found the pin, every other sentence is easy to find on the map.

The topic sentence is often the first sentence, but not always. The real test is whether it covers all the other sentences. A topic sentence does not have to be exciting, long or full of detail. It is often short and plain. Some paragraphs say the idea again at the end. That last sentence is a closing sentence; the one at the start is still the topic sentence. Some paragraphs, especially in stories, have no topic sentence at all. You will meet those in Craft. In this band, the paragraphs have one.

1. Read the whole paragraph before you choose.
2. Look at the first sentence first, because the topic sentence is often there.
3. Ask if that sentence covers every other sentence.
4. Try saying "This paragraph is about..." with its idea.
5. Do not choose a sentence just because it is exciting.
6. Do not choose a sentence just because it is long.
7. Do not choose a sentence that is about only one part.
8. If the first sentence does not cover everything, look at the last one.
9. When you write, start with a sentence that says your idea.
10. Check that every other sentence fits under your topic sentence.

• Diwali at our house is bright and busy. We light rows of lamps. Ma makes sweets all day. My cousins come to stay.
• My little brother Veer is very curious. He asks why the sky is blue. He opens every box he finds. He wants to know how clocks tick.
• Our classroom is a happy place. A big window lets in the sun. There is a corner full of books. A tall plant grows by the door.
• Sports day was exciting. Harry won the sack race. A boy fell in the mud and everyone cheered him up! Our team got a silver cup.
• Grace's grandma knows lots of games. She plays cards with Grace. She teaches her hopscotch. She knows a clapping game with a funny song.
• The rainforest is full of life. Parrots fly between the trees. Frogs sing by the river. Monkeys swing high above Ana's head.

• Ajay's dog Sheru is a good guard. He barks when strangers come. He sleeps by the front door. He watches the gate all day.
• The train ride to Ooty was beautiful. We passed green tea gardens. We went through dark tunnels. Mist hung over the hills.
• Ishaan packed his bag with care. He put in two pencils. He added his maths book. He tucked in a water bottle with a blue lid.
• Our cat Biscuit likes boxes. He sits in shoe boxes. He hides in big parcel boxes. He even squeezes into a tiny tea box.
• Ollie fed the ducks. He swung on the swings. He ran up the big hill. Ollie had a great day at the park.
• The night market in Bangkok is lively. Lights hang above the stalls. Cooks fry noodles in big pans. Music plays on every corner.

Adding more about it

After the topic sentence, each sentence adds something new about it. Together they show the reader what the topic sentence means.

This is the second question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: does every sentence tell more about it? A sentence that only says the topic sentence again does not.

There are many kinds of "more" a sentence can add. Here are four you will use often.

Notice three things. First, each sentence answers a question the reader might ask. If you imagine your reader asking "What else?" or "Show me!", you will know what to add next.

Second, a good paragraph can mix these. The market paragraph could have a sound, an action and an example, all in one paragraph. Each sentence adds a different piece.

Third, adding more does not mean adding anything at all. Each new sentence must still be about the topic sentence. "The market is busy. My shoes are new." adds something new, but it is not about the busy market. In the next section you will learn to find a sentence like that and take it out.

Picture building a tower with blocks. The topic sentence is the bottom block, and each sentence after it is a new block on top. Every new block makes the tower taller. If you take the same block off and put it back on again, the tower does not grow at all. That is what saying the topic sentence again does. A real new block, a real new detail, makes the paragraph grow.

In section 3 you found the topic sentence, the umbrella. This section looks under the umbrella, at the sentences that add more about it. Section 5 uses both ideas to find the one sentence that does not belong. In Practice, sections 12, 13 and 14 give these added sentences their proper names: an example, a reason, and facts and detail. For now, ask the simple question: what new thing does this sentence tell me?

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a sentence looks new, but it is really the topic sentence again. Read this: "Rohan is a fast runner. He can run very quickly. He always wins races." The second sentence uses new words, "run very quickly". But a fast runner already means someone who runs quickly. So the second sentence adds nothing new. It is the topic sentence in different clothes. The third sentence is different. "He always wins races" tells us something that happens because he is fast. It adds a new fact. How can you tell them apart? Try this test. Cover the topic sentence with your hand. Read only the other sentence. Then ask: did I learn anything I would not know from the topic sentence alone? For "He can run very quickly", the answer is no. You already knew that from "fast runner". For "He always wins races", the answer is yes. The topic sentence did not tell you about the races. So new words are not enough. A sentence adds more only when it adds a new piece of information: something the topic sentence did not already say.

Did you know that the word detail comes from an old French word that means "to cut into pieces"? The old word was detaillier. It was used for cutting something big into small pieces, like a tailor cutting cloth, or a shopkeeper selling a big block of cheese one slice at a time. That is just what details do in a paragraph. The topic sentence is the big block: "The market is busy." The details cut it into small pieces the reader can take in one at a time: the shouting sellers, the people with bags, the cart of melons. You can still hear the old meaning in English today. When a shop sells goods to customers one by one, instead of in big loads, it is called retail, and the tail part comes from the same old French word for cutting.

Every sentence after the topic sentence should be about the topic and should also add something new. New words are not always new information. If a sentence only says the topic sentence again, it adds nothing. A new sentence can add what something looks like, what someone does, what happened, or an example. You can mix them in one paragraph. Some paragraphs end by saying the idea again on purpose, to close. That is a closing move, not a lack of detail, and you will meet it in Craft. In the middle of a paragraph, every sentence should add something.

1. Find the topic sentence first.
2. Read each other sentence and ask what new thing it tells you.
3. Say the new thing in a few words.
4. Cover the topic sentence and check if you still learn something new.
5. Do not say the topic sentence again in other words.
6. Imagine the reader asking "What else?" and answer.
7. Add what something looks like, what someone does, or what happened.
8. Give an example the reader can picture.
9. Mix different kinds of detail in one paragraph.
10. Check that every new sentence is still about the topic.

• Our school garden is full of colour. Red roses grow by the gate. Yellow sunflowers stand by the wall. Purple flowers climb the fence.
• Kabir's grandmother is a wonderful cook. She is a very good cook. She cooks really well.
• The Pongal festival in our village is busy. Families cook sweet rice in new pots. Cows are washed and painted. Children fly kites on every roof.
• Our class has lots of pets. We have two rabbits and a goldfish. A stick insect lives in a glass box.
• The school play was a big success. Everyone clapped at the end. Some parents even stood up and cheered.
• The desert is very hot. It is so hot there. It is really, really hot.

• Ananya's school bag is heavy. It holds six thick books. A big water bottle sits in the side pocket.
• Mumbai's trains are crowded in the morning. People squeeze in at every door. Some hold on to the handles above their heads.
• Nikhil is good at sports. He is very sporty. He is great at games.
• Grandad's shed is full of old things. There is a rusty bike. There is a box of tiny screws and a radio from long ago.
• Sophie's swimming lesson was hard today. The water was cold. She had to swim four lengths without stopping.
• The snow in Sapporo is deep. Cars are buried up to their windows. People dig paths to their front doors.

The sentence that does not belong

Every sentence in a paragraph should tell more about the topic sentence. A sentence that is about something else does not belong.

Look at the cat row. The stray sentence is about a cat too, but not Snowy, and not about being lazy. This is the second question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: does every sentence tell more about the one idea? The sentence that does not is the one to take out.

A sentence that does not belong is not always easy to see. Here are three ways it can hide.

Notice three things. First, the stray sentence that is about something completely different is the easiest to find. You will spot it almost at once.

Second, the stray sentence that shares a word is harder. "Grandpa also likes fruit juice" has the word fruit, but it is about what Grandpa drinks, not about his garden. Always check the idea, not the words.

Third, a stray sentence can be about the same person. Meera's brother is in Meera's family, but the paragraph is about Meera's swimming. The brother's cooking is a new idea.

When you find a stray sentence, you have two choices. You can take it out. Or, if it is worth keeping, you can move it into its own paragraph, as you learned in section 2.

Picture a family photo where everyone is wearing the same team shirt for the school sports day. Then you notice one person in a different shirt, standing at the edge, who is not part of the family at all. They just walked into the picture. The sentence that does not belong is that stranger in the photo. Once you see them, you cannot unsee them, and the photo looks right only when they step out.

In section 3 you found the topic sentence, and in section 4 you saw how other sentences add more about it. This section puts both together: you use the topic sentence as a test to find the one sentence that does not belong. In Practice, section 15, the paragraphs get longer and the stray sentence gets harder to find. In Master, section 35, you will revise your own longer drafts the same way.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes the stray sentence is about the topic word, but not about the topic idea. Read this: "Our dog Bruno is a good guard. He barks when strangers come near. He sleeps by the front door. Dogs come in many shapes and sizes." The last sentence is about dogs. The paragraph is about a dog. So does it belong? Look closely at the topic sentence. It is not just about dogs. It is about Bruno being a good guard. Barking at strangers shows Bruno guarding. Sleeping by the door shows Bruno guarding. But "Dogs come in many shapes and sizes" is about all dogs everywhere. It does not show Bruno guarding anything. So it does not belong, even though it is about dogs. Here is a test to try. Say the topic sentence, then say "and this shows it:" before the next sentence. "Bruno is a good guard, and this shows it: he barks when strangers come near." That works. "Bruno is a good guard, and this shows it: dogs come in many shapes and sizes." That does not work. The sentence that fails the test is the one that does not belong.

Did you know that the hardest stray sentences to spot are often the ones that look like they belong? Your brain is very good at reading quickly. When it sees a word it expects, like dog in a paragraph about a dog, it often says "yes, that fits" and moves on, before it has checked what the sentence really says. That is why editors, the people who check books before they are printed, often read a page slowly, one sentence at a time, sometimes even pointing with a finger. Slowing down makes the brain check the idea, not just the words. So when you look for the sentence that does not belong, try being an editor. Read slowly. Point to each sentence. Ask what it is really about, not just which words it uses.

Check the idea of each sentence, not just its words. A sentence can share a word with the topic sentence and still be about something else. A surprising or funny sentence can still belong, if it is about the topic. The topic sentence is the test, not the stray. Do not take it out. Sometimes every sentence belongs. Then the right answer is to keep the paragraph as it is. A stray sentence that is worth keeping can move into its own paragraph instead of being thrown away.

1. Find the topic sentence first.
2. Say its idea in a few words.
3. Read every other sentence one at a time.
4. Hold each one up against the topic idea.
5. Ask: does this tell more about the idea?
6. Do not decide by looking for the same words.
7. Try the test: say "and this shows it:" before each sentence.
8. Keep surprising or small sentences if they are about the topic.
9. Take out the sentence that does not belong, or move it to its own paragraph.
10. If every sentence belongs, keep the paragraph as it is.
11. Read your own paragraph slowly, like an editor, pointing at each sentence.

• Our school sports day was exciting. Arjun won the sack race. The teachers ran a funny relay. Arjun's cousin plays cricket in Pune.
• Grandpa's garden is full of fruit. A mango tree stands by the gate. Guavas grow by the wall. Grandpa also likes fruit juice.
• The temple fair was crowded. People queued for sweets. Children rode a wooden horse. Drums played all evening.
• Our picnic was great. We ate sandwiches by the lake. A dog ran off with our ball! We played tag until sunset.
• My cat Snowy is lazy. She sleeps all afternoon. She yawns when we call her. My neighbour's cat is called Ginger.
• Lucia's village has a lively market. Sellers shout about their fruit. Musicians play by the fountain. Lucia's school has a new library.

• The bakery is busy in the morning. Bakers pull bread from the ovens. Customers wait in a long line. The baker's daughter goes to my school.
• Diya is a great dancer. She practises every evening. She won a prize at the school show. Diya's grandmother grows chillies.
• The farm is busy at dawn. Cows are milked. A hen pecks at the corn. The farmer opens the gate.
• Our dog Bruno is a good guard. He barks when strangers come near. He sleeps by the front door. Dogs come in many shapes and sizes.
• Ethan's tree house is his favourite place. It has a rope ladder. He keeps comics up there. A small window looks over the garden.
• The night sky in the desert is bright. Stars cover it from edge to edge. The moon looks huge. Camels can walk for days without water.

Putting things in order

When a paragraph tells a story or a set of steps, the sentences go in the order the things happen.

This is the third question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: is the order sensible? For a story or a set of steps, the sensible order is the order things happen.

You can use clues inside the sentences to find the right order, even when there are no words like first or then.

Notice three things. First, you can often find the order just by thinking about the things themselves. You cannot eat a cake before it is baked, so baking comes first.

Second, words like first, next and then can help a reader follow the order. You will learn much more about those words in Chapter 21, Transitions and Flow. This section is about the order of the ideas themselves.

Third, the first and the last sentence are often the easiest to place. Find them first. Then the middle sentences are easier to fit between them, like the middle pieces of a puzzle.

Picture a line of footprints in the sand, going from the beach hut to the sea. Each footprint is a sentence. You can follow them one step at a time, from the hut to the water. If someone mixed up the footprints, so one near the sea came first and one near the hut came last, you would walk in circles. Sentences in the right order are footprints you can follow.

In sections 1 to 5 you learned what goes into a paragraph: one idea, a topic sentence, sentences that add more, and no strangers. This section adds the next question: in what order? Section 7 shows another kind of order for describing a place. In Practice, sections 16 to 19, you will meet order by time, order by place, general to specific, and the steps of a process.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes two sentences could swap places, and the paragraph still makes sense. Read this: "Priya packed her bag for the trip. She put in her toothbrush. She put in her pyjamas. Then she zipped the bag shut." Does the toothbrush have to go in before the pyjamas? Not really. She could pack them in either order. So those two sentences can swap. But look at the first and last sentences. Can Priya zip the bag shut before she puts anything in? No. Zipping the bag must come last. And starting to pack must come first. So some sentences have a fixed place, and some can move a little. How do you tell which is which? Ask this question about any two sentences: could this one really happen before that one? If the answer is no, their order is fixed. Zipping the bag cannot happen before packing. If the answer is "it could go either way", like the toothbrush and the pyjamas, either order is fine. When you are asked to fix an order, look first for the sentences whose place is fixed. Get those right, and the paragraph will make sense.

Did you know that some of the oldest stories in the world were told in order without being written down at all? Long before most people could read, storytellers kept long tales in their heads and told them aloud. To remember what came next, many of them relied on order. One thing led to the next, which led to the next, like links in a chain. You can see the same trick in many old children's rhymes and stories where each part builds on the one before, so the listener can remember the order easily. So the order of a story is not just neat. It is a way of remembering. When you tell things in the order they happen, you are using one of the oldest memory tricks people have.

For a story or a set of steps, put the sentences in the order the things happen. Words like first, next and then help the reader, but only when the sentences really are in that order. Chapter 21 teaches those words. Some sentences can swap places without breaking the paragraph. Others have a fixed place. Find the fixed ones first. Not every paragraph is ordered by time. A paragraph that describes a place may go from near to far, or from top to bottom. You will meet that in the next section.

1. Read all the sentences first.
2. Find the thing that happened first.
3. Find the thing that happened last.
4. Fit the middle sentences between them.
5. Ask of any two sentences: could this one happen before that one?
6. Use clues inside the sentences, not only words like first and then.
7. Do not put the ending first just because it is exciting.
8. Read your new order aloud to check it makes sense.
9. When two sentences could go either way, either order is fine.
10. When you write a story or steps, tell them in the order they happen.

• Aarav ate his breakfast. He brushed his teeth. Aarav woke up early.
• Nani rolled the dough flat. She cooked the roti on a hot pan. She served it with dal.
• A green shoot came up. We planted the seeds in pots. We watered them every day.
• Our team won the cup! The match started at ten. We scored two goals.
• Emma put on her socks. She put on her shoes. She tied the laces.
• Diego wrapped the present. He gave it to his sister. He bought it at the market.

• Ishita blew out the candles. Everyone sang to her. Her mother lit the candles on the cake.
• The train pulled into the station. People got off with their bags. A porter carried our suitcase to the taxi.
• Dev filled the bucket with water. He washed the car with soap. He dried it with a cloth. He took the soap out of the cupboard.
• Grace read the last page of her book. She opened the book at page one. She read a chapter every night.
• Jack walked to the bus stop. The bus came at eight. He got on and found a seat.
• Yuki folded the paper into a crane. She chose a sheet of red paper. She hung the crane by her window.

A paragraph about a place

A paragraph about a place says what the place is like, then shows it one detail at a time, moving through the place in one direction.

A place paragraph uses all four questions of the Paragraph Check at once: one idea, details that add to it, an order the reader can follow, and nothing from another idea.

There are several ways to move through a place. Choose one and keep to it.

Notice three things. First, words like next to, above, behind and at the back help the reader follow you through the place. They are like signs on a path.

Second, you do not have to name every single thing. Pick the details that show your topic sentence. If the kitchen is busy and happy, choose the bubbling pot and the shining plates, not the light switch.

Third, you can use more than your eyes. A place has sounds and smells too. "The pot bubbles" is a sound. "The air smells of cardamom" is a smell. These details make a place feel real. In Practice, section 17, you will learn more about ordering a description by place.

Picture a camera moving slowly through a room in a film. It does not jump from the ceiling to the garden to the floor and back again. It glides from the door, past the table, to the window, showing one thing at a time. Your paragraph about a place is that camera. Each sentence is the next thing the camera shows, and the reader sees the room in the order the camera moves.

In sections 3 to 6 you learned the parts of a paragraph: the topic sentence, details that add more, no strangers, and a sensible order. This section puts them together to build a whole paragraph about a place. Section 8 builds a paragraph about a thing, like an animal or an object. In Practice, section 14 adds facts and sensory detail, and section 17 teaches order by place in more depth.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a detail about a place seems to fit, but it does not show the topic sentence. Read this: "The library is a calm, quiet place. Soft cushions lie on the carpet. People read in silence. A loud vacuum cleaner roars in the corner." The vacuum cleaner is in the library. It is a real thing you could see and hear. So does it belong? It is in the place, but it does not show that the library is calm and quiet. In fact, it shows the opposite. A reader who has just been told the library is quiet will be confused. So a detail in a place paragraph must do two things. It must be in the place, and it must show what the topic sentence says about the place. If the vacuum cleaner really is part of the scene, the writer has two choices. Change the topic sentence, perhaps to "The library is usually calm, but not on cleaning day." Or leave the vacuum out and choose a different detail that shows the calm, like "A clock ticks softly on the wall." Every detail you choose should help the reader feel what your topic sentence says.

Did you know that some people remember long lists of things by imagining a place? There is an old memory trick, sometimes called a memory palace. You picture a place you know well, like your home, and walk through it in your mind. In each spot, you imagine one thing you want to remember: a banana on the doormat, a clock on the stairs, a kite on your bed. Later, you walk through the place again in your mind, and the things are waiting where you left them. The trick works because our brains are very good at remembering places and the order we move through them. That is also why a place paragraph that moves in one direction is easy to read. The reader's brain follows the path through the place, one spot at a time, and remembers it.

A place paragraph tells what the place is like. What happened there belongs in a story paragraph, not here. Choose one way to move through the place, such as near to far or top to bottom, and keep to it. You do not need every detail. Pick the ones that show your topic sentence. Every detail must be in the place and must show what the topic sentence says. A real detail that shows the opposite will confuse the reader.

1. Choose one place.
2. Picture it with your eyes closed.
3. Say in a few words what it is like.
4. Make that your topic sentence.
5. Choose a starting spot, like the door.
6. Move through the place in one direction.
7. Add one detail in each sentence.
8. Use sounds and smells as well as sights.
9. Choose details that show your topic sentence.
10. Keep out what happened there and who came.
11. Use words like next to, above and behind to guide the reader.
12. Read it back and check that a reader could picture the place without ever having been there.
13. If a detail shows the opposite of your topic sentence, change the detail or change the topic sentence.

• Our classroom is bright and cheerful. Paper stars hang from the ceiling. Paintings cover the walls. A yellow rug lies on the floor.
• The market in Jaipur is full of colour. Red chillies lie in piles at the entrance. Further in, women sell bright bangles. At the far end, rolls of cloth glow in the sun.
• The temple courtyard is peaceful. Oil lamps flicker by the steps. We went there on my birthday. A bell hangs above the door.
• Grandma's garden is calm. Near the gate, roses grow along the path. Beyond them, a bench sits under an apple tree. At the very back, a stream trickles past.
• There is a bed. There is a lamp. There is a rug. There is a shelf of books.
• The fish market in Lisbon is noisy. Sellers shout over the ice. Gulls cry from the roof. Knives tap on wooden boards.

• The school library is a quiet place. Near the door, the librarian sits at her desk. In the middle, children read at long tables. At the back, tall shelves reach the ceiling.
• Uncle Ravi's shop is crowded with things. Sacks of rice lean against the counter. A fan whirs on the ceiling. Tins of biscuits fill the shelf behind him. The floor has a mat by the door.
• My grandmother's verandah is cool in the afternoon. A neem tree shades the steps. A cane chair rocks gently in the breeze. The smell of jasmine drifts from a pot.
• The beach hut is small and cosy. Inside the door, a striped towel hangs on a hook. Two deckchairs lean against the wall. My sister got sunburnt there.
• The castle hall is grand. Flags hang from the high ceiling. Paintings of kings line the walls. A long wooden table stands on the stone floor.
• The rainforest floor is dark and damp. Tall trees block out the sun. Moss covers every fallen log. My cousin went there on a trip last year.

A paragraph about a thing

A paragraph about a thing names it in the topic sentence, then tells more about it from different sides: what it looks like, what it does and why it matters.

This uses the second question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: does every sentence tell more about it? A thing paragraph answers by looking at the thing from more than one side.

A thing paragraph is easier to read when details of one kind sit together.

In the mixed-up version, the looks and the flying keep swapping places. In the kept-together version, all the looks come first, then all the flying. The reader finishes picturing the kite before watching it fly.

Notice three things. First, you do not need all three sides every time. A short paragraph might tell only what an animal looks like and what it does. What matters is that each sentence tells more about the one thing.

Second, the thing must stay the star. "My kite is red. My friend has a blue kite." The friend's kite is a new thing. It belongs in its own paragraph.

Third, facts about a whole kind of animal or object can be useful, but only when they tell more about your one thing. "Our hen Chiku lays an egg every morning, like most hens do." That fact still points at Chiku. In Practice, section 14, you will learn more about using facts and detail.

Picture holding a toy in your hand and turning it slowly. First you look at the front: its colour and shape. Then you turn it to see what it can do: the wheels spin, the door opens. Then you turn it once more and remember who gave it to you. A thing paragraph turns the thing in your hand, one side at a time, so the reader sees all of it.

In section 7 you built a paragraph about a place, walking the reader through it. This section builds a paragraph about one thing, turning it to show its different sides. Section 9 asks how long a paragraph should be: enough sentences to develop its one idea. In Practice, sections 12, 13 and 14, you will learn three ways to develop any topic sentence: with an example, a reason, and facts and detail.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a fact about a whole kind of animal belongs in your paragraph, and sometimes it does not. Read this: "Our dog Rocky loves to dig. He digs holes all over the garden. Dogs have strong claws for digging. Last week he dug up Mum's tulips!" The third sentence is about all dogs, not just Rocky. So does it belong? It does. "Dogs have strong claws for digging" explains why Rocky is so good at digging. It points back at Rocky's love of digging. Now read this one: "Our dog Rocky loves to dig. He digs holes all over the garden. Dogs come in many different sizes." This fact is about all dogs too. But does it tell more about Rocky digging? No. Dog sizes have nothing to do with digging. It does not belong. So here is the test. When you write a fact about a whole kind of animal or object, ask: does this fact help explain my one thing and my topic sentence? If yes, keep it. If it is only a fact about the kind, with no link back to your thing, take it out.

Did you know that a sense of touch can tell you things your eyes cannot? If you close your eyes and hold an object, your fingers can tell you if it is smooth or rough, warm or cold, heavy or light, soft or hard. A shell can look smooth but feel bumpy. A blanket can look plain but feel wonderfully soft. Writers use this too. "The kitten's fur is softer than a cloud" tells the reader something no picture could. So when you write about a thing, try closing your eyes and touching it. You may find a detail nobody else would notice: the cool weight of a brass bell, or the rough paper of an old book. Details like these make a thing paragraph feel real.

A thing paragraph keeps one animal or object as the star. A second animal or object belongs in its own paragraph. You do not need every side in every paragraph. What matters is that each sentence tells more about the one thing. Keep details of one kind together, such as all the looks, then all the actions. A fact about a whole kind of animal or object belongs only when it helps explain your one thing and your topic sentence.

1. Choose one animal or one object.
2. Name it in your topic sentence and say one thing about it.
3. Ask: what does it look like?
4. Ask: what does it do, or what do I do with it?
5. Ask: why does it matter?
6. Keep details of one kind together.
7. Use touch as well as sight if you can.
8. Keep the thing as the star; leave out other things.
9. Use a fact about the whole kind only if it explains your thing.
10. Read it back and check every sentence tells more about the thing.
11. If every sentence is about looks, add one about what it does or why it matters.

• Our hen Chiku is a hard worker. She has soft brown feathers and a red comb. She lays an egg every morning. Her eggs make our Sunday breakfast.
• Meera's school bag is blue. It has two pockets. It has a silver zip. It has a picture of a tiger.
• Our cow Gauri is gentle. She lets the children stroke her nose. She gives us warm milk. My uncle has a big black buffalo.
• Our dog Rocky loves to dig. He digs holes all over the garden. Dogs have strong claws for digging. Last week he dug up Mum's tulips!
• My toy rabbit Floppy is my best friend. His fur is soft and grey. I take him everywhere. He sleeps on my pillow every night.
• Abuela's sewing machine is very old. It is black with gold flowers painted on it. She turns a handle to make it sew. She made my first dress on it.

• Dadi's brass lamp is very special. It is tall and golden, with five little flames. She lights it every evening for prayers. It came from her own grandmother.
• Mithu is our noisy parrot. Parrots live in forests. Parrots eat seeds. Parrots can fly very fast.
• Arjun's cricket bat is old but strong. Its handle is wrapped in red tape. He hits fours with it in the street. His father used it when he was a boy.
• Grace's teddy bear is old and worn. One ear has been sewn back on. Its fur has rubbed thin on the tummy. She has hugged it every night since she was a baby.
• Oscar's goldfish is called Sunny. She is bright orange and very small. She swims round her bowl all day. Oscar feeds her one pinch of flakes each morning.
• Kenji's bento box is his favourite lunchbox. It has three little sections. It keeps his rice warm until lunch. His grandmother painted a crane on its lid.

How long is a paragraph?

A paragraph is long enough when its one idea is developed. It ends when a new idea begins. No number of sentences is always right.

This is the fourth question of the Paragraph Check, said simply: has a new idea started, or is the one idea still thin? The answer tells you whether to add more, split it, or leave it.

Here is how the same idea can be too thin, just right, or too full.

Notice three things. First, the six-sentence paragraph is not wrong because six is a big number. It is wrong because it holds two ideas. Split it, and you have two good paragraphs of three sentences each.

Second, a paragraph can be longer than three sentences and still be one idea. A paragraph about a busy market might need six or seven details to show it well. That is fine, as long as every sentence is about the market.

Third, in stories, writers sometimes use one very short paragraph on purpose, to make a moment stand out, like "Then the lights went out." Chapter 25 teaches how writers do that. In this chapter, your paragraphs will develop an idea, so they will usually have more than one sentence.

Picture a lunchbox. It should hold one meal, and enough of it to fill you up. If you open it and find one small grape, it is too thin: you are still hungry. If you open it and find your lunch and your brother's lunch squashed in together, it is too full: one of those lunches needs its own box. A good paragraph is a lunchbox with one meal, and enough of it.

In sections 1 to 8 you learned what goes into a paragraph and how to build one. This section asks when a paragraph is finished: when its one idea is developed, and before a new idea starts. Section 10 reviews everything in Discover. In Craft, section 29, you will judge harder cases of when a paragraph should split, and in Master you will decide when to develop a paragraph further.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes it is not clear whether a paragraph has grown a second idea, or is just giving more details about the first. Read this: "Our school has a big garden. Tomatoes grow near the gate. Beans climb the fence. Every Friday, our class waters the plants. Last year we won a prize for the garden." Is the prize a second idea? It is a new thing: an event, not a plant. But it is still about the school garden. It tells why the garden matters. Now read this: "Our school has a big garden. Tomatoes grow near the gate. Beans climb the fence. Our school also has a new computer room. It has twenty computers." The computer room is not part of the garden. It is a new idea, and it needs its own paragraph. Here is the test. Try naming the paragraph in a few words. For the first one, "our school garden" still fits every sentence, even the prize. For the second one, "our school garden" does not fit the computers. You would need a new name: "our school's garden and computer room". When you need two names, you need two paragraphs. So the question is never "How many sentences?" It is always "Does one name still fit?"

Did you know that paragraphs in newspapers are often much shorter than paragraphs in storybooks? Newspaper columns are narrow, so a long paragraph turns into a tall, thin block that is hard to read. Many newspapers use short paragraphs, sometimes only one or two sentences, so readers can move down the column quickly. Books for older readers often have longer paragraphs, because the page is wider and the reader can take in more at once. So the length of a paragraph depends partly on where it will be read. But in every one of them, the same rule holds: each paragraph is about one idea. Only the amount of room changes.

There is no number of sentences that is always right for a paragraph. Judge by the idea. A paragraph is too thin when its idea is said but not shown. It is too full when a second idea has crept in. A long paragraph can be fine if every sentence is about one idea. A short one can be fine if the idea is shown. In stories, writers sometimes use a one-sentence paragraph on purpose to make a moment stand out. Chapter 25 teaches that. In this chapter, a paragraph develops an idea, so it usually needs more than one sentence.

1. Do not start by counting sentences.
2. Say what the paragraph is about in a few words.
3. Ask: has the idea been shown, or only said?
4. If it has only been said, add details that show it.
5. Ask: has a new idea started anywhere?
6. If a new idea has started, split the paragraph there.
7. Check that one short name still fits every sentence.
8. Do not add empty sentences just to make it longer.
9. Do not split one idea just because it is getting long.
10. When the idea is shown and nothing new has crept in, stop.
11. Remember that a short story moment on its own line is a writer's choice, taught in Chapter 25.

• The Holi festival was colourful.
• The Holi festival was colourful. Children threw pink and green powder. Water balloons burst in every street. By noon, even the dogs were yellow.
• Rohan's grandmother makes the best pickles. She dries mangoes in the sun. She adds chilli and mustard seeds. Rohan's grandfather fixes bicycles. He has a shop near the station.
• Our trip to the seaside was fun. It was great fun. It was really fun. I enjoyed it a lot. It was the best fun.
• The Saturday market in our town is busy. Farmers sell eggs and honey. A baker shouts about his fresh bread. Children queue for toffee apples. A band plays by the clock. Dogs weave between the stalls.
• Ama's family has three goats. They eat grass by the river. Ama milks them each morning. The village school has a new roof.

• Our school library is a great place. It has a soft carpet and beanbags. Thousands of books fill the shelves. A big window looks onto the garden. The librarian helps us find the right book.
• Divya loves to dance.
• Our school garden is big. Tomatoes grow near the gate. Beans climb the fence. Last year we won a prize for the garden.
• My dog is funny. He chases his tail. He sneezes when he sees a cat. My sister has a new bike. It is green.
• The football match was exciting. It was very exciting. It was exciting all the way through. It was so exciting.
• Kenji's grandmother grows rice. She plants it in spring. She harvests it in autumn. Kenji's grandfather builds wooden boats.

First mixed review

The Paragraph Check asks four questions, in order. Then you decide what the paragraph needs.

This is the whole Paragraph Check. You will meet it again in every band, with longer paragraphs and harder choices, but the four questions will stay the same.

Here are five short paragraphs. Each one needs something different.

Notice three things. First, each paragraph has only one problem here, so only one question fails. Real paragraphs can have more than one. Ask all four questions every time.

Second, the fix always matches the question. A stray sentence comes out. A jumbled order gets reordered. A thin paragraph gets more details. A paragraph with two ideas gets split.

Third, keep it as it is is a real answer. The garden paragraph passes all four questions. Changing it would only make it worse. A good checker knows when to leave a paragraph alone.

Picture a doctor checking a child at the clinic. She does not just look at one thing. She listens to the heart, looks in the ears, checks the throat and takes the temperature, every time, in the same order. Most days everything is fine, and she says so. When something is wrong, the check tells her exactly what. The Paragraph Check is your four-step check-up for every paragraph.

This section brings together everything in Discover: one idea, a topic sentence, sentences that add more, no strangers, a sensible order, a place paragraph, a thing paragraph and the right length. The Paragraph Check is the routine that holds them all. In Practice, the same four questions meet longer paragraphs, topic sentences that hide in the middle, and three new ways to develop an idea: examples, reasons, and facts and detail.

Here is a hard one, and it is fine to find it hard. Sometimes a paragraph has more than one problem. Read this: "We went to the park. We went home for lunch. We fed the ducks. My cousin has a new phone." Run the four questions. 1. What is it about? A trip to the park. That passes. 2. Does every sentence tell more about it? "My cousin has a new phone" is about something else. That fails. 3. Is the order sensible? They went home for lunch, and then fed the ducks? The ducks were at the park, so feeding them should come before going home. That fails too. 4. Has a new idea started, or is it too thin? Once the phone sentence is out, there is one idea, shown with details. That passes. So this paragraph needs two fixes. Take out the phone sentence. Move "We fed the ducks." before "We went home for lunch." The fixed paragraph: "We went to the park. We fed the ducks. We went home for lunch." If you had stopped after finding the stray sentence, you would have missed the order. That is why the check always has four questions, and why you ask all of them, even after you find one problem.

Did you know that pilots use a checklist before every flight, even after flying thousands of times? A pilot knows how to fly very well. But a checklist makes sure nothing is forgotten on a busy day: the fuel, the doors, the lights, the controls. Many doctors and nurses use checklists before operations for the same reason. The Paragraph Check is a checklist too. You might already be good at spotting a stray sentence. But on a busy day, or with a tricky paragraph, it is easy to forget to check the order or the length. Asking the same four questions every time means nothing slips past. So when you run the four questions, you are working the way pilots and doctors do: carefully, in order, every time.

Ask all four questions every time, even after you find one problem. A paragraph can have more than one. Match the fix to the question that failed: take out, add, reorder or split. Keep it as it is is a real answer when all four questions pass. These are the simple-word versions of the Paragraph Check. In later bands, the questions use bigger words, but they ask the same things.

1. Read the whole paragraph first.
2. Ask question 1: what is it about?
3. Ask question 2: does every sentence tell more about it?
4. Ask question 3: is the order sensible?
5. Ask question 4: has a new idea started, or is it too thin?
6. Give each question a tick or a cross.
7. Do not stop after the first problem you find.
8. Match the fix to the question that failed.
9. If all four pass, keep the paragraph as it is.
10. Read the fixed paragraph again to check it.
11. Tell a stray sentence from a second idea: a stray comes out, a second idea gets its own paragraph.
12. Praise yourself for saying no change is needed when all four questions pass.

• Nani's kitchen smells wonderful. Ginger tea boils on the stove. Fresh rotis puff up on the pan. My cousin is learning to drive.
• Aarav served the tea to his grandmother. He boiled the water. He added the tea leaves and milk.
• The school fair was colourful. Bright flags hung over every stall. Children wore paper crowns. A big balloon arch stood at the gate.
• The snow day was fun. It was really fun. It was so much fun.
• Oliver's puppy is playful. It chases its tail. It tugs on his socks. Oliver's sister started ballet lessons. She practises every evening.
• There is a pond. There are ducks. There is a bench. There are tall trees.

• We went to the park. We went home for lunch. We fed the ducks. My cousin has a new phone.
• The temple is peaceful at dawn. Oil lamps flicker by the steps. A bell rings softly. Incense drifts through the air.
• Riya's grandfather is a farmer. He grows wheat. He keeps two cows. Riya's grandmother teaches music. She plays the harmonium.
• Grandad's shed is full of tools. A saw hangs on the wall. Hammers sit on the bench. Spades lean in the corner.
• Freya's room is cosy.
• The fish market in Lisbon is noisy. Gulls cry from the roof. Sellers shout over the ice. Lisbon is the capital of Portugal.

Building accuracy · ages 8–12

Finding the topic sentence

The topic sentence is the sentence every other sentence in the paragraph supports. It is often first, but it can sit in the middle or come last.

This sharpens the first question of the Paragraph Check, Topic: what is the one idea, stated in one sentence? The answer is the sentence the others support, wherever it sits.

Four kinds of sentence are often mistaken for the topic sentence. Learn to recognise them.

Notice three things. First, a question is never a topic sentence, because a topic sentence states an idea. But a question is often a sign that the topic sentence is coming soon: look for the sentence that answers it.

Second, the closing repeat is tricky. If a paragraph states its idea in the first sentence and says it again at the end, the first is the topic sentence and the last is a closing move. If the idea appears only at the end, the last sentence is the topic sentence.

Third, some paragraphs, especially in stories, never state their idea in one sentence at all. Every sentence carries it together. That is an implied topic, and you will study it in Craft, section 21. In this section, every paragraph has a stated topic sentence somewhere.

Picture a tent. The topic sentence is the central pole that holds it up; every other sentence is a rope pulling towards it. The pole is not always at the entrance. Sometimes you walk in past a flap or two before you reach it; sometimes it stands at the very back. To find it, do not look at the door. Follow the ropes: they all lead to the pole.

In Discover, section 3, you found topic sentences that mostly came first. This section finds them anywhere: first, middle or last, and separates them from lead-ins and repeats. Sections 12, 13 and 14 look at what the other sentences do: develop the topic sentence with examples, reasons and details. In Craft, section 21, you will meet paragraphs with no stated topic sentence at all.

Here is the case that takes judgement: two sentences that both look wide enough to be the topic sentence. Read this: "Our town's old library is more than a building full of books. On Saturday mornings, children crowd in for story hour. Retired teachers run free maths classes in the back room. In the evenings, people who have no internet at home come to use the computers. For many families, the library is the centre of the town." The first sentence says the library is more than a building full of books. The last sentence says it is the centre of the town. Both are wide. Which one do the details support? Test each one. Do story hour, maths classes and computers show that the library is "more than a building full of books"? Yes: each is something other than borrowing books. Do they show it is "the centre of the town"? Partly: they show many people use it, which leads towards that idea. The first sentence is the topic sentence. It makes the claim, and the three middle sentences prove it directly. The last sentence takes the idea one step further, as a closing move: from "more than books" to "the centre of the town". It is not a new idea, but it is not a plain repeat either. It is where the paragraph lands. When two sentences compete, ask which one the details prove most directly. That is the topic sentence. The other is usually a lead-in or a closing move.

Did you know that many newspaper reports deliberately put their most important point near the very top, while many feature articles do not? A common shape for news reports is sometimes called the inverted pyramid: the most important facts come first, and less important details follow, so a reader who stops early still gets the main point. In a news story, the main point of a paragraph is very often its first sentence. Feature articles and magazine pieces often work differently. They may open a paragraph with a scene, a person or a question to draw the reader in, and give the point a sentence or two later. So where you find the topic sentence can depend on the kind of writing you are reading. That is one more reason never to assume, and always to test.

The topic sentence can be first, in the middle or last. Test its job, not its position. A question is never the topic sentence, but the sentence that answers it often is. If an idea is stated early and repeated at the end, the early one is the topic sentence and the last is a closing move. Some paragraphs, especially in stories and descriptions, have no stated topic sentence; their idea is implied. Craft, section 21, teaches those. Every paragraph in this section has a stated one.

1. Read the whole paragraph before you choose.
2. Do not take the first sentence on trust.
3. Rule out questions: they ask, they do not state.
4. Notice scene-setting lead-ins and look past them.
5. Rule out single details, however vivid.
6. Test each candidate: do all the other sentences support it?
7. Try "This paragraph shows that..." in front of each candidate.
8. If two sentences compete, choose the one the details prove most directly.
9. If the idea is stated early and repeated late, choose the early one.
10. When you write, choose on purpose where your topic sentence goes, and why.

• The sun had barely risen. Fishing boats were already pushing out from the beach. Kovalam starts its working day earlier than almost anywhere else on the coast. By six, the first catch is on the sand.
• Have you ever wondered why the monsoon matters so much? Farmers wait for it to water their rice. Cities need it to fill their lakes. For millions of people, the monsoon decides whether the year will be good or hard.
• Bamboo is one of the most useful plants there is. People build houses and bridges with it. Some kinds grow astonishingly fast. It is turned into paper, baskets and furniture.
• Our town's old library is more than a building full of books. On Saturdays, children crowd in for story hour. Retired teachers run free maths classes. For many families, it is the centre of the town.
• Why do cats purr? Many people think it only means a cat is happy. In fact, cats also purr when they are hurt or frightened. Purring seems to be a way of calming themselves as well as a sign of contentment.
• In the mountains of Peru, farmers grow thousands of kinds of potato. Some are purple inside, some are red, some are as small as a marble. Few crops in the world come in so many forms.

• Grandmother Kamala never wastes anything. Vegetable peels go to the cow. Old saris become quilts. Even the rice water is used to starch Grandfather's shirts.
• At 5 a.m. the milkman's bicycle bell rings. Then the newspaper boy whistles past. By seven, the vegetable seller is calling from her cart. Our lane wakes up to a different sound every hour.
• What makes a good team captain? It is not always the best player. Our captain, Farhan, scores fewer runs than half the team. But he notices who is nervous, and he always knows what to say.
• Hedgehogs are surprisingly good travellers. A single hedgehog may wander a long way in one night. It squeezes under fences and crosses gardens. So hedgehogs really do get about.
• The hall was silent. Two hundred pairs of eyes watched the stage. Then Amelia stepped up to the microphone. Speaking in public was the bravest thing she had ever done.
• Lagos never seems to sleep. Traffic crawls along the bridges at midnight. Market stalls glow under lamps. Music spills from every corner.

Developing with an example

An example develops a topic sentence by showing one particular case where the claim is true: a person, a time, a place or an event the reader can picture.

This sharpens the second question of the Paragraph Check, Development: does every other sentence add an example, a reason, a fact, a detail or a next step? A real example adds; a restatement labelled "for example" does not.

A strong example has three qualities, and a strong paragraph often adds a fourth step after it.

Notice three things. First, a fitting example matters as much as a specific one. A dog's sense of smell is a real, specific fact, but it proves the dog has a good nose, not that it is loyal.

Second, the explaining sentence links the example back to the topic sentence. Without it, a reader may enjoy the example and still miss the point. With it, the paragraph closes the loop: claim, example, link.

Third, one well-chosen example is often stronger than three vague ones. Some paragraphs use two or three examples, each specific; that is fine. But piling up examples that are not specific only makes the paragraph longer, not more convincing. Words like "for example" and "for instance" help signal an example; Chapter 21 teaches those linking words. This section is about the example itself.

Picture a lawyer in a courtroom. She can say, "My client is honest," as many times as she likes; the judge will not be convinced. Then she holds up a receipt: on 3 March, the client found a wallet and returned it with every rupee inside. That receipt is an example. It is one particular piece of evidence the judge can see, and it does more than a hundred repeated claims.

In section 11 you found the topic sentence wherever it sits. This section begins three sections on how to develop it. An example shows one case. Section 13 gives a reason, which explains why the claim is true. Section 14 adds facts and detail, which make it exact and vivid. In Craft, many patterns - persuasive, definition, compare and contrast - use examples as their main support.

Here is the case that takes judgement: an example that is specific and true, but proves something slightly different from the claim. Read this: "Our school library is the most popular place in the school. Last month it bought two hundred new books, including a whole shelf of comics." The example is specific: last month, two hundred books, a shelf of comics. But does it prove the library is popular? No. It proves the library has many new books. A library could buy two hundred books and still stand empty. What would prove popularity? Something about people using it: "At lunch, every beanbag is taken, and there is a waiting list for the new comics." Now the example fits the claim exactly. The test is to put the claim and the example side by side and ask: if this example is true, must the claim be true, or at least much more likely? "Two hundred new books" does not make "popular" much more likely. "Every beanbag taken at lunch" does. This is the most common reason a paragraph with a real example still fails to convince: the example proves a neighbour of the claim, not the claim itself. When you choose an example, check it against the exact words of your topic sentence - here, "most popular" - not just its subject.

Did you know that people tend to remember a single, vivid story better than a set of figures? If you tell someone that a disease affects many people, they may forget it by tomorrow. If you tell them about one child, by name, who walked three kilometres to a clinic, they are far more likely to remember - and to care. This is one reason charities, newspapers and teachers so often tell the story of one person or one event. A specific example gives the mind something to hold on to. It is also a reason to be careful as a reader. One vivid example can make a claim feel more true than it really is. A good writer uses an example to show a claim; a careful reader asks whether the example is typical, or just memorable.

Writing "for example" does not make a sentence an example. The specifics - a person, a time, a place, an event - make it one. An example must fit the exact claim, not just its subject. Check it against the topic sentence's words. Add a sentence that links the example back to the claim when the connection might not be obvious. One vivid example can be persuasive even when it is not typical. Judging whether an argument's evidence is fair and sufficient belongs to Chapter 29; this section builds the paragraph's shape.

1. Read the topic sentence and ask what would prove it.
2. Choose one particular case: who, when, where, what happened.
3. Include a detail the reader can picture, such as a name, a number or a place.
4. Check that the example proves the exact claim, not a nearby one.
5. Put the claim and the example side by side and test the fit.
6. Add one sentence that links the example back to the claim.
7. Prefer one well-developed example to a list of vague ones.
8. Do not let "for example" stand in for a real case.
9. If you use two or three examples, make each one specific.
10. Read the paragraph as a doubter would: are you convinced?

• Our neighbourhood looks after its own. When Mrs Joshi broke her leg last June, families took turns cooking her dinner for six weeks. Nobody organised it; people simply turned up with tiffins.
• My brother Arjun is very determined. For example, he is a really determined person who never gives up.
• Our school library is the most popular place in the school. At lunch, every beanbag is taken. There is a waiting list of thirty names for the new comics.
• Dogs are loyal animals. For instance, dogs have an excellent sense of smell.
• Small acts of kindness can change someone's day. On her first morning at a new school, Sophie sat alone at lunch until a girl called Grace asked her to join her table. Sophie still calls it the day the school stopped feeling strange.
• Bicycles can change how a whole family lives. When Esi's mother got a second-hand bicycle, the walk to the market shrank from an hour to fifteen minutes. She now sells vegetables in two villages instead of one.

• Grandfather Mohan can fix almost anything. Last Diwali, when the string of lights blew a fuse an hour before the guests arrived, he rewired it with a hairpin and a candle for light.
• Our school library is the most popular place in the school. Last month it bought two hundred new books.
• Technology can help students learn. For example, it helps with lots of different things.
• Cats are more independent than dogs. Our cat, Pepper, lets herself out through the window each night and wanders home at dawn. She has never once waited by the door for us.
• Practice beats talent in the long run. In Year 4, Jack was the slowest swimmer in his class. He trained three mornings a week for two years, and last summer he won the county junior race.
• In Kenji's town, people take recycling seriously. On collection day, residents rinse every bottle and peel the labels off before sorting them into six different bins.

Developing with a reason

A reason develops a topic sentence by answering 'why is this true?' with something new.

This sharpens the second question of the Paragraph Check, Development: does every other sentence add an example, a reason, a fact, a detail or a next step? A real reason adds; a circle only repeats.

Reasons and examples are both ways to develop a topic sentence, but they do different jobs.

Notice three things. First, a reason explains, while an example shows. A strong paragraph often uses both: the reason says why, and the example proves it happens. "Cycle lanes keep riders safe. Last month, a boy was nearly hit at Station Road, where there is no lane."

Second, the last row is a trap. "Cycling is fun" may be true, but it is a reason to cycle, not a reason the town needs lanes. A reason must support the exact claim.

Third, a paragraph can give more than one reason, and then their order matters. Many writers put the strongest reason last, so the paragraph builds; Craft will look at order of importance. Words like because, so and therefore help signal reasons; Chapter 21 teaches those linking words. This section is about the reason itself.

Picture a child who asks "why?" after everything you say. "We should leave early." Why? "Because we should go early." Why? You can feel that the second answer is no answer at all. Now try: "Because the bridge closes at six." The child nods: that is a reason. Every topic sentence has that curious child standing beside it. A real reason is the answer that makes the child stop asking.

In section 12 you developed a topic sentence with an example, which shows one case. This section adds a reason, which explains why the claim is true. Section 14 adds facts and detail, which make a claim exact and vivid. In Craft, sections 22, 23 and 24, reasons become the backbone of expository paragraphs, persuasive point-and-support paragraphs and cause-and-effect paragraphs.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a reason that sounds new but is really the claim again, dressed in different words. Read this: "Exercise is good for children because physical activity has a positive effect on young people's health." It sounds clever. The words are different: exercise becomes physical activity, good becomes positive effect, children becomes young people. But put the two halves side by side. "Exercise is good for children." "Physical activity has a positive effect on young people's health." They say the same thing. It is a circle wearing a disguise. How can you catch a disguised circle? Try this test. Swap each long phrase for a plain one. Physical activity is exercise. A positive effect is good. Young people are children. Now the reason reads: "Exercise is good for children because exercise is good for children." The circle is plain to see. A real reason survives the test. "Exercise is good for children because it strengthens their hearts and helps them sleep better." Swap the words for plain ones and you still have something new: hearts and sleep. So do not judge a reason by how grown-up it sounds. Judge it by whether it tells the reader anything the claim did not already say.

Did you know that very young children often go through a stage of asking "why?" again and again? Parents and teachers often notice it: "Why is the sky blue? Why does it rain? Why do I have to sleep?" Each answer seems to lead to another why. It can be tiring for the grown-ups, but it shows something important about how people think. Humans are not satisfied with being told that something is true; we want to know why. A claim without a reason leaves that question hanging. Good writers keep that question in mind. Every time they write a claim, they imagine a reader asking "why?", and they answer it before the reader has to ask.

The word 'because' only signals a reason. What follows it must say something new. A reason explains why; an example shows a case. Both develop a paragraph, and many paragraphs use both. A reason must support the exact claim, not a neighbouring one. Whether a reason is strong enough to win an argument is a question for Chapter 29, Argument and Persuasion. This section only asks whether a sentence really is a reason for the claim.

1. Read the topic sentence and ask: why?
2. Check that the reason says something new, not the claim again.
3. Swap long phrases for plain ones to catch a disguised circle.
4. Tell a reason, which explains, from an example, which shows.
5. Check that the reason supports the exact claim.
6. Do not offer a feeling, like 'I want it', as a reason for a general claim.
7. Prefer one well-explained reason to several thin ones.
8. Use an example after a reason when you want to prove it happens.
9. If you give more than one reason, think about their order.
10. Read it as a curious child would: does the answer stop the 'why?'

• Our class should visit the city museum. We are studying the Mughals this term, and the museum has a whole room of Mughal coins, paintings and armour.
• Reading every day is important because it matters a lot.
• Our school should have a longer lunch break. The canteen queue often takes twenty minutes, which leaves many students only ten minutes to eat.
• Our town needs more cycle lanes. Cycling is a fun way to spend a Saturday.
• Breakfast matters for students. After a night without food, the body and brain need energy, and a student who skips breakfast may find it hard to concentrate by the second lesson.
• In Kofi's village, families keep a few goats. Goats can live on dry scrub that cattle would not eat, so they survive the long dry season.

• Our village needs a bus to the town. The nearest hospital is fourteen kilometres away, and most families have no car.
• Homework is useful because yesterday I did my maths homework.
• We should plant neem trees along the school wall. Neem trees grow quickly in hot weather and give wide, cool shade.
• Exercise is good for children because physical activity has a positive effect on young people's health.
• Our class should keep a pet rabbit. Looking after an animal teaches us to be responsible, because someone has to feed and clean it every single day.
• Kenji's town builds houses on stilts near the river. The river floods most summers, and raised floors keep homes dry.

Developing with facts and detail

Facts and details develop a topic sentence by making it exact and vivid: a number, a name, a colour, a sound, a smell, a texture.

This sharpens the second question of the Paragraph Check, Development: does every other sentence add an example, a reason, a fact, a detail or a next step? A precise detail adds; a stack of describing words does not.

Details come in two families. Most paragraphs use one more than the other, but strong ones often mix them.

Notice three things. First, a detail must serve the topic sentence. In a paragraph about how peaceful a garden is, "a lawnmower roared next door" is vivid but works against the claim. Choose details that show what the topic sentence says.

Second, precise does not mean invented. In a story, you can make up the colour of a door. In a report or an explanation, a number or a date must be true. If you are not sure of a figure, describe what you know instead of guessing.

Third, one sharp detail often does more than three general ones. "The tea was so hot it misted Grandpa's glasses" shows heat better than "The tea was very, very hot and boiling and steaming." In Discover, section 7, you used the senses to describe a place; this section uses them, and facts, to develop any kind of claim.

Picture two photographs of the same market. The first is out of focus: blurry shapes and smudged colours. You can tell it is a busy place, but nothing more. The second is sharp: you can read the price on a sign, count the chillies, see the steam above a pan. General describing words make the blurry photo. Precise details turn the lens until the picture is sharp.

In sections 12 and 13 you developed topic sentences with examples and reasons. This section adds the third tool: facts and detail, which make a claim exact and a description vivid. Section 15 checks that every detail stays on topic in longer paragraphs. Sections 16 and 17 put details in order, by time and by place. In Craft, definition and compare-and-contrast paragraphs rely heavily on precise detail.

Here is the case that takes judgement: when a detail is vivid and true but does not serve the topic sentence. Read this: "Our classroom is a calm place to work. Soft light comes through the tall windows. A clock ticks quietly above the board. Outside, a peacock screams from the neem tree every few minutes." The peacock is a wonderful detail: specific, sensory, real. Many writers would be tempted to keep it. But does it show that the classroom is calm? A peacock screaming every few minutes is the opposite of calm. There are two honest fixes. One is to leave the peacock out and keep the details that show calm. The other is to change the topic sentence so the peacock belongs: "Our classroom is calm inside, even when the world outside is noisy." Now the peacock shows the contrast, and it serves the idea. What you should not do is keep both the original topic sentence and the peacock, and hope the reader does not notice. A detail that fights the claim does not make a paragraph richer; it makes it confused. So choosing details is not just finding vivid ones. It is finding vivid ones that show what the topic sentence says.

Did you know that smell is often said to be one of the senses most closely tied to memory? Many people notice that a particular smell - a grandmother's cooking, a school corridor, rain on dry earth - can bring back a memory from years ago very suddenly, sometimes more strongly than a picture or a song does. The smell of rain on dry ground even has its own name in English: petrichor. It is a word made up by scientists in the twentieth century, built from Greek parts. This is one reason writers love smell details. A single line like "the kitchen smelled of cardamom and wood smoke" can make a reader feel they have been somewhere, because it reaches a part of memory that describing words cannot.

Describing words such as beautiful, nice and amazing are not wrong, but on their own they label rather than show. Use them sparingly, after the detail has done its work. In stories, invented details are part of the craft. In reports and explanations, facts must be true; do not make up a number. Every detail should serve the topic sentence. A vivid detail that fights the claim confuses the reader. Choosing precise words for each detail is word-level work; cutting needless words belongs to Chapter 20, Conciseness. This section is about which details a paragraph needs.

1. Ask what someone would see, hear, smell, touch or count.
2. Replace 'lots' and 'some' with a number or a name.
3. Replace 'nice' and 'amazing' with what made it so.
4. Use more than one sense in a description.
5. Use facts - dates, places, measurements - in explanations.
6. Check that every fact in a report is true.
7. Choose details that show what the topic sentence claims.
8. Leave out, or rethink, a vivid detail that fights the claim.
9. Prefer one sharp detail to three general ones.
10. Read it back and ask: can a stranger see it now?

• The market was busy from the first light. Tomatoes sat in red pyramids beside heaps of green chillies. A fish seller banged his scale and shouted, 'Fresh from Mangalore!' The air smelled of coriander and frying onions.
• Grandma's kitchen was lovely. It was warm and nice and cosy. Everything was wonderful.
• The ferry to Elephanta was crowded. Forty people squeezed onto benches meant for twenty. Children leaned over the rail to watch the gulls. Spray splashed the deck every time the boat dipped.
• Our classroom is a calm place to work. Soft light comes through the tall windows. A clock ticks quietly above the board. Outside, a peacock screams every few minutes.
• The old mill by the river has stood empty for years. Its windows are boarded with grey planks. Ivy has climbed to the roof. Inside, the great wheel is rusted solid.
• Abuela's bakery wakes before the town. At four in the morning, the ovens are already roaring. By five, trays of bread cool by the open door, and the street smells of warm crust.

• The temple courtyard was cool at dawn. The marble felt cold under bare feet. Oil lamps flickered in a row of twelve. The smell of jasmine drifted from the flower sellers.
• Lots of people came to the school play. There were many parents and some teachers.
• The monsoon arrived in a single afternoon. At three, the sky turned the colour of slate. By four, rain hammered the tin roofs so loudly we could not hear each other speak.
• The sunset over the bay was beautiful and lovely and amazing.
• Our school field floods every winter. By January, a pond the size of two tennis courts covers the far end. Ducks land on it, and the goalposts stand up to their crossbars in water.
• The night train to Hanoi was slow and uncomfortable. The wooden bench was hard against Minh's back. Every few minutes the carriage jolted, and his tea slopped onto his sleeve.

Staying on topic

A topic sentence has a subject and a controlling idea. A sentence stays on topic only if it supports the controlling idea, not just if it mentions the subject.

This sharpens the second question of the Paragraph Check, Development, and its partner, unity: does every other sentence add support for the one idea? On a long paragraph, test each sentence against the controlling idea.

Drift is the hardest kind of disunity to spot, because no single sentence looks wrong next to its neighbour.

Notice three things. First, each sentence follows the one before: computers, then who gave them, then that company, then its hospital. That chain is what makes drift feel natural. But by the end, the paragraph is about a hospital ward.

Second, the drift began at the third sentence, where the paragraph left 'needs more space' for 'where the computers came from'. That is where the cut should happen.

Third, compare the first and last sentences. If you cannot see how the last one supports the first, look back for where the paragraph turned. This check catches drift that sentence-by-sentence reading misses. Linking words between sentences can make a drift feel smooth; Chapter 21 covers those words. Here, the question is whether the ideas still serve the topic.

Picture a kite on a string. The topic sentence is the hand holding the string; the controlling idea is how long the string is. Each sentence is the kite moving in the wind. A little movement is fine, as long as the string holds. But if each gust carries the kite a bit further, and nobody pulls it back, the string snaps and the kite drifts over the rooftops. Unity is keeping every sentence within reach of the hand.

In Discover, section 5, you found the sentence that did not belong in a short paragraph. This section takes the same check into longer paragraphs, using the controlling idea rather than the subject, and catching drift. Sections 16 to 19 turn to order. In Craft, section 29, you will judge when a drift has grown into a second idea that needs its own paragraph; in Master, section 35, you will revise your own longer drafts for unity.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a sentence that seems to drift but actually supports the controlling idea. Read this: "The Diwali fair raises money for the village school. Every stall gives a tenth of its takings. The mehendi stall alone raised two thousand rupees. Last year, the money paid for new desks and a water filter." The third sentence is about a particular stall, and the fourth is about desks and a water filter. A quick reader might think the paragraph has drifted from the fair to furniture. But test each one against the controlling idea: raising money for the school. The mehendi stall's two thousand rupees is an example of the money raised. The desks and filter show where the money went for the school. Both support the idea. Now compare a real drift: "The mehendi stall is run by Mrs Kapoor, who learned the art from her mother in Jodhpur." That sentence is about the stall too, but it tells us about Mrs Kapoor's training, which does nothing to show the fair raising money. That is the stray. So the test is never 'does this sentence look like the others?' It is 'does this sentence help prove the controlling idea?' Sentences can travel far in subject - from a stall to a water filter - and still stay on the idea. Others can stay close in subject - the same stall - and leave the idea behind.

Did you know that 'digress', the word for wandering off the point, comes from Latin words meaning 'to step aside'? The Latin digredi was made from dis-, 'apart', and gradi, 'to step'. A digression is literally a step aside from the path. Some writers digress on purpose. A storyteller might pause to describe a side character, then say, "But I am getting away from my story," and return to the path. Done deliberately, a digression can be charming. But an unplanned digression inside a single paragraph usually just confuses the reader. The difference is control: a writer who digresses on purpose knows where the path is and comes back to it. A drifting paragraph has lost the path altogether.

Test every sentence against the controlling idea, not just the subject. A sentence can move far in subject and still support the idea, like desks bought with fair money. Do not cut it just because it sounds different. When you find a stray that is interesting, consider moving it to its own paragraph rather than deleting it. Craft, section 29, looks at when that is the right choice. Smooth linking words can hide a drift; Chapter 21 covers those words. Unity is about the ideas, whatever the links between them.

1. Split the topic sentence into its subject and its controlling idea.
2. Write both down before you check anything.
3. Test each sentence against the controlling idea.
4. Do not accept a sentence just because it mentions the subject.
5. Do not cut a sentence just because it sounds different; test it first.
6. Read the first and last sentences together to catch drift.
7. When you find drift, look back for the sentence where it began.
8. Cut or move the stray; keep the topic sentence as the test.
9. If the stray is good material, give it its own paragraph.
10. On your own drafts, check unity after every long paragraph.

• Our school bus has become unreliable. Three times this month it broke down on the highway. Last Tuesday it arrived forty minutes late. The bus driver, Mr Gill, has driven for the school for twelve years. Parents have started dropping their children off by car.
• The Diwali fair raises money for the village school. Every stall gives a tenth of its takings. The mehendi stall alone raised two thousand rupees. Last year, the money paid for new desks and a water filter.
• Grandma's vegetable garden feeds our family all year. Tomatoes and beans grow in summer. Spinach and radishes take over in winter. The garden won a prize for its roses at the town show. We rarely buy vegetables from the market.
• Our town's library needs more space. Students queue for the twelve computers every afternoon. The computers were given by a local company in 2019. That company also built the new hospital.
• The river through our town is becoming polluted. Factories upstream pour waste into it. Plastic bags gather under the bridge. Children love to swim in it each May. Fewer fish are caught every year.
• In Lima, the market of Surquillo is the best place to learn about Peruvian food. Stalls sell dozens of kinds of potato. Cooks fry fresh fish while customers watch. A guide explains which chilli goes in which dish.

• Our cricket team improved this season because of one new habit. Every player now stretches for ten minutes before a match. Injuries have dropped to almost none. The team's new kit is blue and gold.
• The Pongal festival brings our whole street together. Families cook sweet pongal in clay pots outside their doors. Neighbours share the first spoonful. Children run from house to house tasting each one.
• Our classroom is too hot to study in by May. The two fans barely move the air. The windows face the afternoon sun. The windows were replaced last year with new wooden frames. Students wilt by the third lesson.
• Our town's summer fete is the busiest day of the year. The car park is full by ten. Queues stretch from every stall. The fete began in 1952 as a small flower show. That show was started by the vicar's wife.
• Learning the violin taught Lily patience. She practised scales for weeks before playing a tune. Her teacher made her repeat each bar until it was clean. Her violin was made in Germany.
• In Nairobi, matatus are the fastest way to cross the city. These small buses weave through traffic jams. Drivers know every shortcut. Many matatus are painted with bright murals of footballers and singers.

Order by time

A narrative paragraph goes in the order things happened. The events themselves tell you the order; time words only help the reader follow it.

This sharpens the third question of the Paragraph Check, Order: could a reader say why these sentences sit in this sequence, for this kind of writing? For a narrative, the reason is time.

Time words and the events should agree. When they do not, the paragraph is broken in one of three ways.

Notice three things. First, the missing step is an order problem too. If a reader jumps from planting to picking, they wonder what happened in between. A narrative needs enough steps for the time to make sense.

Second, some events happen at the same time, or in either order. If two friends arrive at a party, it may not matter who came first. Look for the events whose order is fixed, and place those first.

Third, stories sometimes step back in time on purpose, to tell something that happened earlier: "She remembered the day she first saw the sea." That is a deliberate move, clearly signalled, and it is not an order mistake. Words such as first, then, later and meanwhile signal time; Chapter 21 teaches them. In this section, the events lead.

Picture a row of dominoes. When the first one is pushed, each falls in turn, knocking down the next. You cannot have the fifth domino fall before the first has been pushed. A narrative paragraph is a row of dominoes: each event leads to the next. To check the order, ask which domino must fall first for the others to follow.

In Discover, section 6, you put the steps of a short story or a job in order. This section does the same for longer narrative paragraphs, using the events themselves - causes, starts, growth, times and ages - as clues. Section 17 orders a description by place instead of time. Section 18 orders an explanation from general to specific, and section 19 orders the steps of a process. In Master, section 36, you will revise jumbled paragraphs of every kind.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph where two different orders both seem to make sense, and only the events can decide. Read these sentences about one morning: "The power went out. Mum lit a candle. The milk in the fridge began to warm. Dad phoned the electricity office. The lights came back on at noon." Which sentences have a fixed place? The power going out must come first; everything else follows from it. The lights coming back on at noon must come last. The candle must come after the power cut, because Mum lights it only once the power has gone. But what about the milk warming and Dad's phone call? Both happen after the power cut and before noon. Could Dad have phoned before the milk began to warm? Yes. Could the milk have begun to warm first? Also yes. These two can swap without breaking the paragraph. So a good order puts the fixed events in their places - cut first, lights last, candle after the cut - and lets the free events sit in any sensible place between. If a test asks you to find the sentence that is out of order, it will be one with a fixed place, sitting where it cannot be: for example, "The lights came back on at noon" placed second. The skill is not finding one magic order; it is knowing which events are tied to others and which are free.

Did you know that the word 'chronological' comes from the name of time itself in Greek? The Greek word chronos means time. It gives us chronological, meaning in time order, and chronicle, an old word for a record of events written in the order they happened. It also gives us chronometer, an instrument for measuring time very precisely. Accurate chronometers once helped sailors work out how far east or west they had travelled at sea, because comparing the time on the ship with the time at home told them their position. So when you order a story chronologically, you are using a very old idea: that time is a line, and events can be placed along it, one after another.

Time words such as first, then and after that help the reader, but they do not make the order right. If a time word disagrees with the events, the events win. Some events can happen in either order. Place the fixed ones first, and let the free ones sit sensibly between. A missing step is an order problem too: add it so the time makes sense. Stories sometimes step back in time on purpose, clearly signalled, to tell a memory. That is a deliberate choice, not an error. Chapter 21 teaches the words that signal time.

1. Read every sentence before you order them.
2. Ignore the time words at first; look at the events.
3. Put causes before their results.
4. Put starts before finishes.
5. Follow growth and change from small to big, young to old.
6. Use times of day and seasons as clues.
7. Place the events with fixed positions first.
8. Let events that could happen in either order sit sensibly between.
9. Check for a missing step that leaves a gap in time.
10. Then check that the time words agree with the order.

• The goat ate all the laddoos. Grandma made laddoos for Diwali. She left them on the table to cool. She went to answer the door.
• The monsoon clouds rolled in over the hills. By noon the first drops fell. By evening the river had burst its banks. The next morning, families waded through knee-deep water.
• Kabir saved his pocket money for a whole year. He rode his new bicycle to school.
• First, the audience clapped and cheered. Then the curtain rose. After that, the actors took their places. Then the play began.
• Ella fed the lamb from a bottle in March. By June it was grazing with the flock. In October it was too big to pick up.
• The streets of the old town flooded. Rain fell all night. Shopkeepers piled sandbags at their doors. Boats carried people to the square.

• Ananya planted tomato seeds in April. She watered them every evening. By July the plants were taller than her. In August she picked the first ripe tomato.
• As a grown man, Grandpa Mohan opened his own shop. As a boy, he sold newspapers at the station. As a young man, he worked for a cloth merchant.
• After the rain stopped, dark clouds gathered over the village. Thunder rolled across the fields.
• Standing on the stage, Mira remembered her first nervous practice. Her hands had shaken so much she dropped the bow. Now she lifted her violin and began to play.
• The ice on the pond cracked loudly. Freddie stepped carefully onto the edge. The winter had been the coldest in years. He pulled his foot back just in time.
• The ferry left Zanzibar at dawn. By midday the island had vanished behind us. In the afternoon we saw the mainland. At dusk we stepped onto the dock.

Order by place

A descriptive paragraph follows the reader's eye through a place, in one direction, one step at a time.

This sharpens the third question of the Paragraph Check, Order: could a reader say why these sentences sit in this sequence, for this kind of writing? For a description, the reason is the path the eye takes.

Choosing a direction is a judgement about the reader. The same place can be described in more than one good order.

Notice three things. First, no direction is the one correct direction for every place. A house can be described outside to inside for a visitor, or room by room along a corridor. What matters is choosing one that suits the reader and keeping to it.

Second, the worst problem is switching direction in the middle: starting near to far, then jumping back to something near. Each jump makes the reader rebuild the picture.

Third, place words such as beside, behind, above, beyond and at the far end help the reader follow the path. Chapter 21 teaches words that link sentences; in a description, these place words are your signposts, but the order of the details does the work. In Discover, section 7, you moved through a place in one direction; this section lets you choose the direction on purpose.

Picture a video camera on a slow track. A good description is one smooth shot: the camera glides from the gate to the hills, or up the trunk of a tree, without cutting back. A jumping description is a clumsy edit: gate, hills, gate, middle, hills, with the viewer trying to work out where they are. When you write, choose where the camera starts and which way the track runs, and do not cut.

In section 16 you ordered a narrative by time. This section orders a description by place. Section 18 orders an explanation from general to specific, and section 19 orders the steps of a process. Each kind of writing has its own natural order, and the Order question of the Paragraph Check asks you to name it. In Master, section 37, you will see how order shifts across genres.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a description where two directions are both possible, and the purpose decides. Imagine describing the old haveli in your town. You could go from the outside in: the carved wooden doors, the courtyard, the painted rooms around it, the dark storeroom at the back. Or you could go from the top down: the crumbling rooftop terraces, the balconies with their stone screens, the courtyard, the cool cellar below. Both are sensible. Which should you choose? Ask what the paragraph is for. If it is a guide for visitors arriving at the gate, outside to inside follows their footsteps. If it is a paragraph about how the building keeps cool in summer, top to bottom might be better, because it lets you show the hot roof first and the cool cellar last, which is the idea. So the direction is not just a tidy habit; it can serve the topic sentence. In the second version, the order itself carries the point: the further down you go, the cooler it gets. What you must not do is start outside to inside and then switch to top to bottom halfway. Choose the direction that serves the purpose, and keep to it until the paragraph ends.

Did you know that people who read a description often build a kind of map of the place in their minds? When a writer says "beside the gate" or "beyond the river", readers tend to place each thing in a picture they are building, rather than just remembering a list of words. That is why a description in a steady direction feels so much easier: each new piece slots into the map next to the last. Mapmakers have long faced the same problem on paper. A map has to show where everything is in relation to everything else, and old travellers' descriptions of routes, written as a series of 'then you pass, then you reach', were a kind of map in words. So when you order a description by place, you are drawing a map in your reader's mind, one landmark at a time.

No single direction is always right. Choose the one that suits the reader's point of view and the paragraph's purpose. Keep to one direction. Switching partway is the main problem to avoid. Place words like beside and beyond help the reader follow, but they cannot fix details that jump. Chapter 21 teaches linking words. A description can be ordered in other ways too, such as from the most striking detail to the least, when the purpose calls for it; Craft looks at order of importance.

1. Decide where the reader is standing.
2. Choose a direction that starts from there.
3. Match the direction to the purpose, such as outside to inside for a visitor.
4. Put the first detail where the eye would land first.
5. Move one step at a time in that direction.
6. Keep to the direction until the paragraph ends.
7. Put each detail with its neighbours: the cat goes with the gate.
8. Use place words like beside, behind and beyond as signposts.
9. Trace the path with your finger to check for jumps.
10. If two directions both work, choose the one that serves the topic sentence.

• Marigolds grew right by our gate, where a rusty bicycle leaned. Halfway down the lane, a tea stall steamed. Beyond the fields, a temple bell rang. Behind it all, the hills were blue in the mist.
• The haveli's carved doors open onto a sunny courtyard. Painted rooms surround the courtyard on three sides. A cat sleeps on the step outside the front doors. At the back, a dark storeroom smells of old rice.
• The banyan tree in the square is enormous. Parrots squabble in its highest branches. Lower down, children swing from its hanging roots. At its foot, old men play cards on a stone platform.
• The roof of the cottage is thatched. A mat lies at the front door. The chimney puffs smoke. Roses grow in the garden.
• On the left of Grandpa's shelf stand his old books. In the middle, a clock ticks. To the right, a ship sits in a bottle. At the far right end, his reading glasses rest on a tin.
• From the hilltop above Cusco, the path drops away at your feet. Below it, red roofs crowd the valley floor. Beyond the city, green terraces climb the far slopes. On the horizon, snow caps the mountains.

• The spice lane begins at a wide stone arch. Just inside, sacks of red chillies line both walls. Further along, turmeric glows in yellow heaps. At the far end, the lane opens onto the busy fish market.
• The temple's inner shrine glows with lamps. Around it runs a pillared hall. Outside the hall, a courtyard is paved with stone. At the entrance, flower sellers call to visitors.
• From the roof terrace, Arjun could see the whole street. Directly below, a vegetable seller pushed her cart. Across the road, a school bus waited. Far in the distance, a train crossed the river bridge.
• The old lighthouse leans a little in the wind. At its peak, the great lamp is dark now. Halfway down, a narrow window is boarded up. At its base, waves smash against black rocks.
• On the stage, the choir stood on the left. In the centre, the conductor raised her arms. The piano stood on the far left, behind the choir. On the right, the drummer waited.
• Esi's family compound is entered through a low wooden gate. Inside, chickens scratch in the swept yard. Beyond the yard stands the round kitchen hut. At the very back, a mango tree shades the sleeping rooms.

General to specific

A general-to-specific paragraph narrows in steps, like a funnel: a broad claim, a narrower point, a particular example, a precise detail. Each sentence sits inside the one before it.

This sharpens the third question of the Paragraph Check, Order: could a reader say why these sentences sit in this sequence, for this kind of writing? For many explanations, the reason is general to specific.

The funnel can also be turned upside down. Specific to general starts with a detail and widens to the big idea.

Notice three things. First, specific to general is not a mistake when it is done on purpose. In section 11 you met paragraphs whose topic sentence came last, after the details had built up to it. That is the reverse funnel, and it can be very powerful.

Second, the reverse funnel needs the same discipline as the forward one. It must widen in steps. A paragraph that starts narrow, jumps wide, then drops back to a detail is not reversed; it is jumbled.

Third, which order to choose depends on the purpose. If the reader needs to understand the point first and then see evidence, as in most explanations, go general to specific. If you want the reader to discover the point by meeting the details first, go specific to general. Craft, section 22, builds the exam essay's body paragraph, which most often uses the forward funnel.

Picture a set of nesting boxes. The biggest box holds a smaller box, which holds a smaller one, which holds a tiny one at the centre. A general-to-specific paragraph opens the boxes in order: biggest first, then each one inside. If you hand the reader the tiny box first, they do not know which bigger box it came from. A good funnel opens the boxes one inside the other.

In sections 16 and 17 you ordered narratives by time and descriptions by place. This section adds the order most explanations use: general to specific, and its reverse. Section 19 orders the steps of a process. Section 20 mixes all the Practice moves. In Craft, section 22, the exam essay's body paragraph uses general to specific as its basic shape, and section 26 builds definition paragraphs the same way.

Here is the case that takes judgement: two sentences that seem to be at the same level, where one actually sits inside the other. Read these sentences: "Water is essential for life. Plants need water to make their food. All living things need water to survive. A tomato plant may wilt within a day without it." Which is the broadest? Both "Water is essential for life" and "All living things need water to survive" sound general. Are they the same level? Look closely. "All living things need water to survive" is really the same idea as "Water is essential for life", said a second time. That sentence does not narrow anything; it repeats the top level. One of them should go. Now put the others in order. "Plants need water to make their food" is narrower: one group of living things. "A tomato plant may wilt within a day without it" is narrower still: one plant. So the funnel is: "Water is essential for life. Plants need water to make their food. A tomato plant may wilt within a day without it." The test for any two sentences is: does one fit inside the other? Plants fit inside living things; a tomato fits inside plants. But "all living things" does not fit inside "life"; it is the same box. When two sentences are the same box, keep one.

Did you know that the way living things are named follows a kind of general-to-specific funnel? Scientists group living things in levels, from very broad groups down to individual kinds. A tiger, for example, belongs to the animals, then to the mammals, then to the cat family, then to the big cats, and finally to its own species. Each group sits inside the one above it, like nesting boxes. The idea of organising living things in nested groups is old. In the eighteenth century, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus set out a system that gave each kind of living thing a two-part name, which scientists still build on today. So when you write a paragraph that narrows from all animals to one fox, you are using the same shape that scientists use to sort the whole living world.

General to specific means narrowing in steps, each sentence inside the one before, not just putting the general sentence first. Specific to general is a deliberate reverse for building up to a point. It is not a mistake when it widens in steps. Two sentences at the same level, saying the same thing, do not narrow; keep one. A paragraph that narrows and then jumps back to a new broad claim may hold two ideas. Craft, section 29, looks at when to split.

1. Label each sentence by width: many things, one group, one case, one detail.
2. Put the broadest claim first in an explanation.
3. Narrow one level at a time.
4. Check that each sentence fits inside the one before it.
5. Move any detail that arrives before its example.
6. Do not let two sentences repeat the same top level.
7. Do not jump back up to a new broad claim.
8. Use specific to general on purpose, to build up to a point.
9. When you reverse the funnel, widen in steps.
10. Choose the order by the purpose: explain first, or let the reader discover.

• Festivals bring communities together. Harvest festivals are often shared by a whole village. At Pongal, families in our street cook sweet rice side by side. The pots boil over on purpose, as a sign of plenty.
• Recycling saves materials. Each can is crushed into a block at the plant. Aluminium cans can be recycled again and again.
• Indian classical music has many forms. In the south, Carnatic music is especially popular. Many Carnatic concerts open with a lively piece called a varnam.
• Many birds migrate to escape the cold. The Arctic tern's journey is one of the longest of any bird. Birds that migrate fly to warmer places for the winter.
• The old man fed the same robin every morning for eleven years. It ate from his hand. When he was ill, it tapped on his window. Small, daily kindness can build trust even with a wild creature.
• Many cities have found ways to move people quickly. Some have built rapid bus lanes. In Bogota, the TransMilenio buses run on their own lanes through the city. Riders pay before boarding, so the buses barely stop.

• Rivers shape the land around them. Over many years, a river can cut a deep valley. The river that runs past our town has carved a gorge so narrow that the bridge needs only one arch.
• Spices have travelled the world for centuries. Black pepper was once traded as far as Europe. Pepper grows on vines in the hills of Kerala. Many spices began their journeys in India.
• Grandmother's hands never stop. Every morning she rolls thirty rotis. In the afternoons she mends our school uniforms. Some people seem to rest only when there is nothing left to do.
• Water is essential for life. All living things need water to survive. Plants need water to make their food.
• Many inventions came from accidents. Some useful materials were discovered by mistake in laboratories. A scientist trying to make one thing sometimes found something quite different. That is why careful scientists write down even their failed experiments.
• Coral reefs are home to an enormous variety of life. Clownfish shelter among their anemones. Many kinds of fish live on reefs. A single anemone may protect a whole family of clownfish.

Explaining a process

A process paragraph names what is being made or done, gives each step in the order it must happen, and shows the result. Each step builds on the one before.

This sharpens two questions of the Paragraph Check: Order (could a reader say why the steps sit in this sequence?) and Development (does every sentence add a next step?).

There are two kinds of process paragraph. Both follow the same rules.

Notice three things. First, the step that a reader most often finds missing is the one the writer does without thinking. When you know how to make chai, you forget to say 'bring the water to the boil first'. Read your own process as a stranger would.

Second, some steps can swap and some cannot, just as in a story. Ginger and cardamom can go in together in either order. But tea leaves cannot be strained out before they are added. Find the fixed steps first.

Third, a short reason after a step - 'so the spices release their flavour', 'so the soil does not dry out' - helps the reader understand why the order matters, and makes the paragraph an explanation rather than a list. Words such as first, next and finally help signal the steps; Chapter 21 teaches those words. In this section, the steps themselves must be in the right order.

Picture building a tower of blocks. You cannot place the roof before the walls, or the walls before the base. Each block rests on the ones already placed. A process paragraph is that tower: each step rests on the steps before it. If you skip a block in the middle, everything above it wobbles; if you place one too early, it has nothing to rest on.

In section 16 you ordered events in a story by time. A process is ordered by time too, but with a difference: in a process, each step depends on the one before, so the order is usually fixed, and a missing step stops everything. This section adds the frame - what is being made, and what the result is - that turns a list into an explanation. Section 20 mixes all the Practice moves. In Craft, section 24, cause-and-effect paragraphs use the same chain of 'this leads to that'.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a natural process where the steps form a cycle, so it is not obvious where to begin. The water cycle has no first step in nature: water evaporates, forms clouds, falls as rain, flows to the sea and evaporates again. So where should a paragraph start? A cycle needs an entry point that the reader can understand without the steps before it. Most writers start where the change is easiest to picture: the sun warming water in the sea and turning it into vapour. From there, each step builds on the one before: the vapour rises and cools; it gathers into droplets that form clouds; the droplets grow heavy and fall as rain; the rain runs into rivers and back to the sea. Now the end: a cycle paragraph should close by showing the return to the start - "and the sun warms it again" - so the reader sees the loop. Two things would break it. Starting in the middle, with "Rain falls from the clouds", before the reader knows how clouds formed. And jumping a step, from vapour straight to rain, missing the cooling and the clouds. So even in a cycle, the rule holds: each step must rest on the ones already explained. You choose the entry point; after that, the order is fixed.

Did you know that the word 'recipe' once meant an instruction written by a doctor? It comes from Latin, where recipe meant 'take!' - the first word of many old medical instructions, telling the person preparing a medicine what to take and mix. Over centuries, the word came to mean any set of instructions for making food. You can still see a trace of it in pharmacies, where the symbol Rx, often used for a prescription, is traditionally linked to that old Latin instruction. So every recipe is a kind of process paragraph with a long history: a list of steps, in order, telling someone exactly what to take and what to do with it.

A process paragraph needs a frame: name the process at the start and show the result at the end. In a process, most steps depend on the one before, so the order is usually fixed. Some steps can swap; find the fixed ones first. A cycle has no natural start; choose a clear entry point, then keep the order fixed. Words like first, next and finally help signal steps, but they cannot fix steps in the wrong order. Chapter 21 teaches those words.

1. Name the process and its purpose in the first sentence.
2. Decide what the result should be.
3. Work backwards from the result to find which steps depend on which.
4. Put the steps in the order they must happen.
5. Check each step: could it be done with only the earlier steps done?
6. Look for the step you do without thinking; it is often missing.
7. Add a short reason where the reader needs to know why the order matters.
8. Keep out steps from a different process.
9. End with what the result should look like.
10. For a cycle, choose a clear entry point and show the loop at the end.

• Masala chai is made by simmering tea and spices together. First, boil water with crushed ginger and cardamom. Next, add the tea leaves. Then pour in the milk and boil again. Finally, strain it into cups.
• Mix the flour and water. Roll out the rotis. Cook them on a hot pan.
• To plant a sapling so it takes root, prepare the soil before the tree goes in. Dig a hole twice as wide as the roots. Mix compost into the soil. Set the sapling in and fill the hole. Water it deeply.
• Rain forms when water vapour cools. The sun warms water in the sea. Rain falls from the clouds. The vapour rises and cools into droplets that form clouds.
• Dig a hole. Put in the bulb. Fill it with soil. Water it.
• A caterpillar becomes a butterfly in four stages. A butterfly lays an egg on a leaf. A caterpillar hatches and eats until it is fat. It forms a hard case called a chrysalis. Inside, its body changes, and a butterfly breaks out.

• Clay pots are made step by step at the potter's wheel. Kneading the clay removes air bubbles. The potter centres the clay on the spinning wheel. Thumbs open the middle and walls rise. The pot dries in the shade before firing.
• To make lemon rice, cook the rice first. Strain the rice into a bowl. Heat oil and fry mustard seeds and curry leaves. Mix in the rice and lemon juice.
• Strain the chai into cups. Pour in the milk and boil again. Boil water with ginger. Add the tea leaves.
• Bread rises because yeast feeds on sugar in the dough. The yeast gives off gas. The gas forms tiny bubbles. The bubbles make the dough swell before it is baked.
• To wash a car, rinse it with water. Dry it with a soft cloth. The car shines.
• In the water cycle, the sun warms the sea and water turns to vapour. The vapour rises and cools into droplets. The droplets gather into clouds. When they grow heavy, they fall as rain, which flows back to the sea.

Explain your evidence

A judgement about a paragraph is complete when it names the question that caught the problem, points to the evidence, and chooses the fix that matches.

This is the whole Paragraph Check in its full form. Then decide: keep it, develop it, reorder it, or split it.

The same symptom can come from different questions. That is why the evidence matters.

Notice three things. First, a sentence that 'feels wrong' might need cutting, moving or splitting, depending on which question it fails. Ask: is it about the idea at all? If not, cut it. If it is, does it sit in the right place? If not, move it. Does it bring a new idea with sentences of its own? Then split.

Second, Development and Boundary both deal with thin paragraphs, from two sides. Development asks whether each sentence adds something; Boundary asks whether the idea, overall, has been shown enough. A paragraph can pass Development sentence by sentence and still be too thin as a whole.

Third, a paragraph that passes all four questions needs no change, however plain it is. Saying 'keep it' with your evidence - one idea, each sentence adds, a sensible order, nothing extra - is as much a judgement as any fix.

Picture a car mechanic with a checklist: engine, brakes, lights, tyres. A strange noise could come from any of them. A good mechanic does not just say 'it sounds bad'; she checks each system and says 'the brakes - this pad is worn through'. Then she replaces the pad, not the engine. The Paragraph Check is your four-system checklist, and naming the system and the worn part is what lets you fix the right thing.

This section ties together the whole Practice band: topic sentences anywhere (section 11), development by example, reason and detail (12 to 14), unity on the controlling idea (15), and order by time, place, general to specific and process (16 to 19). In Craft, the same four questions meet new patterns - implied topics, persuasive and expository paragraphs, cause and effect, comparison, definition, introductions and conclusions - and the Boundary question becomes the judgement of when to split.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph with a problem that two questions seem to catch, where the evidence decides which one is real. Read this: "The monsoon changes life in our village. Children row to school in tin tubs. Farmers plant rice in the flooded fields. The monsoon usually begins in June. Shops sell umbrellas and plastic sheets." The fourth sentence, about when the monsoon begins, feels out of place. Which question catches it? Could it be Order? Perhaps the timing belongs at the start, as a lead-in: "The monsoon usually begins in June." Then the topic sentence, then the changes. If so, it is an Order problem: move it. Could it be Development? Perhaps the timing simply does not show the monsoon changing life. If so, it fails the controlling idea: cut it. How do you decide? Test both fixes. Moved to the start, does the timing help the paragraph? It sets the scene a little, but the topic sentence still has to come right after, and the date adds nothing to 'changes life'. Cut, does the paragraph lose anything? No: every remaining sentence shows a change. So the stronger diagnosis is Development: the sentence does not support the controlling idea. The evidence is that it gives a date, not a change, and that nothing is lost when it goes. When two questions both seem to apply, try each fix in your head. The question whose fix makes the paragraph clearly better is the real diagnosis.

Did you know that 'diagnosis' comes from Greek words meaning 'to know apart' or 'to tell apart'? The Greek dia- means 'through' or 'apart', and gnosis means 'knowing'. A diagnosis is knowing one condition apart from others that look similar. That is exactly the skill in this section. A weak sentence can look the same whether it needs cutting, moving or splitting. The Paragraph Check lets you tell those problems apart. The same Greek root gnosis appears in other English words about knowing, such as 'agnostic', describing someone who says a thing cannot be known. So when you name the question that caught a problem, you are making a true diagnosis: knowing this problem apart from the others.

Name the question and point to the evidence; a verdict without them cannot guide a fix. The same symptom can come from different questions. Test the possible fixes to decide. One stray sentence is cut; a new idea with its own sentences is split. Development and Boundary both judge thinness, from different sides. Keep it as it is, with evidence, is a real verdict. Whether an argument's reasons are strong enough to persuade is a question for Chapter 29; the Paragraph Check judges the paragraph's architecture.

1. Ask all four questions in order, every time.
2. Give each question a verdict: passes or fails.
3. For each failure, point to the exact sentence or gap.
4. Name the question in your explanation, for example 'Order'.
5. Choose the fix that matches the question.
6. Cut a stray; move a misplaced sentence; split a second idea; develop a thin one.
7. When two questions seem to apply, test each fix in your head.
8. Keep a paragraph that passes all four, and say why.
9. Use the full words: Topic, Development, Order, Boundary.
10. When giving feedback, name the question and the sentence, not just 'weak'.

• Our school should have a longer lunch break. A longer break would be a good thing. Students would like it a lot. It is a good idea.
• The monsoon changes life in our village. Children row to school in tin tubs. Farmers plant rice in flooded fields. The monsoon usually begins in June. Shops sell umbrellas and plastic sheets.
• Grandmother Kamala never wastes anything. Vegetable peels go to the cow. Old saris become quilts. Even the rice water starches Grandfather's shirts.
• The streets of the old town flooded. Rain fell all night. Shopkeepers piled sandbags at their doors.
• Lily's puppy is full of energy. It chases its tail and tugs her socks. Lily's grandmother is learning to paint. She has finished three watercolours. She paints every morning.
• Have you ever wondered why Nairobi's matatus are so popular? They weave through traffic. Their drivers know every shortcut. They are the fastest way across the city.

• Rotis are made in four steps. Knead the dough. Cook each roti on a hot pan. Roll the dough into balls. Flatten each ball.
• Our town is friendly. People here are nice. Everyone is friendly in lots of ways.
• The Pongal festival brings our street together. Families cook sweet pongal outside their doors. Neighbours share the first spoonful. Children run from house to house tasting each pot.
• Exercise is good for children because physical activity benefits young people's health.
• From the hilltop, the path drops at your feet. On the horizon, snow caps the mountains. Below the path, roofs crowd the valley. Beyond the city, terraces climb the slopes.
• In Lima, the Surquillo market is a good place to learn about Peruvian food. Stalls sell many kinds of potato. Cooks fry fish while customers watch.

Writing with intent · ages 12–16

When no sentence states it

An implied topic is an idea that every sentence carries together, though no single sentence states it. An implied topic is not a missing one.

This sharpens the first question of the Paragraph Check, Topic: what is the one idea - stated in one sentence, or carried by all of them together? Stance 2 of this chapter: an implied topic is standard, not an error.

Implied topics are most common in some kinds of writing and rare in others.

Notice three things. First, naming an implied idea takes judgement. Two careful readers may phrase it differently - "Ammachi left suddenly" or "the house shows signs of an emergency" - but both should be supported by every detail. If your sentence leaves out a detail or contradicts one, refine it.

Second, an implied topic must still be unified. Every detail must point the same way. A cheerful detail dropped into the Ammachi paragraph - "a bird sang happily on the sill" - would muddy the feeling, unless the writer meant it as a contrast.

Third, choosing to imply rather than state is a decision about genre and reader, not a way of avoiding a topic sentence. In an exam essay, Craft section 22 will ask you to state the claim. The Paragraph Check never ranks the two choices; it asks which suits the job (stance 7).

Picture a dot-to-dot puzzle without numbers. Each detail is a dot. A careless arrangement of dots makes nothing, however many there are. But when a writer places the dots carefully, the reader's eye joins them and sees a shape - a house left in a hurry, a calm morning, a frightened child - though no line has been drawn. An implied topic is the shape the dots make. Your job as a reader is to see it; your job as a writer is to place the dots so it can be seen.

In Discover and Practice, almost every paragraph had a stated topic sentence, first, in the middle or last. This section adds the paragraph whose idea is never stated. Section 22 then turns to the opposite: the exam essay's body paragraph, where the claim must be stated plainly. Later Craft sections build patterns - persuasive, cause and effect, comparison, definition - that usually state their idea, and in Master, section 39, you will read a published paragraph closely for how its idea is carried.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph where one detail seems to point the other way, and you must decide whether it is a contrast that sharpens the idea or a stray that breaks it. Read this: "The ward was quiet except for the machines. Ravi's father lay with his eyes closed, the tube taped to his hand. Outside the window, children were playing cricket in the hospital car park, shouting at every boundary. Ravi watched them for a long time without moving." The implied idea is something like "Ravi is frightened and alone with his father's illness." But the cricket - shouting children, boundaries, play - is cheerful. Does it break the paragraph? Test it. Remove the cricket and the paragraph still shows the quiet ward and the illness. Put it back and something changes: the ordinary, noisy life outside makes the stillness inside sharper, and Ravi watching "without moving" shows how far he is from that world. The contrast serves the idea. It is not a stray; it is a deliberate counterpoint. Now change it: "Outside, children played cricket. Ravi's school was hosting a cricket tournament next month." The tournament adds nothing to Ravi's fear and points to a different subject altogether. That is a stray. The test is whether the odd detail sharpens the implied idea or pulls the reader away from it. A contrast is tied to the idea - here, by Ravi watching it. A stray is tied to nothing.

Did you know that a famous piece of advice about writing is often summed up in three words: show, don't tell? The idea is that a writer should let readers experience a feeling or an idea through details and actions, rather than simply announcing it. Instead of writing "she was nervous", a writer might show her twisting a ring round and round her finger. The Russian writer Anton Chekhov is often linked with this idea; a line commonly attributed to him advises not telling the reader that the moon is shining, but showing the glint of light on broken glass. The exact wording is uncertain and is probably a later summary of advice found in his letters, but the idea has shaped how many writers think about description. An implied topic is 'show, don't tell' at the level of the whole paragraph: the details show the idea, and no sentence tells it.

An implied topic is standard, not an error, as long as every detail points to one idea. A paragraph whose details scatter has no topic, stated or implied. That is a list, not a paragraph. Two careful readers may word an implied idea differently; both wordings should fit every detail. In exam essays, reports and most explanations, state the idea. Implied topics suit stories, memoirs and descriptions. Figurative language that a paragraph uses to carry its idea belongs to Chapter 26; this section looks at how the paragraph is built.

1. Read the whole paragraph before naming its idea.
2. Ask what feeling, judgement or point the details add up to.
3. Write the idea yourself: "This paragraph shows that...".
4. Check your sentence against every detail.
5. If a detail does not fit, refine your sentence or judge the detail.
6. Do not name a single detail as the idea.
7. Do not name the setting as the idea.
8. Tell a deliberate contrast from a stray: is the odd detail tied to the idea?
9. Do not mistake a scattered list for an implied topic.
10. When you write, imply in stories and descriptions; state in essays and reports.

• The tap had dripped all night into the steel bucket. Ammachi's slippers sat by the door, one turned on its side where she had kicked it off in a hurry. On the stove, the milk had boiled over. Her crossword lay unfinished on yesterday's newspaper. The house was completely silent.
• Every evening, Grandfather polished my school shoes until he could see his face in them. He ironed the creases on my uniform twice. When the results came, he read them aloud to the neighbours, then read them again.
• The ward was quiet except for the machines. Ravi's father lay with his eyes closed. Outside, children played cricket in the car park, shouting at every boundary. Ravi watched them for a long time without moving.
• The tap dripped. The bus was late again. My cousin likes mangoes. The temple bell rang at six.
• On the morning of the exam, Oliver checked his pencil case four times. He could not finish his toast. At the school gate, he read his notes walking, and bumped into the gatepost twice.
• The fishing boats had not gone out for three days. Nets hung dry on the poles. Children who usually ran on the beach stayed at their doors, watching the grey water. In Ana's village, people spoke quietly about the storm.

• Meena's desk had a new set of pens lined up by colour. Her notes were rewritten in neat capitals. A timetable was taped above her bed, every hour filled in. She had not been to the park all month.
• The new neighbours' gate stayed shut. Their curtains were drawn even at noon. When Dadi took them a plate of laddoos, a voice thanked her through the door, and it did not open.
• The monsoon had come. The paddy fields shone like mirrors. Farmers waded knee-deep, planting seedlings in long rows. Our school is getting a new roof next year.
• Grace's grandmother laid the table for four, as she always had. She poured four cups of tea. Then she looked at the empty chair at the end and quietly took one cup away.
• Mornings in the village are slow and peaceful. Cows walk to the pond. Smoke rises from kitchen fires. Old men talk on the bench by the post office.
• Kenji's tea bowl had a crack mended with gold. His grandmother used it every morning. When he offered to buy her a new one, she smiled and filled it again.

Explaining an idea

An expository paragraph explains one claim. It states the claim, develops it, and lets nothing else in.

This is the Paragraph Check at work. Topic: one claim, stated. Development: every sentence adds evidence or explanation. Order: general claim first, then the support. Boundary: anything off-claim goes.

Development in an expository paragraph has two jobs, and both matter.

Notice three things. First, evidence alone is not enough. "Roots bind the earth together" is a fact; "so heavy rain cannot easily wash it away" is the explanation that connects it to the claim. Practice section 20 asked you to explain your evidence in a single answer; here the whole paragraph does it.

Second, the close is not a copy of the claim. "Forests protect the soil" repeated as "So forests protect soil" adds nothing. A good close draws the point together - "Keeping a forest standing keeps the land beneath it in place" - or shows why it matters.

Third, an expository paragraph is not a persuasive one. It explains how or why something is so; it does not argue a reader into a view. Section 23 builds the persuasive paragraph's shape, and Chapter 29 judges whether an argument is strong. The linking words that join your sentences, such as so and then, belong to Chapter 21; this section owns the claim they serve.

Picture a lamp post on a dark street. The claim is the lamp: it sits at the top and lights everything below it. Each sentence after it is something standing in the circle of light - a fact, an example, an explanation - visible because the lamp shines on it. A sentence about something else stands outside the circle, in the dark, where the reader cannot see why it is there. Your job is to keep everything inside the light, and to switch the lamp on first.

In Practice you developed a topic sentence with an example, a reason or a fact, and you explained your evidence in single answers. Section 21 showed paragraphs that leave their idea unstated. This section turns to the paragraph that must state it: the expository paragraph, the body paragraph of an essay. Section 23 adds a persuasive shape built on the same bones - point, support, link back. In Master, section 32, you will build this paragraph under a stated topic and word limit.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a sentence that is true, on the topic, and still does not belong. Read this, written for "Why is sleep important for students?": "Sleep helps students remember what they learn. During sleep, the brain sorts the day's experiences and strengthens many of the memories it keeps. A student who sleeps well after studying is more likely to recall the work the next day. Many students also find that sleep improves their mood. A good night's rest, then, is part of learning itself." The sentence about mood is true for many people, and it is about sleep and students. Is it a stray? Run the Boundary question. The claim is not "sleep is good for students". It is narrower: "sleep helps students remember what they learn". Mood is a second benefit, not evidence for memory. Inside this paragraph it is off-claim, however true it is. That does not mean the mood sentence is wasted. It may deserve its own paragraph, with its own claim: "Sleep also affects how students feel." The fix is not to cut a good idea from the essay, but to move it out of the paragraph that is explaining something else. The test is never "is it true?" or "is it on the topic?" It is "does it support this claim?"

Did you know that the paragraph is older than the paragraph mark? The word paragraph comes from Greek words meaning "written beside". In ancient manuscripts, scribes did not indent new paragraphs. Instead, they placed a mark in the margin, beside the line, to show the reader that a new section of thought was beginning. Over many centuries, different marks were used. One of them became the pilcrow, the symbol ¶ that you may still see in word-processing programs when you show hidden formatting. The idea behind the mark has not changed: a new paragraph signals a new unit of thought. The expository paragraph is that idea at its strictest - one claim, one unit, and nothing written beside it that does not belong.

An expository paragraph usually states its claim first, but a writer may lead in with a short question or example before stating it. The claim must still be stated. The close is optional in a short paragraph. If the last piece of evidence lands the point, stop there. A true, interesting sentence can still be off-claim. Move it to its own paragraph rather than losing it. Expository paragraphs explain; they do not argue. Persuasive structure is section 23, and the strength of an argument belongs to Chapter 29. The words that link sentences belong to Chapter 21.

1. Say your claim in one sentence before you write: "This paragraph explains that...".
2. State the claim in the first sentence, or soon after a short lead-in.
3. Make the claim narrow enough to explain fully in one paragraph.
4. Give evidence: a fact, an example or a detail.
5. Explain how each piece of evidence supports the claim.
6. Ask of every sentence: does it support this claim?
7. Move a true but off-claim sentence to its own paragraph.
8. Do not repeat the claim in new words and call it development.
9. Close by drawing the point together, not by adding a new idea.
10. Leave arguing to persuasive writing; an expository paragraph explains.

• Forests protect the soil they grow in. The roots of trees bind the earth together, so heavy rain cannot easily wash it away. The fallen leaves form a soft layer that slows water as it reaches the ground. Where hillside forests are cleared, the soil is more easily carried off in landslides and floods. Keeping a forest standing, then, keeps the land beneath it in place.
• Rivers have shaped where people live. Early towns grew beside rivers because they offered water for drinking and farming. Rivers also served as roads, carrying boats and goods from place to place. Many great cities still stand on the rivers that first drew people there.
• Sleep helps students remember what they learn. During sleep, the brain strengthens many of the memories it keeps. A student who sleeps well after studying is more likely to recall the work. Many students also find that sleep improves their mood.
• Reading aloud helps young children learn new words. When a parent reads a story, the child hears words that rarely appear in everyday talk. Because the words come inside a story, the child can often guess their meaning from what is happening. Over many evenings, these words become part of the child's own speech.
• Exercise is good for you. It is very healthy. People who exercise are healthier. Exercise helps you be healthy.
• Bees matter to farmers. As bees move from flower to flower collecting nectar, they carry pollen with them. Many fruit and vegetable crops need this pollen to form their fruit. Without bees and other pollinators, farmers like Amara's family would harvest far less from the same fields.

• Monsoon rains decide much of the farming year in India. Many farmers plant their main crops when the rains arrive. A late or weak monsoon can delay sowing and reduce the harvest. For millions of families, the rain's timing is the year's most important news.
• Libraries help students who have no quiet place to study. A library offers a seat, a table and silence. It also offers books a student may not be able to buy. For a student like Priya, who shares a small room with three siblings, the library is where homework gets done.
• Plastic bags harm animals. Cows sometimes eat bags left in rubbish heaps. Sea turtles can mistake floating bags for food. Plastic bags are also cheap to make.
• Volunteering helps the volunteer as well as the people helped. Volunteers often learn practical skills, from first aid to planning events. They meet people they would never otherwise meet. Many find that giving time leaves them more confident.
• The school garden teaches more than gardening. Pupils measure plots in maths lessons. They record plant growth in science. They also learn patience, waiting weeks for the first beans. The garden is a classroom without walls.
• Bicycles make cities cleaner. A bicycle burns no fuel, so it adds no exhaust to the air. Bicycles also take up little road space. In cities like Lucas's, where many people cycle, fewer cars crowd the streets.

A point, and its support

A persuasive paragraph has a shape: a point, support for it, explanation, and a link back. It is built, not shouted.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: one point, stated. Development: support and explanation for that point only. Order: point, support, link. Boundary: a complaint about something else starts a different paragraph.

Many classrooms teach this shape with a short memory aid. One common version is PEEL: Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link. Another is PEE, without the link. The letters vary; the bones do not.

Notice three things. First, the link back is not a copy of the point. "So the library should open at lunch" repeats; "an empty room would become the busiest place for learning" returns to the point and lifts it.

Second, this section judges shape, not strength. A paragraph can be perfectly built around a weak reason, or badly built around a strong one. Whether the reason is good, fair, or answers the other side is Chapter 29's question; here the question is whether the paragraph is built so a reader can follow it.

Third, the persuasive shape shares bones with the expository paragraph of section 22. The difference is the job: exposition explains how something is; persuasion asks the reader to accept a view or take an action.

Picture a bridge across a river. The point is the far bank, where you want the reader to end up. Each piece of support is a pillar standing in the water; explanation is the deck laid across the pillars so the reader can walk on it. The link back is the last plank that touches the far bank. A pillar placed in a different river, however strong, holds up nothing. A paragraph that shouts but has no pillars leaves the reader on the near bank, hearing you call from across the water.

Section 22 built the expository paragraph: claim, evidence, explanation, close. This section uses the same bones for a different job: moving a reader toward a view. Sections 24 to 26 add development patterns - cause and effect, comparison, definition - that either kind of paragraph can use. In Master, section 37, you will see how the same moves shift between persuasive, narrative and report writing, and Chapter 29 will judge the arguments themselves.

Here is the case that takes judgement: two reasons that are both for the point, but pull the paragraph in two directions. Read this: "Our town should build a footbridge over the highway near the school. Children crossing the road at rush hour risk being hit by fast traffic. A bridge would let them cross above the cars. A bridge would also be a fine landmark, and could be painted with a mural by local artists. The town should build the bridge before another school year begins." Both safety and the mural are reasons to build the bridge. Is the mural off-point? Run the Boundary question. The point is "build a footbridge". Safety backs it directly and is explained. The mural backs it too, but it changes what the paragraph is about: from protecting children to decorating the town. The reader's attention splits. There are two sound fixes. The writer can cut the mural and keep one focused reason, or move it to a second paragraph: "A bridge would also give the town something to be proud of." Then each paragraph has one point of support, explained. The test is not "is this a reason for the point?" It is "does this paragraph still have one line of support a reader can follow?" Many reasons can serve one point; one paragraph usually carries one line of them.

Did you know that the study of persuasive structure is more than two thousand years old? In ancient Greece and Rome, rhetoric - the art of persuasive speaking - was a central school subject. Teachers broke a speech into parts, each with its own job. The Roman writers on rhetoric, such as Cicero and Quintilian, described parts such as an opening that wins the listener's attention, a statement of the case, the proof, and a closing that sums up and moves the audience. The names and number of parts varied from teacher to teacher. But the idea will feel familiar: say what you want, support it, and return to it at the end. The persuasive paragraph is that ancient shape in miniature - one point, its proof, and a link back.

The point usually comes first, but a short story or question may lead in before it, as in an expository paragraph. A persuasive paragraph usually carries one line of support. A long piece of persuasion has several paragraphs, each with its own. Shape is not strength. A well-built paragraph can carry a weak reason, and Chapter 29 is where reasons are judged, balanced and answered. Memory aids such as PEEL vary from class to class. Use the one your teacher uses; the bones are the same. The words that link the parts belong to Chapter 21.

1. Write your point as one sentence a reader could agree or disagree with.
2. Put the point first, or soon after a short lead-in.
3. Choose support that backs this point, not a different one.
4. Prefer one or two pieces of support, explained, over a pile of reasons.
5. Make support concrete with a fact or a short example.
6. Explain how each piece of support backs the point.
7. End with a link back that returns to the point, sharpened.
8. Do not copy the first sentence as the last.
9. Move a second line of support into its own paragraph.
10. Judge the shape here; leave the strength of the argument to Chapter 29.

• Our school should keep the library open at lunchtime. Many pupils have nowhere quiet to read or finish homework during the break. An open library would give them a calm room, books and a table, at no extra cost to anyone. For pupils like Sana, who travels two hours each day, lunchtime is the only free hour she has for reading. Keeping the library open at lunch would turn an empty room into the school's busiest place for learning.
• Every classroom should have a water filter. Many pupils forget their bottles on hot days. A filter in the room would let them drink without leaving the lesson. In Arjun's class, where a filter was fitted last term, fewer pupils ask to go out. A filter is a small cost for a whole term of better lessons.
• The library should open at lunchtime. Many pupils have nowhere quiet to study. Also, the canteen food is terrible, and the playground is far too small. The library should open at lunchtime.
• Our town should build a footbridge near the school. Children crossing at rush hour risk being hit by fast traffic. A bridge would let them cross above the cars. Before another school year begins, the town should give them that safe way across.
• Many pupils have nowhere quiet to read. Some travel for hours each day. A calm room would help them.
• Our village should plant trees along the market road. In the dry season, the road is too hot for traders to sit by. Shade would let them work through the afternoon. For traders like Kwame's mother, an afternoon in the shade means a full day's sales. Trees along the road would keep the market alive all day.

• Our colony should start a weekly clean-up day. Litter gathers in the lanes faster than the sweepers can clear it. If every family gave one hour on a Sunday, the lanes would be clear within a month. A clean-up day asks little of anyone and gives back a cleaner home for all.
• Pupils should be allowed to bring bicycles to school. Many live too far to walk but too near for the bus. Cycling would get them to school on time. Cycling is also fun.
• The school should hold a science fair every year. Pupils learn more when they build something than when they only read about it. Ravi built a working water filter for last year's fair and still explains it to younger pupils. A yearly fair would give every pupil that chance.
• Our council should keep the swimming pool open in winter. Swimming is one of the few exercises that is gentle on the joints. Older residents, like Mrs Harris, use it to stay active when it is too icy to walk. Closing it would take away their safest way to keep moving.
• The school should start later in the morning. Many teenagers find it hard to fall asleep early. A later start would let them sleep longer. The school should start later in the morning.
• Our town should open a library in the old market hall. Mei and her friends have no library within walking distance. The hall stands empty most of the week. A library there would fill an empty building and an empty afternoon.

Cause and effect

A cause-and-effect paragraph explains how one thing led to another, link by link, in order.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: one relationship, stated. Development: the links between cause and effect. Order: the links in the order they happened, so each leads to the next. Boundary: a sentence outside the chain goes.

Cause-and-effect paragraphs come in several shapes, and each needs its links in order.

Notice three things. First, a chain needs every link. If a reader has to guess how one step led to the next, the paragraph has a gap. Fill it with the missing link, not with a stronger word such as "definitely".

Second, claim only what the chain shows. "The drain flooded the lane" is shown by the chain. "Plastic bags will destroy our city" is a leap the paragraph has not earned. Whether an argument about causes is convincing is Chapter 29's question; here, the job is to keep the claim the same size as the chain.

Third, the words that signal a link - because, so, as a result, therefore - belong to Chapter 21. This section owns the order of the links and whether each one is there. A paragraph full of "so" and "therefore" can still be missing a link; a paragraph with none can show the chain clearly.

Picture a row of dominoes. The cause is the first domino pushed; the effect is the last one falling. A cause-and-effect paragraph shows every domino in between, standing in order, each close enough to knock over the next. If one domino is missing, the reader sees the gap and wonders whether the last one really fell because of the first. A sentence outside the chain is a domino standing off to the side: it may be a fine domino, but it is not part of the row.

In Practice you ordered sentences by time and explained processes step by step. Section 22 built the expository paragraph. This section gives that paragraph a development pattern: cause and effect, ordered as a chain. Section 25 adds a second pattern, compare and contrast, and section 26 a third, definition. In Master, section 36, you will reorder a scrambled cause-and-effect chain under time pressure.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph where the order of events and the order of causes seem to disagree. Read this: "The harvest in Meera's village failed last year. The main cause was the late monsoon, which delayed sowing by a month. But the soil had already been weakened by three years of the same crop, and a pest attack in August finished what the weather had begun." In time, the order was: weak soil over three years, then the late monsoon, then the pest attack. The paragraph does not follow that order. It opens with the effect, names the main cause first, then reaches back in time for a background cause, then forward to a final blow. Is that out of order? Run the Order question: can a reader say why the sentences sit in this sequence? Yes. The paragraph is ordered by importance, not by time: main cause first, then the contributing ones. Words such as "main", "already" and "finished" tell the reader how each cause relates to the others. Compare a paragraph that simply lists the causes in random order with no signals. That reader cannot tell which cause mattered most or how they combined. The test is not whether the paragraph follows the calendar. It is whether the reader can see how the causes connect, and why they are told in this order.

Did you know that a famous old rhyme is a cause-and-effect paragraph in miniature? "For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost." Versions of this proverb have been recorded in English for several hundred years, and similar sayings appear in other languages. It usually continues until a whole kingdom is lost. Its power is the chain. Each line is a link, and each link leads to the next. Remove one line and the leap from a nail to a battle becomes absurd. Keep every line and a reader accepts, at least for the length of the rhyme, that small causes can have large effects. That is exactly what a cause-and-effect paragraph must do: show every domino, in order.

Cause first and effect first are both standard. Open with the effect when the reader is already asking why. Several causes may be ordered by importance rather than by time, as long as the reader can see why. One thing coming before another does not show that it caused it. Show the link. Keep the claim the size of the chain. Whether a causal argument convinces is Chapter 29's question; the signal words that join the links belong to Chapter 21.

1. State the relationship first: what led to what.
2. List the links between cause and effect before you write.
3. Put the links in an order where each leads to the next.
4. Fill any gap with the missing link, not a stronger word.
5. Open with the effect when the reader is asking why.
6. Order several causes by importance when time order would hide which mattered most.
7. Signal how causes relate: main, also, already, finally.
8. Keep the claim the same size as the chain you have shown.
9. Do not treat one thing coming first as proof that it caused the next.
10. Cut any sentence that is not part of the chain.

• Blocked drains caused the flooding in our lane last July. For weeks, plastic bags and leaves had gathered in the drain at the corner. When the first heavy rain came, the water had nowhere to go. It rose over the road and into the ground floors of six houses. By morning, the families were sweeping mud out of their kitchens.
• The new metro line has changed Ankit's neighbourhood. Shops near the station stay open later because more people pass by. Rents in the lanes nearby have gone up. Most of all, families who once spent two hours on buses now reach work in forty minutes.
• The harvest in Meera's village failed last year. The main cause was the late monsoon, which delayed sowing. But the soil had already been weakened by years of the same crop, and a pest attack in August finished what the weather had begun.
• The school bus broke down on Monday. Our lane has twelve houses and a temple. Forty pupils arrived an hour late, and the first test was moved to Tuesday.
• The pond dried up in May. The frogs that lived there disappeared.
• Cutting the hillside forest above Tomas's village led to the landslide. Without roots to hold it, the soil loosened. When the autumn rains soaked it, the slope gave way. The mud reached the edge of the village in a single night.

• Our school's new timetable gave every class a reading hour. Pupils began borrowing more books from the library. The librarian ordered new titles to keep up. By the end of term, the reading corner was the busiest room in the school.
• Why did the cricket match end early? Dark clouds gathered by mid-afternoon. A heavy shower soaked the pitch. The umpires judged it unsafe, and the match was called off.
• Rahul wore his lucky blue shirt, and his team won the match. The shirt clearly caused the win.
• The factory closed in March. Many workers lost their jobs. With less money to spend, families cut back on shopping. Several shops on the high street closed by the end of the year.
• Heavy snow closed the roads into Emily's village for three days. The school shut. The shop ran short of bread and milk. Most of all, neighbours who had never spoken began sharing what they had.
• A late frost hurt the orchard in Sofia's valley. The blossom had opened early in a warm spell. When the frost came, it killed many of the flowers. With fewer flowers, there were fewer apples that autumn.

Compare and contrast

A compare-and-contrast paragraph sets two things side by side, on the same points, so the reader can see how they are alike or different.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: the two things and the basis, stated. Development: the same points for both. Order: one at a time or point by point, chosen for the reader. Boundary: a point about only one thing, or off the basis, goes.

Three decisions shape every compare-and-contrast paragraph.

Notice three things. First, every point needs a partner. If the paragraph says the train is cheap, it must say something about the bus's cost too. An unmatched point - "The train has a pantry car" with nothing about food on the bus - is half a comparison.

Second, the basis keeps the paragraph together. A comparison of the train and the bus for the Pune-Mumbai trip should not drift into the history of railways. That may be interesting, but it is off the basis.

Third, a closing judgement must follow from the points. "For a traveller near the station, the train is the better choice" follows from cost, timing and pick-up. "The bus is more fun" does not follow from anything the paragraph said. The words that mark a contrast - while, whereas, but, on the other hand - belong to Chapter 21; this section owns which points sit side by side.

Picture a pair of old-fashioned weighing scales with two pans. Each point of comparison is a pair of weights, one placed in each pan at the same moment: cost against cost, time against time. The reader watches the pans tip one way or the other. If you put a weight in only one pan, the reader cannot tell whether it tipped because of a real difference or because you forgot the other weight. A good comparison loads both pans, point by point, and lets the reader watch the balance.

Section 24 added cause and effect as a development pattern. This section adds a second: compare and contrast. Both are ways of developing one idea, and both depend on order - the chain in cause and effect, the matched points here. Section 26 adds a third pattern, definition. In Master, section 37, you will see how comparison works across genres, from a literature essay comparing two characters to a report comparing two options.

Here is the case that takes judgement: when the one-at-a-time pattern is the better choice. Read this, comparing two grandmothers' kitchens: "Nani's kitchen in Lucknow was dark and cool, lit by one small window above the stone sink. Pots hung from hooks along the wall, and the smell of cardamom never left the air. Dadi's kitchen in Chennai was the opposite: wide windows on two sides, steel shelves in rows, and the sharp smell of mustard seeds popping in hot oil. Two kitchens, two whole worlds." This paragraph describes one kitchen fully, then the other. Is that the weaker pattern? Run the Order question. The paragraph's purpose is not to help a reader choose between kitchens; it is to give each kitchen its own atmosphere. A point-by-point version - "Nani's was dark; Dadi's was bright. Nani's smelled of cardamom; Dadi's of mustard seeds" - would chop each picture into pieces. One at a time lets each world build before the next begins. And the points still match: light, objects, smell, for both kitchens, in the same order. That is what makes it a comparison and not two separate portraits. The test is not which pattern is better in general. It is which one serves this paragraph's purpose - and whether the same points appear on both sides.

Did you know that a famous diagram for comparison was not invented for writing at all? The Venn diagram - two overlapping circles, with likenesses in the middle and differences on each side - is named after John Venn, an English logician of the nineteenth century. He used overlapping circles to show relationships between groups in logic, not to plan essays. Teachers later found that the same picture helps learners sort what two things share from what makes each one different. The middle of the diagram holds the likenesses; each outer part holds what belongs to one thing only. A compare-and-contrast paragraph is a Venn diagram turned into sentences. Every point in an outer circle needs a partner point in the other outer circle - or else it belongs in a different paragraph.

Both patterns are standard. Point by point usually suits a short paragraph with several points; one at a time can suit a paragraph where each thing needs its own picture. A comparison may focus on likenesses, differences, or both. Say which in the topic sentence. A long comparison often needs several paragraphs, one per point or one per thing; that is a question for Chapter 30's whole essays. The contrast words that join the two sides - while, whereas, however - belong to Chapter 21. Whether a judgement between two options is fair is Chapter 29's question.

1. Name the two things and the basis of comparison in the topic sentence.
2. Say whether you are showing likenesses, differences, or both.
3. List your points before you write.
4. Give every point a partner: say something about both things.
5. Keep the points in the same order for both things.
6. Choose point by point for several points in a short paragraph.
7. Choose one at a time when each thing needs its own picture.
8. Stay on the basis; cut points that wander from it.
9. Make any closing judgement follow from the points you gave.
10. Do not compare two things that share no basis.

• For the trip from Pune to Mumbai, the train and the bus each have their strengths. The train is usually cheaper, especially in the general carriages, while the bus fare is often higher. The train runs on fixed times, so a passenger can plan the day around it; the bus can be slowed by traffic on the expressway. But the bus picks up from more places across the city, while the train leaves only from the station. For a traveller who lives near the station, the train is the better choice.
• Nani's kitchen in Lucknow was dark and cool, lit by one small window. Pots hung from hooks, and the smell of cardamom filled the air. Dadi's kitchen in Chennai was bright, with wide windows, steel shelves and the smell of mustard seeds in hot oil.
• Cricket and hockey are both played with a stick or bat and a ball. Both are team games of eleven players a side. But a cricket match can last days, while a hockey match lasts about an hour.
• The town library is quiet and has thousands of books. It opens at nine. The school library has a new carpet. It was painted last year.
• Walking and cycling to school both cost nothing and both keep pupils active. Walking is slower but needs no equipment. Cycling is faster but needs a bicycle and a safe road. For pupils who live far away, cycling saves the most time.
• Lena's two schools, one in Berlin and one in Delhi, began the day differently. In Berlin, lessons started early and ended by lunch. In Delhi, assembly came first and lessons ran into the afternoon. In Berlin, she walked to school alone; in Delhi, she took a crowded bus with friends.

• Our old school and our new school differ most in space. The old school had one small playground for six hundred pupils. The new one has two fields and a covered court. The old classrooms held fifty desks; the new ones hold thirty.
• Idli and dosa are made from the same batter of rice and lentils. Both are often eaten with chutney and sambar. But idli is steamed into soft cakes, while dosa is spread thin and fried crisp on a hot pan.
• My brother Kabir likes cricket. My sister Riya is good at maths. Kabir wakes up early. Riya has long hair.
• E-books and printed books each suit different readers. An e-book reader can hold many titles in one light device. A printed book needs no charging and is easy on the eyes for long reading. The train ticket to London is expensive.
• Both the frog and the toad begin life as tadpoles in water. Both eat insects as adults. Frogs usually have smooth, wet skin and long legs for jumping; toads usually have dry, bumpy skin and shorter legs for walking.
• Yuki's two winters, one in Sapporo and one in Mumbai, could hardly have been more different. In Sapporo, snow covered the streets for months. In Mumbai, the winter air was mild and dry. In Sapporo she wore three layers; in Mumbai, a light cardigan was enough.

Defining, then developing

A definition paragraph defines a term, then develops it so the reader can recognise and use it.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: one term, defined. Development: example, contrast, test. Order: definition first, then general to specific. Boundary: anything not about this term goes.

A definition can be developed in several ways. Choose the ones that help this reader.

Notice three things. First, the group must be the right size. "A peninsula is a thing that..." is too wide to help; "a piece of land that..." tells the reader where to look.

Second, the definition must not use the word it defines. "A habit is something you do habitually" sends the reader in a circle. Use other words: "something you do so often that you do it without deciding to".

Third, a definition paragraph is not a list of facts about the term. "Peninsulas can be large or small. Many have beaches. Some have lighthouses." These facts may be true, but they do not help the reader recognise a peninsula. Choose development that sharpens the definition, not development that merely adds to it.

Picture drawing a fence around a word. The definition sentence puts in the first posts: what group the word belongs to, and what sets it apart. The example is a sheep standing inside the fence, so the reader can see what belongs. The contrast is a goat standing just outside, so the reader can see where the fence runs. The test is a gate the reader can use to check any new animal. Without the sheep and the goat, the fence is only a line on the ground; with them, the reader knows exactly where the field begins and ends.

Sections 24 and 25 added cause and effect and comparison as development patterns. This section adds the third: definition, which often borrows the others - a contrast with a neighbour is a small comparison. In Master, section 33, you will expand notes into a paragraph, often beginning with a definition, and in section 38 you will build definition answers under exam conditions.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a term whose everyday meaning and subject meaning are different. Read this, from a science answer: "In science, work is done when a force moves an object in the direction of the force. Pushing a heavy cart across a yard is work in this sense. But holding a heavy bag still for an hour is not, however tiring it feels, because the bag does not move. So the scientific meaning of work is narrower than the everyday one." The reader already knows the everyday word work: effort, a job, something tiring. The paragraph has to define a different, stricter meaning without confusing them. Look at how it is built. The first sentence names the field - "in science" - so the reader knows which meaning is in play. The example (pushing a cart) fits both meanings. The contrast is the clever part: holding a bag is work in everyday speech but not in science. That single contrast shows exactly where the scientific fence runs. The close names the difference outright. Without the contrast, a reader might nod at the definition and still think of tiredness when they see the word. The test is whether the development shows the boundary the reader is most likely to get wrong. For a term with an everyday twin, that boundary is usually the everyday meaning itself.

Did you know that one of the most famous English dictionaries was largely the work of one man? Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. Johnson wrote its definitions over several years, working with a small team of helpers who copied out quotations. What made the dictionary unusual for its time was that Johnson illustrated many words with quotations from earlier writers, showing each word in use. A definition told the reader what a word meant; a quotation showed them the word at work. That is the instinct behind a definition paragraph. The definition line is only the start. The example, the contrast and the test show the word at work, so the reader can recognise it next time without the dictionary.

A definition paragraph usually opens with the definition, but a short question or a common misunderstanding may lead in first. Not every definition needs every kind of development. Choose an example almost always, and a contrast when a neighbour is easily confused. When a term has an everyday meaning and a subject meaning, name the field and contrast the two. Figures of speech that explain a term by comparison, such as metaphor, belong to Chapter 26. Whether a definition is fair in an argument is Chapter 29's question.

1. Use the frame: a [term] is a [group] that [what sets it apart].
2. Choose a group that is the right size: not 'a thing', not too narrow.
3. Never use the term, or a form of it, to define itself.
4. Name the field when a word has an everyday meaning too.
5. Give at least one example the reader can picture.
6. Contrast the term with a neighbour it is often confused with.
7. Add a limit or a test when the term is often stretched.
8. Choose development that sharpens recognition, not loose facts.
9. Do not let an example replace the definition.
10. Keep every sentence about the one term.

• A peninsula is a piece of land that is surrounded by water on three sides and joined to a larger mass of land on the fourth. The southern part of India is one: the Arabian Sea lies to its west, the Bay of Bengal to its east and the Indian Ocean to its south, while the north joins the rest of Asia. An island is different, because water surrounds it on every side. So when a map shows land reaching out into the sea but still attached at one end, it is showing a peninsula.
• A monsoon is a seasonal wind that changes direction and brings a long rainy season. In much of India, the summer monsoon blows in from the sea and brings most of the year's rain. A single heavy storm is not a monsoon, because a monsoon lasts for months, not hours.
• Democracy is a democratic way of running a country.
• In science, work is done when a force moves an object in the direction of the force. Pushing a heavy cart across a yard is work. Holding a heavy bag still for an hour is not, because the bag does not move.
• A habit is something you do so often that you do it without deciding to. Brushing your teeth before bed is a habit for many people. Peninsulas are often good places for fishing villages.
• A delta is a low, flat area of land formed where a river drops the mud and sand it carries as it reaches the sea. The Nile delta in Egypt, where Omar's grandparents farmed, is one of the best known. A delta grows from what the river brings, unlike a cliff, which the sea wears away.

• A festival is a day or season of celebration that a community marks together, often every year. Diwali, the festival of lights, is one that many families in India celebrate with lamps and sweets. A birthday party is a celebration too, but it marks one person's day, not a whole community's.
• A prime number is a whole number greater than one that can be divided exactly only by one and by itself. Seven is prime. Nine is not, because it can also be divided by three.
• A plateau is like the Deccan.
• A hobby is an activity done regularly for pleasure in one's free time. Stamp collecting and gardening are common hobbies. A job is different: it may be enjoyable, but it is done for pay.
• A mammal is a thing. Dogs are mammals. Some mammals live in the sea.
• A fjord is a long, narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs, carved out by a glacier long ago. Norway's coast, where Ingrid grew up, is famous for them. A bay is also an inlet of the sea, but it is usually wide and open rather than long and narrow.

Opening a piece

An introduction is a paragraph with three parts: a hook, context and a purpose statement. Each has its own job.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: the piece's purpose, stated at the end. Development: hook and context lead to it. Order: hook, context, purpose - general interest narrowing to the exact point. Boundary: anything that does none of the three jobs goes.

Hooks come in several kinds. Choose one that suits the piece and leads toward the purpose.

Notice three things. First, the hook must lead somewhere. A dramatic opening about a tiger escaping from the zoo will grab attention, but if the essay is about the school run, the reader feels tricked. A good hook is the first step toward the purpose, not a detour.

Second, context is what the reader needs, not everything the writer knows. One to three sentences usually do. Background that the body will develop belongs in the body.

Third, the purpose statement is the introduction's topic sentence, placed last. In an essay, it often names the main ideas the body will develop - "safer, calmer and healthier" - so the reader can follow each body paragraph. Whether the argument it announces is strong is Chapter 29's question; how a whole essay delivers on it is Chapter 30's.

Picture a funnel. The hook is the wide mouth at the top, where the reader's attention is caught. Context is the sloping sides, narrowing the reader's view from the scene to the issue. The purpose statement is the narrow spout at the bottom, where everything is directed to one exact point: what this piece will do. A warm-up opening is a funnel with no spout - wide at the top, wide all the way down, and nothing ever directed anywhere.

Sections 22 to 26 built body paragraphs: expository, persuasive and three development patterns. This section builds a paragraph with a different job - opening a whole piece. Section 28 builds its partner, the concluding paragraph. Section 30 then joins any two paragraphs with a content bridge. In Master, section 32, you will write an introduction and a body paragraph under a stated topic and word limit, and Chapter 30 will assemble full essays.

Here is the case that takes judgement: an introduction for a story or personal piece, where a purpose statement would sound wrong. Read this, the opening of a personal essay: "My grandfather kept his watch three minutes fast. For forty years, he said, it had never let him miss a train. The day he gave it to me, it was still three minutes fast, and I have never set it right." There is a hook - a curious detail. There is context - forty years, trains, the gift. But there is no sentence beginning "This essay will describe...". Is the introduction missing its purpose? Run the Topic question from section 21. A personal essay, like a story, may imply its purpose rather than state it. The last sentence - "I have never set it right" - points clearly toward what the piece is about: memory, inheritance, keeping something as it was. The reader knows where the piece is going without being told. Now imagine adding "This essay is about my grandfather's watch and what it means to me." The sentence is accurate, but it flattens the opening and tells the reader what the details already showed. The test is not whether a sentence beginning "This essay" appears. It is whether the reader knows where the piece is going. In an exam essay or a report, state it plainly. In a personal essay or a story, the last sentence of the introduction can point the way without announcing it.

Did you know that one of the most famous opening sentences in English literature is itself a complete introduction? Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, begins: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." It hooks the reader with a bold, slightly comic claim. It gives the context of the whole novel: money, marriage, and what society takes for granted. And it points toward the novel's purpose, because readers soon suspect that the "truth" is being gently mocked. One sentence does all three jobs. Most introductions need a full paragraph, but Austen's opening shows how much an opening can carry when every word is chosen for a purpose.

Hook, context and purpose is the standard shape for essays, reports and articles. A personal essay or a story may imply its purpose rather than state it. The hook must be true and must lead toward the purpose. Do not invent a statistic or a quotation to hook a reader. Keep context short; save evidence for the body. Whether the argument announced is strong is Chapter 29's question. How a whole essay keeps the promise of its purpose statement is Chapter 30's work.

1. Write the purpose statement first, then build the introduction toward it.
2. Choose a hook that suits the piece: a scene, a question, a true fact, a contrast.
3. Make sure the hook leads toward the purpose, not away from it.
4. Never invent a fact or a quotation to hook the reader.
5. Give one to three sentences of context: only what the reader needs.
6. Save evidence and detail for the body paragraphs.
7. End with the purpose statement in an essay or report.
8. Make the purpose say what the piece will argue or explain, not just its topic.
9. Name the main ideas the body will develop when it helps the reader follow.
10. Cut warm-up sentences such as 'Since the beginning of time'.

• Every morning at seven, the lane outside our school becomes a car park. Parents stop in the middle of the road, horns sound, and children squeeze between bumpers to reach the gate. Our school has more than a thousand pupils, and most of them arrive in the same twenty minutes. This essay argues that a walking bus - a group of children walking to school together with an adult - would make that morning journey safer, calmer and healthier.
• What happens to the rain that falls on our school roof? Most of it runs straight into the drain and is lost. In a town where wells run dry by May, that is water we cannot afford to waste. This report explains how a simple rooftop tank could collect it for the school garden.
• Since the beginning of time, people have needed water. Water is very important for everyone. In this essay I will write about water.
• My grandfather kept his watch three minutes fast. For forty years, he said, it had never let him miss a train. The day he gave it to me, it was still three minutes fast, and I have never set it right.
• Our grandparents walked to school; most of us are driven. In one generation, the walk to school has nearly vanished from many towns. This essay explains what children lose when it goes.
• A tiger once escaped from a zoo and walked through a city at night. Our school library opens at eight. This essay argues that it should open at lunchtime too.

• Our school canteen throws away two full buckets of food every afternoon. Most of it is rice and dal that pupils take but do not finish. This essay argues that smaller first servings, with free second helpings, would cut that waste.
• In the hour before the monsoon breaks, the whole village seems to hold its breath. Farmers watch the sky; children stop their games. This piece describes that hour in Asha's village, from the first dark cloud to the first drop.
• Mobile phones were invented in the twentieth century. The first ones were large. Later they became smaller. Phones have many uses, and they have changed in many ways over the years, and today many pupils carry one, and some schools allow them. This essay argues that phones should be allowed in class.
• Could one hour a month change a neighbourhood? On our street, a single Saturday clean-up last spring filled thirty bags. This essay argues that a monthly clean-up would keep the street clean all year.
• The bus was late again, and so was I. It was the third time that week. Our town's buses need to change.
• In Hiro's town, the old cinema has stood empty for ten years. Its doors are chained, and pigeons nest in the sign. This essay argues that it should become a public library.

Closing a piece

A concluding paragraph has two jobs: restate the one idea freshly, and close the piece without opening a new one.

Run the Paragraph Check. Topic: the piece's one idea, restated. Development: the main points, gathered, not re-argued. Order: restate, gather, close - specific points widening to a final thought. Boundary: a new idea goes; it belongs in the body or nowhere.

Closing moves come in several kinds. Choose one that suits the piece.

Notice three things. First, restating is not repeating. "This essay has argued that a walking bus would make the school run safer" copies the introduction. "A walking bus asks for very little" says the same idea in a new way, now that the reader has seen the evidence.

Second, gathering is not re-arguing. One sentence can name the main points; the evidence has already been given in the body and does not need to be told again.

Third, "why it matters" must stay inside the essay's scope. "A walking bus would make our lane safer for every child on it" stays in scope. "A walking bus would end pollution in the whole world" is a new, much larger claim the essay never supported. Whether a call to action is persuasive is Chapter 29's question; how a conclusion closes a whole multi-paragraph essay is developed in Chapter 30.

Picture tying a parcel. The body paragraphs are the things packed inside the box. The conclusion is the string: it goes around everything once, pulling it together, and finishes with a knot. A conclusion that copies the introduction is a second label stuck on the lid. A conclusion that adds a new idea is a loose object balanced on top of the tied box, likely to fall off. A conclusion that simply stops is a box with the string left hanging. The knot is the closing move: small, firm, and the last thing the reader's hand touches.

Section 27 built the introduction: hook, context, purpose statement. This section builds its partner: the conclusion, which restates that purpose and closes the piece. Section 29 asks when a paragraph should split, and section 30 builds the bridge between paragraphs. In Master, section 34, you will summarise a paragraph to its one core idea, the same skill a restatement depends on, and Chapter 30 will close whole essays.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a closing move that looks like a new idea but is not. Read this conclusion to an essay arguing that a town should turn its empty cinema into a library: "An empty building and a town without books are two problems with one answer. Turning the old cinema into a library would give pupils a place to read and give the building a reason to open its doors again. And perhaps one day, on the same screen where films once played, the town will show the work of its own young writers." The last sentence mentions something the essay never argued for: showing young writers' work on the screen. Is that a new idea? Run the Boundary question. A new idea is a claim the reader is asked to accept without support - the swimming pool. This sentence asks the reader to accept nothing. It is a look ahead, marked by "perhaps one day", that grows directly out of the essay's idea: a library, in a cinema, for young readers. It finishes the piece by showing where the idea could lead, not by starting a new argument. Compare: "The town should also build a cinema in the old library." That is a new claim, unrelated to the essay's case, asking to be accepted. The test is not whether the last sentence contains anything new. It is whether it grows from the essay's one idea and finishes it, or opens a new claim the essay never earned.

Did you know that one of the most famous short speeches in English ends with a closing move that gathers its whole purpose into a single sentence? Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered in 1863 at the dedication of a cemetery during the American Civil War, is only a few short paragraphs long. Its final sentence is long and builds steadily toward its end, gathering the speech's ideas - the dead who gave their lives, the living who must carry on their work, and the nation's future - into one closing resolve. The speech does not end with a new topic. It ends by returning to its purpose and lifting it: the meaning of the field the listeners stood on, turned into a promise about the future. That is what a conclusion does. Chapter 27's close-reading section, section 39, studies one of the Address's paragraphs in full.

A conclusion may be one paragraph or, in a long piece, a short final section; in a short answer, one or two sentences may be enough. A look ahead that grows from the essay's idea is not a new idea. A new claim the essay never supported is. Keep 'why it matters' inside the essay's scope. Avoid 'In conclusion' if your teacher prefers fresher openings; it is not wrong, but it cannot do the restating for you. Whether a call to action persuades is Chapter 29's question; closing whole essays is Chapter 30's.

1. Reread your purpose statement before you write the conclusion.
2. Restate the one idea in fresh words, not the introduction's words.
3. Gather the main points in one or two sentences.
4. Do not re-tell the evidence; the body has given it.
5. Choose a closing move: return to the hook, why it matters, look ahead, or a call to action.
6. Keep 'why it matters' inside the essay's scope.
7. Never add a new claim the essay did not develop.
8. Let a look ahead grow from the essay's own idea.
9. End with a sentence that finishes the piece.
10. Check the last sentence: knot, or loose string?

• A walking bus asks for very little: a route, a timetable and one adult for every few children. In return, it would take cars out of the lane, give pupils a calm start to the day and add a short walk to every morning. The school run does not have to begin with horns and bumpers. It could begin with a line of children, walking to school together.
• A rooftop tank would cost the school little and save it much. The rain that now runs into the drain could keep the garden green through May. Every monsoon, the roof would quietly fill the tank for the dry months ahead.
• In conclusion, this essay has argued that the canteen should serve smaller first portions. Smaller first portions would cut waste. The canteen should serve smaller first portions.
• A monthly clean-up asks one hour of each family and gives back a street to be proud of. The thirty bags from last spring show what one Saturday can do. The council should also lower our water bills.
• The walk to school was never only about getting there. It gave children time to talk, to notice their street and to arrive awake. If we bring it back on one street, the next street may follow.
• An empty cinema and a town without books are two problems with one answer. A library in the old building would give pupils a place to read and give the building a reason to open its doors. Perhaps one day, on the same screen, the town will show the work of its own young writers.

• Twenty minutes a day is a small piece of the timetable. Given to free reading, it could turn pupils who finish no book into pupils who finish several. A school that makes time for reading makes readers.
• A filter in every room would let pupils drink without leaving lessons. On the hottest days, it would keep them in class and alert. Every classroom also needs new fans, new desks and new curtains.
• Banning plastic bags at the market would keep our drain clear and our lane dry. Cloth bags cost a little more, but they last for years. Next monsoon, the corner could stay dry for the first time in a decade.
• Libraries are good. Reading is good. Lunchtime is good.
• Opening the library at lunch would give every pupil a quiet hour. The room is already there; only the door needs unlocking. The question for the head teacher is simple: why keep it shut?
• An extra rush-hour bus would end the late mornings on our route. Pupils like Amara, who now miss first lesson every week, would arrive on time. A walking bus would end pollution everywhere in the world.

When to split

A paragraph should split when a second idea has crept in and is being developed. The Boundary question decides it, not the length.

This is the fourth question of the Paragraph Check, Boundary, at full strength: has a second idea crept in - time to split - or is the one idea still thin - time to develop it?

Three tests help you find the split point and make the right decision.

Notice three things. First, a time or place word can hide a turn. "On the way back" sounds like more of the trek, but the sentence it opens is about something else entirely. Judge by the idea, not by the opening words.

Second, a split usually needs a small repair. The new paragraph may need its own topic sentence, and the old one may need a closing sentence, so that each stands on its own. Section 30 builds the bridge between them.

Third, splitting for idea is not the same as breaking for effect. A writer may set one short sentence alone on the page for drama; that mark-level choice belongs to Chapter 25. This section asks whether the content inside a paragraph still holds one idea.

Picture two rooms in a house with the wall between them knocked down. From the doorway it looks like one large room. But walk in and you find a kitchen at one end - stove, sink, shelves - and a bedroom at the other - bed, cupboard, lamp. Nothing is wrong with either. The problem is that they share one space. Cutting the bed in half will not help. Splitting a paragraph is putting the wall back up, in exactly the place where the kitchen ends and the bedroom begins.

Discover section 9 asked how long a paragraph should be, and Practice section 15 checked unity on longer paragraphs. Sections 22 to 28 built paragraphs of every kind. This section brings the Boundary question to full strength: when a paragraph should become two. Section 30 then builds the content bridge that joins them. In Master, section 35, you will revise longer drafts for unity, deciding when to cut, move or split.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a long paragraph that looks like two ideas but is really one. Read this, from a report on a school sports day: "Sports day was a success because of how it was organised. Events ran to a printed timetable, so no race started late. Each house had a marshal who led its runners to the start line. Water stations stood at both ends of the field, staffed by Class 9 volunteers. A first-aid tent sat by the gate, and it was needed only twice. When rain threatened at two o'clock, the organisers moved the last events into the hall within ten minutes." It is long, and it covers timetables, marshals, water, first aid and rain. Should it split? Run the name-it test. One phrase covers every sentence: how the day was organised. Timetable, marshals, water, first aid and the rain plan are all developments of that one idea. There is no turn. The paragraph is long because its one idea has many supporting details, not because a second idea crept in. Now change the last sentence: "The 100 metres was won by Arjun, who also broke the school record." That sentence is about results, not organisation, and if two more sentences followed it about other winners, it would be the turn. The test is not length, and not the number of different nouns. It is whether one short phrase can cover every sentence. If it can, keep the paragraph whole, however long.

Did you know that paragraph length has changed with the page it is read on? Many novels and essays from the nineteenth century contain paragraphs that run for a page or more. Readers of the time were used to long, unbroken blocks of print. Newspapers, printed in narrow columns, have long used much shorter paragraphs, sometimes only a sentence or two, so that a column of print does not become a wall. Writing for phone screens has pushed many writers shorter still. Yet the principle underneath has not changed. A short newspaper paragraph and a long Victorian one each hold a unit of thought; they simply cut that unit to a different size for a different page. That is why this chapter never gives a word-count rule. The Boundary question - has a second idea crept in? - works on any page.

Length alone never decides a split. A long paragraph with one idea stays whole; a short one with two ideas splits. One stray sentence is trimmed or moved, not turned into its own paragraph. After a split, check that each paragraph stands on its own; it may need a new topic sentence or a closing line, and a bridge (section 30). A one-sentence paragraph set alone for effect is a punctuation-and-layout choice owned by Chapter 25. Different publications prefer different typical lengths; the idea test still applies.

1. Name the paragraph's first idea in a short phrase.
2. Read sentence by sentence: is this still covered by the phrase?
3. Mark the first sentence that is not.
4. Ask whether the sentences after it develop a new idea.
5. If they do, split at the marked sentence.
6. If only one sentence strays, trim or move it instead.
7. Keep a long paragraph whole if one phrase covers every sentence.
8. Do not be fooled by time or place words that open a new idea.
9. After splitting, give each paragraph what it needs to stand alone.
10. Never split by word count; split by idea.

• The trek to the waterfall began at six, when the path was still cool and wet. For the first hour we climbed through tea gardens, and Kavya counted the pickers' baskets as we passed. By nine, the sun was high and the path turned to loose stones. The waterfall itself was smaller than the photographs, but louder than anything I had imagined. On the way back, Kavya told me she wanted to become a doctor. Her mother had been ill the year before, and the nurse who looked after her had changed how Kavya thought about her own future. She had already started reading about the body in the evenings.
• Sports day was a success because of how it was organised. Events ran to a printed timetable. Each house had a marshal. Water stations stood at both ends of the field. When rain threatened, the last events moved into the hall within ten minutes.
• Our school library is the quietest room in the building. Its windows face the garden, away from the road. The librarian keeps a strict rule of whispers only. My uncle drives a taxi in Delhi. Even at lunchtime, you can hear the clock tick.
• The fire drill went smoothly. Every class left by its nearest door, and the whole school stood on the field within four minutes. Afterwards, Mr Hughes announced the results of the art competition. Sophie won first prize for her painting of the harbour. Second place went to a pupil in Year 7.
• Exercise is good for the heart.
• Lucia's first week in the new city was lonely. She ate lunch alone and walked home by herself. She knew no one on her street. By the second month, everything had changed. She had joined the football team and found two close friends.

• Diwali at our house begins days before the festival. My mother cleans every corner, and my father strings lights along the balcony. On the night itself, we light diyas on every step. My cousin in Pune is studying engineering. He hopes to work on bridges, and he spends his holidays visiting construction sites.
• The village pond is the heart of village life. In the morning, women wash clothes on its steps. At noon, buffaloes wade in to cool themselves. In the evening, children race paper boats across it. Old men sit on the bank and talk until dark.
• The science fair hall was crowded by ten. Every table held a model, a chart or a small machine. Rahul's water filter drew the biggest crowd. The canteen sold out of samosas by eleven. Judges moved from table to table with clipboards.
• Our first camping night was cold. The wind found every gap in the tent, and we wore our coats inside our sleeping bags. Later that night, Dad told us how he had learned to swim. His father had taught him in a river, holding him up by the back of his shirt. By the end of the summer, he could swim across.
• Volunteering at the animal shelter taught me patience. The dogs that arrived frightened took weeks to trust anyone. I learned to sit quietly in their pens until they came to me. One old dog, Bramble, took a whole month.
• Kofi's market stall sells fruit from his family's farm. Mangoes come in May, and oranges in December. He arrives before dawn to set out his crates. The farm is a different story. His grandmother still runs it, and she refuses to use any machine her own mother did not use.

The bridge to what comes next

A content bridge carries an idea from the end of one paragraph into the start of the next, so the reader can see how the second grows from the first.

This uses the Paragraph Check across the join. Topic: each paragraph keeps its own idea. Order: the second grows from the first. Boundary: the bridge sits at the edge, linking two ideas without merging them.

Content bridges come in a few common shapes, depending on how the two ideas relate.

Notice three things. First, the bridge is usually at the start of the new paragraph, but it may be helped by the end of the old one. A closing sentence that points ahead - "But safety is only the first gain" - can prepare the crossing.

Second, the bridge picks up an idea, not just a word. Repeating "lane" at the start of the next paragraph is not enough if the idea has nothing to do with the last one. The shared element must be part of the meaning.

Third, a bridge does not merge two paragraphs. It links two ideas at their edge; each paragraph still holds its own. The words that signal the relation - also, though, as a result, once - belong to Chapter 21. Assembling many paragraphs into a full essay is Chapter 30's work.

Picture crossing a stream on stepping stones. Each paragraph is a stone, solid and complete. The bridge is the reach from one stone to the next: you can only step across if the next stone is close enough to the one you are standing on. A content bridge places the first sentence of the new paragraph right beside the last sentence of the old one, so the reader's foot finds it. A linking word alone is a shout of 'jump!' across a wide gap; it may encourage the reader, but it does not move the stone any closer.

Section 29 split paragraphs that held two ideas. This section joins the paragraphs that result, with a bridge made of content. Sections 27 and 28 built introductions and conclusions; a bridge links them to the body. This closes the Craft band. In Master, section 31, you will run the full Paragraph Check on demanding paragraphs, and Chapter 30 will assemble whole essays, paragraph by paragraph, with every bridge in place.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a bridge for a contrast, where the next paragraph pushes against the last. Read the end of one paragraph and the start of the next, from an essay weighing a walking bus: "... For most families on our street, a walking bus would be safer, calmer and free." Then: "For families who live beyond the river, however, the walk would take forty minutes." The second paragraph argues against the first. Is there a bridge, or a jump? Look at what is carried across. "For most families on our street" ends the first paragraph; "For families who live beyond the river" begins the second. The shared idea is families and where they live. The second sentence picks it up and turns it: not most families, but some; not near, but far. The contrast is built from the same material as the agreement. Compare a weaker version: "However, the walking bus has problems." The word however signals contrast, but nothing in the sentence shows which part of the first paragraph is being pushed against. The reader must guess. The test is whether the reader can see what is being picked up and how it is turned - added to, caused, contrasted or followed. A contrast bridge is still a bridge: it reaches back to a specific idea before it pushes against it.

Did you know that the classic old textbooks on writing devoted much of their advice to the paragraph? In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many English composition textbooks taught the paragraph as the central unit of writing, with rules about unity, coherence and emphasis. They described how a paragraph should hold together inside, and how one paragraph should lead into the next. The details of their rules varied, and later writers questioned some of them, especially rules about exactly where a topic sentence must sit. But the core advice about coherence has lasted: a reader should be able to feel how each paragraph grows from the one before. That is the bridge this section builds. The rules may change from textbook to textbook; the reader's need to cross from one stone to the next does not.

A content bridge usually opens the new paragraph, but the closing sentence of the old one can prepare it. A linking word is not wrong; it can signal the relation. It simply cannot replace the shared idea. Not every paragraph needs an elaborate bridge. In a list of separate steps or a set of distinct sections with headings, a lighter link may be enough. The linking words themselves, and given-before-new order within sentences, belong to Chapter 21. Assembling full essays is Chapter 30's work.

1. Read the last sentence of the paragraph you are leaving.
2. Name its idea in a few words.
3. Open the next paragraph by picking up that idea.
4. Turn it toward the new paragraph's idea in the same sentence.
5. Decide the relation: addition, result, contrast or next step.
6. Let a linking word signal the relation, if it helps, but never replace it.
7. Pick up an idea, not just a repeated word.
8. Keep the bridge short so the new paragraph starts its own idea.
9. Vary your openings; do not start every paragraph with 'Also'.
10. Read each join aloud to check the reader can cross.

• The danger of the morning rush would shrink to the width of a pavement. | A safer lane would also be a calmer one.
• Most of the waste is rice that pupils take but do not finish. | Smaller first servings would stop that rice reaching the bucket.
• The danger of the morning rush would shrink. | Furthermore, our school was founded in 1962.
• For most families on our street, a walking bus would be safer, calmer and free. | For families who live beyond the river, however, the walk would take forty minutes.
• The route would follow the quiet lane behind the park. | The lane was named after a local poet in the last century.
• Once the route is agreed, the plan is half finished. | The other half is people: the walking bus needs one adult for every few children.

• By May, the wells in our town run dry. | That is when a tank of collected rainwater would matter most.
• The fair showed how much pupils learn by building. | Building, though, needs space, and our science lab is the smallest room in school.
• Twenty minutes of reading a day adds up to many hours in a year. | Also, the library has a new carpet.
• With fewer cars stopping in the lane, the morning traffic would ease. | Easier traffic would also mean cleaner air at the school gate.
• Thirty bags in one morning showed what a single clean-up can do. | What one clean-up can do once, a monthly clean-up could do all year.
• For Wei's grandmother, the stall was a way to earn a living. | For Wei, it became something more: the place where he learned to talk to strangers.

Thinking like a writer · ages 16–19

Unity and order, together

The full Paragraph Check runs four questions in order, then makes one decision. At this level, it is how you find problems that smooth reading hides.

If all four questions pass, the decision is to keep the paragraph as it is - and that, too, should be defended.

Quiet problems are the ones this band is about. Each hides behind a feature that sounds right.

Notice three things. First, run the questions in order. A paragraph with no clear topic cannot be judged for development, because there is nothing to develop; Topic comes first.

Second, one paragraph usually needs one main decision. If you find several problems, fix the one that the others depend on. A paragraph that needs splitting may look disordered only because two ideas are tangled; split first, then check each half's order.

Third, the justification matters as much as the decision. "Trim the history sentence, because it is on the topic but off the idea (Boundary)" can be checked by any reader. "It sounds better without it" cannot.

Picture a building inspector with a four-page checklist: foundations, walls, the order of the rooms, and the property line. A house can look beautiful from the street - fresh paint, neat windows - and still have a crack in the foundation or a shed built on the neighbour's land. The inspector does not judge by the paint. She walks the four pages in order, because a cracked foundation makes the walls irrelevant. The Paragraph Check is that checklist: Topic is the foundation, Development the walls, Order the rooms, Boundary the property line.

The Discover, Practice and Craft bands each built part of the Paragraph Check: grouping and order, then topic sentences and development, then patterns, introductions, conclusions, splitting and bridging. This section opens the Master band by running all four questions together on demanding paragraphs. Sections 32 to 38 apply the full check to exam tasks, notes, summaries, revision and genres; section 39 reads a published paragraph with it, and section 40 asks you to build and defend your own.

Here is the case that takes the most judgement: two sound decisions, and you must choose which comes first. Read this, from an essay on school uniforms: "School uniforms reduce visible differences in family income. When everyone wears the same clothes, pupils cannot tell who owns expensive brands. Uniforms can be costly, though, and some families struggle to buy the full set each year. Some schools now run second-hand uniform shops to help. A pupil from a poorer family may feel less singled out in a classroom where everyone looks alike." Run the check. Topic: the first sentence claims uniforms reduce visible income differences. Development: the brands sentence and the last sentence support it. Order: the last sentence, which supports the claim, is separated from the claim by two sentences about cost. Boundary: the cost sentences are a second idea - uniforms can themselves be a burden - developed by the second-hand shop sentence. So there are two problems: a second idea (Boundary) and a misplaced support sentence (Order). Which first? Split first. The order problem exists only because the second idea has been dropped into the middle. Once the cost sentences move to their own paragraph, the last sentence sits directly after the brands sentence, and the order mends itself. Reordering first would only shuffle a tangled paragraph. The test is which problem the other depends on. Fix that one, then re-run the check.

Did you know that checklists have been credited with reducing serious errors in fields such as aviation and surgery? Pilots have long worked through written checklists before take-off, so that no step is skipped, however experienced the crew. In the 2000s, a short surgical safety checklist was promoted internationally, and studies of its use reported fewer complications in some hospitals. The reason is not that experts do not know the steps. It is that a smooth, familiar routine makes it easy to skip one without noticing. A checklist turns 'it feels fine' into 'I have checked'. The Paragraph Check works the same way. An experienced writer knows what a good paragraph is; the four questions, run in order, stop smooth reading from skipping the step where the quiet problem hides.

One paragraph usually needs one main decision. Fix the problem the others depend on, then re-run the check. 'Keep it as it is' is a real decision and should be defended like the others. The check judges architecture, not grammar, word choice or rhythm. A sentence-level fault is Chapter 23's, a rhythm problem Chapter 24's, and wordiness Chapter 20's. In a story or memoir, Topic may be implied (section 21); run the check on the implied idea.

1. Read once for sense before you judge.
2. Run the four questions in order: Topic, Development, Order, Boundary.
3. Write the Topic in one sentence before checking anything else.
4. Distrust smoothness; look for on-topic strays.
5. Test each 'new' sentence: does it add, or only rephrase?
6. Name the order and the reason it suits the job.
7. Look for second ideas inside single clauses.
8. Make one main decision: keep, develop, reorder or split (or trim).
9. If problems overlap, fix the one the others depend on first.
10. Justify the decision in one sentence that names the question.

• Public libraries are no longer only places to borrow books. Many now lend laptops and offer free internet, so that students without a connection at home can complete online coursework. In the town where Nisha grew up, the library ran evening classes in spoken English for adults who had left school early. Some libraries also lend tools, seeds or musical instruments. Libraries were first built in ancient times to store written records. Taken together, these services make the library one of the few public places where anyone can learn something new without paying.
• School uniforms reduce visible differences in family income. When everyone wears the same clothes, pupils cannot tell who owns expensive brands. Uniforms can be costly, though, and some families struggle to buy the full set. Some schools now run second-hand uniform shops. A pupil from a poorer family may feel less singled out where everyone looks alike.
• Mobile phones can help students learn. They give access to dictionaries, maps and lessons. Students can look up a word in seconds. Phones are learning tools for students who use them well. Phones, in short, help students to learn.
• The town's flood defences failed for three reasons. The most serious was that the river wall had not been repaired after the previous winter. A drain near the bridge was also blocked with debris. And the warning siren, tested only once a year, failed to sound until the water was already in the streets.
• Volunteering abroad can broaden a young person's view of the world. Living with a host family shows how differently daily life can be organised. On the other hand, short trips can cost more than they give to the communities visited. Working alongside local people teaches skills no classroom can.
• Rainwater harvesting suits towns with long dry seasons. In Juan's town, months pass with almost no rain, then storms arrive in a few weeks. A rooftop tank fills during those weeks and supplies water for gardens long after. Taken together, these features make harvesting a practical answer to an uneven year.

• Street food is part of a city's character. In Kolkata, phuchka sellers line the pavements every evening. Their stalls are where office workers, students and families stand side by side. The city also has a famous tram network. A city without its street food would lose one of the places where its people meet.
• Exam stress affects many students in their final year. Many students feel stressed during exams. Stress can make it hard to sleep. Students under pressure often find exams stressful.
• Learning a second language changes how a person thinks about their first. Sana noticed that Hindi verbs carried respect in a way English verbs did not. Translating a simple greeting forced her to choose how formal to be. By the end of the year, she found herself noticing formality in English too.
• The bus arrived late. The museum was closed when we got there. We had planned the trip for weeks. We finally saw the exhibition the following Saturday.
• Cycling to work improves health. It strengthens the heart and lungs. Cities can also cut traffic by building cycle lanes. Wider lanes need planning permission and money from the council.
• Kenji's grandmother kept a garden on the roof of her apartment block in Osaka. Tomatoes grew in buckets along one wall. Herbs filled old rice sacks by the stairs. In the evenings, neighbours came up to sit among the plants and talk.

The exam paragraph-writing task

Under a word limit, plan the paragraph's architecture first, then write to the plan.

The plan is the Paragraph Check in advance: Topic is the claim line, Development the support lines, Order the order line, Boundary the check at the end.

The task word shapes the whole paragraph. Read it as carefully as the topic.

Notice three things. First, a mismatch with the task word is a structural error, not a small slip. A beautiful description of a garden does not answer "explain why a garden is valuable".

Second, a word limit is a design limit. If the limit is about 120 words, a claim and three or four developed supports fit; seven supports do not, and an answer that tries will list instead of develop. Choose fewer supports and develop them.

Third, do not pad toward the limit. If the plan is done and the paragraph is short, develop a support further with an example; do not add a new idea or a restated claim. Exact rules about how strictly a limit is applied vary between assessments, so follow the instructions you are given; the architecture works for any limit.

Picture packing a small suitcase for a weekend trip with a strict weight limit. You do not throw things in until the zip will not close. You decide first what the trip needs - clothes for two days, a toothbrush, a book - and give each its corner. The plan is the packing list; the word limit is the suitcase. A writer who starts without a plan fills the case with the first things they see and finds, at the end, that the toothbrush will not fit.

Section 31 ran the full Paragraph Check on paragraphs already written. This section runs it before writing, as a plan, under a stated topic and word limit. Section 33 turns notes into a developed paragraph, and section 38 returns to exam conditions with the check run at speed. The expository and persuasive shapes of sections 22 and 23 are the ones most exam paragraph tasks call for.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a task that seems to ask for two things in one paragraph. Read this task: "In about 120 words, describe your favourite place and explain why it matters to you." Two task words: describe and explain. Does that mean two ideas, and so a paragraph that should split? Run the Topic question on the task, not the answer. The task names one subject - your favourite place - and two jobs to do with it. The paragraph's one idea can carry both: "My grandmother's veranda matters to me because it is where I learned to listen." Description then serves the explanation: the creaking swing, the smell of jasmine, the evening stories, each chosen because it shows why the place matters. Compare a paragraph that describes the veranda for eighty words and then adds, "It matters to me because I like it." That answer has treated the two jobs as two separate halves, and the second half is thin. Now compare a task that truly asks for two ideas: "Describe your school and explain how you would change its timetable." Two subjects, two jobs; in one paragraph the Boundary question will strain. If the instructions demand one paragraph, the writer must find a single idea that joins them, or keep each half tightly linked. The test is whether one claim can carry both task words. If it can, let the description serve the explanation; if it cannot, the plan must say how the two parts are joined.

Did you know that the habit of planning before writing appears in advice going back centuries? Ancient teachers of rhetoric divided the work of composing a speech into stages, and the first stages - finding what to say and arranging it - came before choosing the words. The Roman tradition named these stages, and arrangement, the ordering of material, was treated as its own skill. Modern research on writing has often contrasted writers who plan with writers who simply start and keep going, and many teachers recommend at least a brief plan, especially under time limits. The four-line plan in this section is that old order of work in miniature: find the claim, arrange the support, then write.

Exam instructions vary. Follow the stated word limit, the number of paragraphs and any format you are given. A four-line plan is a guide, not a rule; some writers plan in a short list or a quick diagram. The task word decides the shape. Explain calls for claim and evidence; describe for an impression; argue for point and support; narrate for time order. This section describes paragraph tasks generically; it does not copy any real paper. Assembling multi-paragraph essays under time is Chapter 30's work.

1. Underline the topic, the task word and the word limit.
2. Answer the exact question asked, not a nearby one.
3. Write a four-line plan: claim, supports, order, close.
4. Choose two to four supports and develop them; do not list seven.
5. Divide the limit between the parts before you write.
6. Match the shape to the task word.
7. When two task words appear, find one claim that carries both.
8. If you run short, develop a support further; never pad.
9. Check every sentence against the task word and the claim.
10. Check the length last, against the plan.

• A school garden teaches pupils lessons that a classroom cannot. In a garden, science stops being a diagram: pupils watch a seed split, a root reach down and a shoot turn toward the light. Maths becomes practical when a class measures a bed and works out how many plants it can hold. The garden also teaches patience, because beans planted in June will not be ready until August, and no amount of hurrying helps. Finally, pupils who grow food are more likely to try eating it, and many discover vegetables they once refused. For these reasons, a garden is not a break from learning but one of its best classrooms.
• My grandmother's veranda matters to me because it is where I learned to listen. Every evening, the swing creaked as she rocked and told stories of her village. The jasmine by the steps scented the air. I learned to wait for the end of a story, and to hear what she did not say.
• Gardens are very nice. There are flowers and trees. My grandmother grows roses, which are red and pink and smell lovely. Roses need water every day. Pollution is bad for gardens. In conclusion, gardens are good.
• Sleep helps students learn in many ways. It helps memory, mood, focus, health, growth, energy and behaviour. These are all important. Sleep is therefore very important for students.
• Cycle lanes would make our town's roads safer. At present, cyclists share narrow roads with buses and lorries. A separate lane would give them space of their own, away from heavy traffic. Parents who now drive their children to school might let them cycle instead, which would cut traffic further. For these reasons, the council should build cycle lanes on the three busiest roads.
• Forests are beautiful. Walking through Mateo's local forest, you hear birds and smell pine. The light comes through the leaves in thin beams. It is very peaceful there.

• The village pond is calm at dawn. Mist lies on the water. A heron stands still at the edge, and the only sound is a distant bell. By the time the sun clears the trees, the mist has gone.
• Public transport should be free for students. Many students travel long distances to school. Fares take a large share of a family's budget. Free travel would let more students attend regularly. It would also reduce traffic. And it would help the environment. And it would teach independence. And it would be fair.
• On the morning of the results, Vikram woke before his alarm. He checked his phone three times before breakfast. When the message came, he read it twice, then ran to wake his mother.
• Libraries matter because they are free. Libraries matter because everyone can use them. Libraries matter because they have books. Libraries matter, then, for many reasons. Libraries really do matter.
• A good team captain listens before she decides. When Emma's netball team lost three games in a row, she asked each player what was going wrong before changing anything. Two players said the warm-up was too short; she lengthened it. The team won its next match.
• Rivers matter to farmers because they bring water and soil. Farmers like Ama's family along the Volta in Ghana use river water for their fields in the dry months. Floods also leave fresh silt on the banks, which helps crops grow. Without the river, the dry season would leave the fields bare.

From notes to paragraph

To expand notes into a paragraph, choose a claim, select the notes that serve it, order and develop them, and leave the rest out.

This is the Paragraph Check used to build. Topic: the claim. Development: each note explained. Order: chosen for a reason. Boundary: the notes set aside.

Notes are compressed. Expanding them well means adding connection, never invention.

Notice three things. First, development adds the link the note left out - "so that less of the shore is worn away" - not a new fact. If you do not know a figure, do not supply one.

Second, keep the notes' hedges. A note that says "reported" or "some" or "may" records how certain the information is. Dropping the hedge turns a careful note into an overclaim.

Third, a note set aside is not wasted. The notes on carbon and on cutting for shrimp farms could become a second paragraph: mangroves are valuable, and they are under threat. Notes often hold two or three paragraphs; the first job is to see which notes belong together. Signal words such as so, too and when belong to Chapter 21; this section owns which notes become the paragraph.

Picture a cook given a basket of ingredients and asked for one dish. A poor cook throws everything into one pot - fish, mangoes, chocolate, rice - because it was all in the basket. A good cook first decides the dish: a fish curry. Then she takes the fish, the onions, the spices and the coconut, puts the mangoes and chocolate back for another day, and cooks the chosen ingredients in the order the recipe needs. The notes are the basket. The claim is the dish. The paragraph is what you cook.

Section 32 planned a paragraph from a task. This section builds one from notes - material someone else has gathered, or you have gathered in a hurry. It joins the development patterns of sections 22 to 26 to the selection judgement of section 29. Section 34 turns the process around: compressing a full paragraph back down to its one core idea. Section 40 asks you to do both without scaffolding.

Here is the case that takes judgement: notes that support two equally strong claims. Read these notes on a town's old market hall: - built 1890s, carved stone front - empty for ten years - roof leaking - town has no library - council short of money - local artists want studio space - many residents remember market days Two claims are possible. One: the hall should be saved because of its history - the stone front, residents' memories. Two: the hall should be reused because the town has needs it could meet - a library, artists' studios. Both are supported by several notes. Which should the paragraph use? First, check the task. If it asks why the hall matters, history is the stronger claim. If it asks what should be done with it, reuse is. The task decides, as in section 32. If the task leaves it open, choose the claim that more notes support directly, and that you can develop rather than list. Then check the notes that remain: "roof leaking" and "council short of money" support neither claim, but they matter to both. They may belong in a second paragraph about the obstacles. What you must not do is combine both claims into one paragraph and give each two short sentences. The test is not how many notes you use. It is whether one claim, fully developed, holds every sentence.

Did you know that one well-known note-taking method divides the page before any notes are written? The Cornell note-taking system, developed at Cornell University in the United States in the twentieth century, divides a page into a wide column for notes, a narrow column for key words or questions, and a space at the bottom for a short summary. The summary space asks the note-taker to do, in a few lines, what this section asks: find the main idea the notes add up to. The key-word column asks which notes belong together. The method is one of many, and students use it in different ways. But its shape makes a useful point: notes are not finished until someone has decided what they mean.

Some tasks ask you to use all the points given. Follow the instructions; then build the paragraph so the points serve one claim, in a purposeful order. Never add facts the notes do not give. Connection is development; invention is not. Keep every hedge the notes record. Notes often hold more than one paragraph. Group them first; set aside the notes that belong elsewhere.

1. Read all the notes before writing anything.
2. Group the notes that point to the same idea.
3. Choose one group and write its idea as a claim.
4. Check the task: it may decide which claim to choose.
5. Select only the notes that serve the claim.
6. Order them for a reason, not in the order they were written.
7. Turn each note into a sentence that explains, not just states.
8. Add connection, never invented facts.
9. Keep every hedge: reported, some, may.
10. Set aside the other notes for another paragraph, or for none at all.

• Mangrove forests protect the coasts where they grow. These trees stand with their roots in salt water, and the tangle of roots slows incoming waves, so that less of the shore is worn away. When cyclones strike, villages sheltered behind thick mangroves have been reported to suffer less damage than those on open shore. The forests protect life below the water too, serving as a nursery where young fish can grow in safety. A coast that keeps its mangroves keeps a living sea wall.
• Mangroves are coastal trees. Their roots slow waves. They are a nursery for fish. They store carbon. Cyclones do less damage behind them. Tourists like boat trips. Some are cut for firewood.
• Mangroves protect the coast. Their roots reduce wave height by ninety per cent, and they stop all cyclone damage.
• The old market hall could meet two of the town's needs. The town has no library, and the hall, empty for ten years, could become one. Local artists want studio space, and part of the hall could give it to them. Reusing the hall would put an empty building to work for the whole town.
• Notes: bees - pollinate crops; honey; some sting; colonies declining in some areas (reported); farmers rely on them. Paragraph: Bees matter to farmers because they pollinate many crops. Without that pollination, many of those crops would form far less fruit. In some areas, colonies have been reported to be declining, which worries the farmers who rely on them.
• Notes: reef - coral, warm shallow water; fish shelter; tourism; bleaching when water too warm. Paragraph: In Leila's coastal town, the reef is a shelter long before it is a sight. Small fish hide among the coral from larger hunters, and many species spend their young lives there. When the water grows too warm, the coral can bleach, and the shelter begins to fail.

• Notes: monsoon - June to September; most yearly rain; farmers sow with first rains; late monsoon delays sowing; film songs about rain. Paragraph: The monsoon sets the farming calendar in much of India. It brings most of the year's rain between June and September, and many farmers sow their main crops when the first rains arrive. When the monsoon is late, sowing is delayed, and the whole season slips.
• Notes: Sana - library; nowhere quiet at home; three siblings; homework done there; librarian helps. Paragraph: Sana goes to the library. She has three siblings. Homework. The librarian helps.
• Notes: school garden - science, maths, patience; tomatoes easy; Grandpa's roses; pupils try new vegetables. Paragraph: A school garden teaches pupils what a classroom cannot: science in a splitting seed, maths in a measured bed, patience in beans that take weeks. Pupils who grow vegetables are also more likely to try eating them.
• Notes: walking bus - one adult per few children; fewer cars; calmer mornings; some families far away. Paragraph: A walking bus would make mornings calmer. Families far away could not join, and the bus needs adults, and there would be fewer cars, and mornings would be calmer.
• Notes: sleep - memory strengthened; may affect mood (some studies); screens before bed. Paragraph: Sleep helps students remember what they study, because the sleeping brain strengthens many new memories. Some studies suggest it may affect mood as well, though the notes do not say how strongly.
• Notes: Kofi - market stall; mangoes in May; oranges in December; up before dawn; grandmother runs farm. Paragraph: Kofi's market stall follows the seasons of his family's farm. In May his crates fill with mangoes, and by December they hold oranges. He is up before dawn to set them out, so that the first shoppers find the freshest fruit.

Summarising a paragraph

A summary states the paragraph's one core idea in one sentence of your own, at the right size, with the examples left out.

Summarising is the Topic question of the Paragraph Check run in reverse: instead of building from the idea, you recover it from the paragraph.

Four tests check a one-sentence summary.

Notice three things. First, the idea can sit anywhere. In an expository paragraph it is usually first; in a paragraph that builds toward a point, like the album paragraph, it is last; in a narrative or descriptive paragraph it may be implied (section 21), and you must state it yourself.

Second, fidelity is easy to lose. Writers hedge on purpose - "in a sense", "some families" - and a summary that drops the hedge turns a careful thought into a claim the writer never made. This is the same rule as keeping hedges in notes (section 33), run the other way.

Third, a summary is not a judgement. "The writer makes a good point about albums" is a comment, not a summary. Whether the paragraph's argument is strong is Chapter 29's question; here, the job is to say what it says.

Picture boiling down a large pot of fruit into a small jar of jam. Nothing new goes in, and the water - the examples, the details, the repetitions - boils away. What is left is the same fruit, concentrated: the paragraph's idea, at full strength, in a much smaller space. A summary that adds sugar of its own is no longer the same jam. A summary that keeps one strawberry and throws away the rest is not jam at all. And a jar labelled simply 'fruit' tells you nothing about what is inside.

Section 21 named implied ideas, and section 33 built a paragraph up from notes. This section runs the process the other way: it reduces a finished paragraph to its core. Section 35 uses the same skill to revise: you cannot cut what breaks a draft's unity until you can state the idea it should serve. Section 39 summarises a published paragraph as part of close reading.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph that seems to make two points, where the summary must find how they connect. Read this: "Many towns are planting trees along their streets to keep pavements cool in summer. The trees bring other changes too: shaded streets are often quieter, and some residents report spending more time outdoors. Yet street trees need years of care before they give much shade, and young trees often die in their first dry season." The paragraph says that street trees bring benefits, and also that they take time and care. Is the summary two sentences? Ask how the points relate. The last sentence begins with "Yet" and qualifies the benefits; it does not start a new subject. The core idea is the balance: street trees can cool and improve streets, but only with years of care. A one-sentence summary can hold that balance: "Street trees can cool and improve town streets, but only if young trees survive the years of care they need." A summary that keeps only the benefits - "Street trees cool streets and make people spend more time outside" - drops the qualification and distorts the paragraph. One that keeps only the problem - "Young street trees often die" - is too narrow. The test is whether the summary keeps the relationship between the points - here, benefit qualified by cost - as well as the points themselves. If the paragraph balances, the summary must balance.

Did you know that one of the oldest forms of writing advice in English is a demand for summaries? For centuries, students in English schools practised a task called précis, from a French word meaning precise: reducing a passage to a fraction of its length while keeping its meaning. Précis writing was a standard exercise in many schools and was used in examinations for some public services in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The exercise trained exactly the judgement this section teaches: what is the core, what is an example, and what is only decoration. The word is less common now, but the skill has spread everywhere: in the abstract at the top of a research article, the summary at the start of a report, and the one-line preview under an email's subject.

Some tasks ask for a summary of a set length or in a set number of points. Follow the instructions; the core-idea test still applies. The idea may be stated first, stated last, or implied. Read the whole paragraph before deciding. Keep the paragraph's hedges and its balance. A qualified claim must stay qualified. A summary says what the paragraph says. Judging whether its argument is strong is Chapter 29's work.

1. Read the whole paragraph before you write.
2. Do not assume the first sentence holds the idea.
3. Ask the Topic question: what is the one idea, stated or implied?
4. Write it in one sentence, in your own words.
5. Leave out examples, figures and details.
6. Check coverage: does it cover the whole paragraph?
7. Check size: does it go no wider than the paragraph?
8. Keep hedges such as 'some', 'many' and 'in a sense'.
9. Keep any balance or qualification between points.
10. Say what the paragraph says; do not comment on it.

• For most of the twentieth century, a family's photographs lived in albums: a few dozen pictures a year, chosen, printed and pasted in by hand. Today a single phone may hold thousands of images, most of them never looked at twice. Some families have begun printing a small number each year again, choosing the few that matter. In a sense, they are rediscovering what the old album did without trying: it made a family decide what was worth remembering. | Summary: The old album's limits made families choose what to remember, a choice that phones have taken away.
• Rivers shaped where early towns grew. They gave water for drinking and farming, and boats carried goods along them. Many great cities still stand on rivers. | Summary: Boats carried goods along rivers.
• Some families have begun printing a few photographs each year again, choosing only those that matter. | Summary: Families are giving up their phones and going back to albums.
• Many towns are planting street trees to cool pavements. Shaded streets are often quieter, and some residents report spending more time outdoors. Yet young trees need years of care, and many die in their first dry season. | Summary: Street trees can cool and improve streets, but only with years of care.
• The village pond is the heart of village life: women wash clothes there at dawn, buffaloes cool off at noon, and children race paper boats at dusk. | Summary: Water is important.
• Malik's grandmother set the table for four, as she always had. She poured four cups of tea. Then she looked at the empty chair and quietly took one cup away. | Summary: Malik's grandmother is grieving someone who is no longer there.

• The monsoon brings most of India's yearly rain between June and September. Many farmers sow when the first rains arrive, and a late monsoon can delay the whole season. | Summary: The monsoon's timing sets the farming year for many Indian farmers.
• Libraries now lend laptops, offer free internet and run evening classes, making them places where anyone can learn without paying. | Summary: This paragraph is interesting and well written.
• Sleep helps students remember what they study. The sleeping brain strengthens many new memories, and students who sleep after studying often recall more. | Summary: Sleep helps students remember. The brain strengthens memories. Students who sleep recall more.
• Volunteering at the shelter taught me patience. Frightened dogs took weeks to trust anyone, and I learned to sit quietly until they came to me. | Summary: Working with frightened dogs taught the writer patience.
• Cycle lanes would make roads safer for cyclists, though building them takes money and space that some towns do not have. | Summary: Cycle lanes make roads safer.
• In Lina's town, the cinema has stood empty for ten years. Its doors are chained, and pigeons nest in the sign. | Summary: The town's old cinema has been abandoned for a decade.

Revising for unity

To revise for unity, state the idea first, then test every sentence against it: cut, move or keep.

This is the Boundary question of the Paragraph Check used to revise: anything outside the idea goes, unless it earns its place.

Three habits make unity revision work.

Notice three things. First, the hardest sentences to cut are your own good ones. Sentence 4 is true and well written; it still does not belong. Unity is not about quality.

Second, a sentence that seems odd may still serve. The grandmother in the doorway does not mention cooking skills, but her not taking the spoon is part of why the writer learned. That is a K, like the cricket contrast in section 21: it is tied to the idea.

Third, cutting can reveal other problems. Once sentences 4 and 7 are gone, it is easier to see that sentence 6 is out of place. Revise for unity first, then for order (section 36), then for wording. Sentence-level polishing belongs to Chapters 20, 23 and 24.

Picture tidying a single drawer meant for kitchen tools. You tip everything out onto the table first. Then you pick up each item and ask one question: is this a kitchen tool? The spoon, the ladle and the peeler go back in. The birthday candle goes to the drawer for party things. The broken pen goes in the bin. The odd-looking nutmeg grater, which you almost threw away, turns out to be a kitchen tool after all, and goes back. Only when the drawer holds the right things do you arrange them neatly.

Section 34 summarised a paragraph to its one core idea. This section uses that summary as the standard for revision: every sentence must serve the idea, or go. Section 36 revises for order, the natural next pass. Section 31 ran the full Paragraph Check on others' paragraphs; here you run it on your own draft, which is harder. Section 40 asks you to build, revise and defend a paragraph unaided.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a sentence that does not serve the paragraph's idea, but is the best sentence in the draft. Read this, from a draft about a school trip to the coast: "(1) The trip taught us how a fishing harbour works. (2) We watched boats unload their catch before dawn. (3) A trader showed us how the fish are sorted by size and sold by auction. (4) On the way home, the sun set over the water, turning the whole bay copper, and for a moment nobody on the bus spoke. (5) By the end, we understood how the fish on our plates had reached us." Sentence 4 is the most vivid in the paragraph. It is not about how the harbour works. Run the test honestly. The idea is understanding the harbour's work. The sunset is about a moment of beauty on the way home. It does not serve the idea, however good it is. The writer has three honest choices. Cut it, and accept the loss. Move it to a different paragraph whose idea it serves - perhaps a closing paragraph about what the trip meant beyond the lesson. Or rethink the paragraph's idea, if the writer decides the trip's real point was wonder, not harbours - and then the auction sentence is the one that must go. What the writer must not do is keep it because it is good. The test is never "is this my best sentence?" It is "does this sentence serve the idea?" A sentence that does not belong is not improved by being beautiful; it is only harder to cut.

Did you know that a well-known piece of writing advice tells writers to cut the sentences they love most? The advice is often given as "murder your darlings". It comes from a lecture on writing by the English writer Arthur Quiller-Couch, published in the early twentieth century, in which he advised writers to delete passages they found especially fine, before sending the work out. The phrase has been repeated and adapted by many writers since, and is sometimes wrongly credited to others. The point is not that good sentences are bad. It is that a writer's affection for a sentence is no evidence that it belongs. The more a writer loves a line, the less able they are to judge it fairly. Revising for unity puts that advice into practice: the darling must serve the idea, or go.

Unity revision is the first pass, not the only one. Revise for order next (section 36), then for wording. A sentence that seems odd may serve the idea, as a contrast or as context. Test it before cutting. Moving is better than cutting only if the sentence truly serves the other paragraph. Spelling, grammar, wordiness and rhythm are later passes owned by Chapters 23, 20 and 24.

1. State the paragraph's idea in one sentence before revising.
2. Number the sentences so that you can mark each one.
3. Test each sentence: does it serve this idea?
4. Mark C (cut), M (move - say where) or K (keep).
5. Make every mark before rewriting any sentence.
6. Give each mark a reason that names the idea.
7. Keep a contrast that is tied to the idea.
8. Do not keep a sentence because it is your best one.
9. Move a sentence only to a paragraph it truly serves.
10. Re-read the whole paragraph and run the full check after the cuts.

• (1) Learning to cook gave me more than a set of recipes. (2) When I first made dal for my family, I burned the onions and had to begin again, and I learned that a mistake is only the first try. (3) My grandmother, watching from the doorway, never took the spoon from me. (4) Cooking is now a popular hobby, and there are many television programmes about it. (5) By the end of that summer, I could cook a full meal for six people. (6) I also learned to plan: rice must go on before the vegetables, or nothing is ready at once. (7) My brother prefers to bake cakes. (8) Above all, cooking taught me that I could look after the people I love.
• (1) Learning to cook gave me more than a set of recipes. (2) When I first made dal for my family, I burned the onions and had to begin again, and I learned that a mistake is only the first try. (3) My grandmother, watching from the doorway, never took the spoon from me. (4) Cooking is now a popular hobby, and there are many television programmes about it. (5) By the end of that summer, I could cook a full meal for six people. (6) I also learned to plan: rice must go on before the vegetables, or nothing is ready at once. (7) My brother prefers to bake cakes. (8) Above all, cooking taught me that I could look after the people I love.
• (1) Learning to cook gave me more than a set of recipes. (2) When I first made dal for my family, I burned the onions and had to begin again, and I learned that a mistake is only the first try. (3) My grandmother, watching from the doorway, never took the spoon from me. (4) Cooking is now a popular hobby, and there are many television programmes about it. (5) By the end of that summer, I could cook a full meal for six people. (6) I also learned to plan: rice must go on before the vegetables, or nothing is ready at once. (7) My brother prefers to bake cakes. (8) Above all, cooking taught me that I could look after the people I love.
• (1) The trip taught us how a fishing harbour works. (2) We watched boats unload before dawn. (3) A trader showed us how fish are sorted and auctioned. (4) On the way home, the sun set over the water, turning the bay copper. (5) By the end, we understood how fish reach our plates.
• (1) Our new library has changed lunchtimes. (2) Thirty pupils now read there every day. (3) The old library was in the basement. (4) Shy pupils have found a quiet place to belong.
• (1) Mateo's first month in the city was lonely. (2) He ate lunch alone each day. (3) The city has a famous cathedral. (4) He knew no one on his street.

• (1) The monsoon festival brought the whole colony together. (2) Neighbours who rarely spoke cooked side by side. (3) The festival is also celebrated in other states. (4) Children ran between the houses with plates of sweets.
• (1) Training for the race taught Ishaan discipline. (2) He ran every morning before school, even in the rain. (3) His friends laughed at him at first. (4) By the race, they were running with him.
• (1) The village well matters to everyone. (2) Women gather there each morning. (3) My cousin in Delhi has a swimming pool. (4) Children drop pebbles to hear the echo.
• (1) Our school's recycling scheme has cut waste. (2) Each classroom now has three bins. (3) The canteen also changed its menu last year. (4) The weekly rubbish collection has halved.
• (1) The storm left the street silent. (2) Branches lay across the road. (3) In one garden, a child laughed as she jumped in a puddle. (4) No cars moved.
• (1) Aisha's first job at the bakery taught her to work fast. (2) Bread had to be out by six. (3) The bakery's owner had moved from Cairo years before. (4) By her second week, she could shape a tray of rolls in minutes.

Revising for order

To revise for order, name the sequence the paragraph's job needs, then use the clues to rebuild it.

This is the Order question of the Paragraph Check used to revise: can a reader say why these sentences sit in this sequence? If not, rebuild until they can.

Clues in the sentences themselves often fix their positions.

Notice three things. First, words that point back are the strongest clues. "As a result" cannot open a paragraph; "they" needs a noun before it. Moving a sentence can break these links, so check them after every move.

Second, some paragraphs allow more than one good order. A case can be made with the strongest reason first or last; a description can sweep left to right or near to far. Choose one and keep to it. The test is whether a reader can say why.

Third, reordering does not mean rewriting. Change the sequence first; only if a link is still broken should you adjust a word. The signal words themselves, and given-before-new order inside sentences, belong to Chapter 21; this section owns the order of whole sentences.

Picture a train being coupled in a siding. Each carriage has a coupling at the front and one at the back. Some couplings only fit one way: a carriage marked 'as a result' can only hook onto the carriage of its cause. The engine - the topic sentence - goes at the front, and the guard's van - the close - at the back. A train with every right carriage but in the wrong order cannot move: the couplings do not meet. Revising for order is shunting the carriages until every coupling clicks.

Discover and Practice taught time, space and general-to-specific order; Craft added cause and effect, importance and comparison. Section 35 revised for unity. This section is the second pass: with every sentence belonging, put them in the order the job needs. Section 37 shows how the same orders shift across genres, and section 38 runs reordering under exam conditions.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph where two orders compete, and the writer must choose. Read these sentences, in no particular order, for a paragraph arguing that a town should keep its swimming pool open in winter: "(a) Closing it would take away the safest exercise many older residents have. (b) The pool costs the council money to heat. (c) Swimming is gentle on the joints. (d) Older residents use it when the paths are too icy to walk. (e) The council should keep the pool open through the winter." One possible order is time and cause: the problem (cost), then the residents, then the conclusion. Another is importance: the point first, then the reasons building to the strongest - the loss of safe exercise - then the cost answered last. Which is right? Run the Order question with the job in mind. The paragraph's job is to persuade (section 23). A persuasive paragraph usually states its point early and builds to its strongest support. So: e, c, d, a - and b, the cost, either set aside for another paragraph or placed where it can be answered. Notice that b is the hard one. It belongs to the topic, but it argues against the point. If it stays, it needs a place where the paragraph can respond to it - and responding to objections is Chapter 29's territory. If the paragraph is simply making its case, b may be better moved to a paragraph that weighs the costs. The test is not whether a sentence fits somewhere. It is whether the order serves the paragraph's job, and whether a reader could say why each sentence comes where it does.

Did you know that reordering scrambled sentences is a long-standing exercise in language teaching and testing? In one common form, learners are given the sentences of a paragraph in a jumbled order and asked to restore the original. The task appears in many classrooms and some reading tests, because it checks whether a reader can see how sentences connect, not just what each one says. The clues learners use are the ones in this section: words that point back, time and place markers, and the difference between general statements and specific details. Writers can use the same exercise on their own drafts. Cut a paragraph into slips, shuffle them, and rebuild it. If two different orders both seem to work, ask which one serves the paragraph's job better.

Revise for order only after unity; a sentence that does not belong has no right place. Some paragraphs allow more than one good order. Choose one that serves the job and keep to it. Moving a sentence can strand a word that points back. Check every link after every move. Adjust wording only if a link is still broken after reordering. Signal words and sentence-level order belong to Chapter 21; answering objections belongs to Chapter 29.

1. Confirm that every sentence belongs before reordering.
2. Name the paragraph's job and the order it needs.
3. Find the opening: usually the most general sentence.
4. Find the close: often a proposal, judgement or result.
5. Use words that point back to fix what must come before.
6. Use time and place words to fix sequence.
7. Keep to one order; do not mix two.
8. Check every pointing word after each move.
9. Reorder before rewriting; change words only to mend a link.
10. Read the rebuilt paragraph aloud: does each sentence lead to the next?

• (1) As a result, the lane flooded within an hour of the first heavy rain. (2) Clearing the drain each month would stop it happening again. (3) For weeks, plastic bags and leaves had gathered in the drain at the corner. (4) Our lane floods every monsoon, and the cause is simple. (5) Six families spent the next morning sweeping water from their kitchens.
• Our lane floods every monsoon, and the cause is simple. For weeks, plastic bags and leaves had gathered in the drain at the corner. As a result, the lane flooded within an hour of the first heavy rain. Six families spent the next morning sweeping water from their kitchens. Clearing the drain each month would stop it happening again.
• (1) Fill the hole with soil and press it down. (2) Dig a hole twice as wide as the roots. (3) Water the young tree well. (4) Place the tree in the hole.
• (1) The council should keep the pool open through the winter. (2) Swimming is gentle on the joints. (3) Older residents use it when the paths are too icy to walk. (4) Closing it would take away the safest exercise many of them have.
• (1) From the gate, a path leads to the front door. (2) Behind the house, a vegetable garden stretches to the fence. (3) To the left of the door, a rose climbs the wall. (4) Beyond the fence, the fields begin.
• (1) They carry pollen from flower to flower. (2) Bees matter to farmers. (3) Many crops need that pollen to form fruit. (4) Without bees, harvests would shrink.

• (1) The bus finally arrived at nine. (2) We reached the stop at seven. (3) By eight, the crowd had doubled. (4) We were an hour late for school.
• (1) A school garden teaches pupils what a classroom cannot. (2) In science, they watch seeds split and roots reach down. (3) In maths, they measure beds. (4) Most of all, it teaches patience, as beans take weeks.
• (1) This meant that farmers sowed a month late. (2) The monsoon arrived three weeks after its usual date. (3) The harvest that year was smaller. (4) A late monsoon can upset the whole farming year.
• (1) Close the lid and wait ten minutes. (2) Boil the water. (3) Pour it over the tea leaves. (4) Strain the tea into cups.
• (1) The library should open at lunchtime. (2) Many pupils have nowhere quiet to read. (3) The room stands empty for an hour. (4) An open library would become the busiest place in school for learning.
• (1) At the far end, the old fishing boats lie on the sand. (2) Nearest the road, the market stalls open at dawn. (3) Halfway down the beach, children build forts. (4) Ana walks the beach from the road to the water every morning.

The same move, different genres

The Paragraph Check is the same in every genre; its answers shift with the reader and the job.

Every row is the Paragraph Check. The questions do not change; the reader does.

The same idea can be carried by different moves in different genres.

Notice three things. First, the genre decides what counts as off the idea. A request belongs in a letter and breaks a report. An opinion belongs in an essay's claim and breaks a report's findings. A sentence that explains a feeling belongs in an essay and can flatten a story.

Second, borrowed shapes are the commonest genre error. A report paragraph that ends "This shows how terrible the flooding was" has borrowed an essay's closing judgement. A story paragraph that opens "Flooding has many causes" has borrowed an essay's topic sentence.

Third, this section does not teach formats. Where a letter's address goes, how it is signed, and which register it uses are Chapter 22's. How whole essays and reports are assembled is Chapter 30's. Here, the question is only how one paragraph's architecture serves its genre.

Picture the same set of four tools - a measuring tape, a saw, a plane and a level - used by four different workers. The carpenter making a chair, the builder framing a wall, the boat-maker shaping a hull and the inspector checking a doorway all use the same four tools. But each uses them differently, to a different standard, for a different result. Nobody would say the inspector is using the saw wrongly because he barely uses it. The Paragraph Check is the toolset. Each genre is a different worker.

Earlier sections built paragraphs for one job at a time: narrative and descriptive in Practice, expository and persuasive in Craft, with implied topics in section 21. Sections 31 to 36 ran and applied the full Paragraph Check. This section puts the genres side by side to show what changes and what does not. Section 38 runs the check under exam conditions, and Chapter 30 assembles whole pieces in each genre.

Here is the case that takes judgement: a paragraph that mixes genres on purpose, and must still serve one job. Read this, from a letter to a newspaper about the flooded lane: "At two o'clock on a July night, I sat on my roof with my children and listened to our lane turn into a river. That flood was not bad luck. The corner drain had been blocked for weeks, and residents had reported it twice. I urge the council to clear it monthly before another family spends a night on its roof." It opens with a story, moves into an essay's cause, and ends with a letter's request. Is that a genre muddle? Run the Topic question on the job. The paragraph's job is a letter's: to move a reader to act. Its one idea is that the flood was preventable and the council should act. The story is not decoration; it is evidence, chosen to make the reader feel what the request is for. The cause is the reasoning. The request is the point. Every move serves the letter's job. Compare a muddle: "At two o'clock I sat on the roof. The stars were beautiful that night, and I remembered my grandmother's stories. Drains should be cleared." Here the story drifts into its own world and the request arrives with no link to it. The test is not whether one genre's moves appear inside another's. It is whether every move serves the paragraph's one job. Writers borrow moves all the time; the borrowed move must work for the host genre.

Did you know that the paragraph itself looks different in different kinds of writing published in the same week? A novel may run a single paragraph across a page, carrying a scene through many sentences. A newspaper may break a report into paragraphs of one or two sentences, because narrow columns and quick reading demand it. A scientific article may use dense paragraphs, each one holding a method or a finding. A legal document may number its paragraphs so that each can be referred to exactly. None of these is wrong. Each paragraph shape serves the reader the genre expects: the novel's reader is immersed, the newspaper's reader skims, the scientist's reader checks, the lawyer's reader cites. That is this section's point. The unit of thought is the same; its size, order and development are fitted to the job.

The four questions never change; their answers do. Judge a paragraph by its own genre's job. Writers borrow moves across genres on purpose. A borrowed move must serve the host genre's job. This section does not teach formats. Letter layout and register are Chapter 22's; assembling whole essays and reports is Chapter 30's. Genres are not ranked (stance 7). A story paragraph without a topic sentence is not a weaker paragraph; it is a story paragraph.

1. Name the genre, the reader and the job before you write or judge.
2. Decide whether the topic should be stated or can be implied.
3. Choose development that suits the reader: detail, evidence, request or observation.
4. Choose the order the genre's job needs.
5. Decide what counts as off the idea in this genre.
6. Keep opinion out of report paragraphs.
7. End a letter's body paragraph with what you are asking for, when you are asking.
8. Return an essay's anecdote to the claim it supports.
9. Let a story's details carry its idea; do not explain them away.
10. Borrow moves only when they serve the host genre's job.

• The water reached our step at midnight. Papa carried the rice sacks upstairs one by one while Amma lifted the gas cylinder onto the bed. By two o'clock the lane was a river, and we sat on the roof listening to it move.
• Blocked drains are the main cause of flooding in our lane. Plastic and leaves gather in the corner drain through the dry months. When the first heavy rain comes, the water has nowhere to go, and it rises into the houses within an hour.
• I am writing about the drain at the corner of Gandhi Lane, which has caused flooding in six homes this monsoon. We residents have cleared it twice ourselves, but it blocks again within weeks. We ask the council to clear it monthly and to fit a grating that stops plastic from entering.
• Flooding was recorded in six houses on the night of 14 July. The corner drain was found blocked. This was a terrible and completely avoidable disaster.
• Flooding has many causes, including blocked drains and heavy rain. The water reached our step at midnight. Papa carried the rice sacks upstairs.
• Flooding was recorded in six of the lane's twelve houses on the night of 14 July. The corner drain was found blocked with plastic and leaves. Water rose to a depth of about thirty centimetres within an hour of heavy rain beginning.

• I am writing to ask that the bus to Kothrud run every fifteen minutes at rush hour. At present it runs every forty minutes, and many pupils miss first lesson. A more frequent service would get them to school on time.
• Rahul's water filter drew the biggest crowd at the fair. He had rebuilt it four times. When a visitor asked how it worked, he took it apart and showed each layer.
• The survey was completed by 120 pupils in March. Most travelled to school by bus. Fewer than ten walked.
• The drain at the corner of Mill Lane has flooded four homes this year, and residents have cleared it twice.
• Libraries help students without a quiet place to study. My cousin once read a whole book in a library in one afternoon, and the librarian brought her a cup of tea, and it was raining outside.
• At two o'clock on a July night, I sat on my roof with my children, Kofi and Esi, and listened to our lane turn into a river. That flood was not bad luck. The drain had been blocked for weeks. I urge the council to clear it monthly before another family spends a night on its roof.

Paragraph architecture under exam conditions

Under exam conditions, check before you add. Run the Paragraph Check fast, then make the few fixes that matter most.

This is the full Paragraph Check of section 31, at the speed of section 32's plan, aimed at the exact task.

Time decides what you can fix. Use a simple rule for the last minutes.

Notice three things. First, the task is the standard. Re-read it before you check, because exam drafts drift. "Explain one way" is broken by two ways, however good both are.

Second, cuts are the fastest fixes and often the most valuable. A stray removed costs seconds and improves unity at once. Adding a sentence costs more time and may add a new problem.

Third, the topic sentence is the highest-value sentence in an exam paragraph. If it answers the task, a reader knows at once that the paragraph is on target; if it does not, even a good body may be read as off-task. That is why it comes first in the priorities. Whether a given assessment rewards particular features is something to learn from the instructions you are given; this section describes the architecture, not any marking scheme.

Picture a pilot's final check before landing. There is no time to redesign the aircraft. The pilot runs a short, fixed list: wheels down, flaps set, runway clear. Each item takes seconds, and each one, if missed, matters more than anything else that could be done in that time. The last minutes of an exam paragraph are the same: not a time to build more, but a time to check the few things that, if wrong, would cost the most.

Section 32 planned an exam paragraph before writing. This section checks and fixes it at the end, against the same task. It draws on section 31's full check, section 35's unity revision and section 36's order revision, compressed to the minutes an exam allows. Section 39 slows down again for close reading, and section 40 asks for a full, unaided performance.

Here is the case that takes judgement: two problems, and time to fix only one. The task: "In about 80 words, describe a place that is important to you." With ninety seconds left, the paragraph reads: "Places are important to everyone. My grandmother's veranda is where I spent every summer evening as a child. The swing creaked, the jasmine smelled sweet, and she told stories until the lamps were lit. I also love the school library, which is quiet and has many books." Two problems. The opening is a warm-up that describes no place. And the last sentence adds a second place, which the task ("a place") did not ask for. Ninety seconds is enough for one fix. Which one? Weigh them. The warm-up opening wastes the first sentence, but the second sentence names the place clearly, so a reader still finds the topic quickly. The library sentence breaks the task's limit - one place - and leaves the reader at the end with the wrong place in mind. It also takes seconds to cut. Cut the library sentence. The paragraph now describes one place, ends on the veranda, and only its first sentence is weak. If ten seconds remain, delete "Places are important to everyone" too; the second sentence can open. The test is which fix removes the bigger risk for the time it costs. A cut that restores the task's limit usually beats a rewrite that only improves the opening, when time is short.

Did you know that the habit of a final check is built into many professions where there is no second chance? Pilots run landing checklists. Surgeons and nurses in many hospitals pause before an operation to confirm the patient, the procedure and the site. Newspaper sub-editors read a story one last time before it goes to print, looking not at every word but at the few things that would matter most if wrong: names, numbers, the headline. What these checks share is that they are short, fixed and prioritised. Nobody re-does the whole job; they look for the few errors that would cost most, in the time that remains. The last-minutes Paragraph Check is the same kind of habit: a short, fixed list, run against the task, every time.

Leave time to check; a tenth of the paragraph's time is a reasonable guide, not a rule. Fix in priority order: opening, strays, the task's limits, close. Stop when time runs out. Use cuts and single-sentence rewrites; do not start new sections in the last minutes. Assessments differ in what they reward and how they apply limits; follow the instructions you are given. Spelling and punctuation checks are later passes owned by Chapters 23 and 25.

1. Plan to leave a short block of time at the end for checking.
2. Re-read the task before checking: topic, task word, limit, and any 'one'.
3. Run the four questions fast, marking problems in the margin.
4. Fix the opening first if it does not answer the task.
5. Cut any sentence that is off the task.
6. Cut extras that break the task's limit.
7. Add a close only if time allows.
8. Prefer cuts and one-sentence rewrites to new writing.
9. When time allows only one fix, choose the one that removes the bigger risk.
10. Stop when time runs out; a clean, shorter paragraph beats an unfinished longer one.

• Our school throws away a lot. Many pupils bring food in plastic wrappers, and these go straight into the bin. If every class had a recycling box, wrappers could be collected and sent for recycling. My uncle works at a recycling plant in Pune. The canteen could also stop selling drinks in plastic bottles. In this way, the school could reduce its waste.
• A recycling box in every classroom would cut our school's waste. Many pupils bring food in plastic wrappers, which now go straight into the bin. With a box in each room, wrappers could be collected and sent for recycling. In this way, one small box could empty half our bins.
• Places are important to everyone. My grandmother's veranda is where I spent every summer evening. The swing creaked and the jasmine smelled sweet. I also love the school library, which is quiet.
• Sleep is important. Sleep is very important for students. Students need sleep.
• A later school start would help teenagers learn. Many find it hard to fall asleep early, so they arrive tired. An hour's later start would let them sleep longer and arrive ready to work.
• My favourite season is the rainy one. In Olu's town, the first rain turns the red earth dark and sweet-smelling. Children run out to dance in it. Then exams begin, and everyone is busy revising.

• Explain one benefit of a school garden. A school garden teaches patience. Beans planted in June are not ready until August, and pupils learn that hurrying does not help. Gardens also teach maths and science.
• Describe a market at dawn. The market is slow and sleepy at dawn. Traders unroll their mats under the last stars. The first kettles hiss at the tea stall. By seven, the lanes are full.
• Argue for one change to your town. Our town has many problems. The roads are narrow, the market is crowded and the bus is late. Something should be done.
• Explain why reading aloud helps children. When a parent reads, the child hears words rarely used in daily talk. The story helps the child guess their meaning. My little brother likes dinosaur books best.
• Narrate a moment of surprise. When I opened the door, the whole class was there. Balloons covered the ceiling. Emma held out a cake with my name on it.
• Explain one way to save water at home. Taking shorter showers saves water. In Lucia's house, a timer by the shower keeps each one to five minutes. Water is also important for farming.

Close reading: how a paragraph is built

Close reading uses the Paragraph Check as a reader's tool: name the topic, the job of each sentence, the order, and why the paragraph is its length.

Every row is one of the Paragraph Check's questions turned into an observation a reader can check against the page.

Two more paragraphs show different architectures for different jobs.

Lincoln's paragraph: "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."

Austen's paragraph: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Notice three things. First, Lincoln's order narrows in space: from the war, to "a great battle-field of that war", to "a portion of that field". Each sentence takes the listener closer to the ground beneath their feet, and the last sentence judges the act of dedication itself.

Second, Austen's paragraph is a single sentence, and that is a length decision, not a mistake (stance 5). Its claim is stated as a universal truth, but the novel that follows suggests the 'truth' is gently mocked; the paragraph's full idea is implied by what comes after (stance 2).

Third, close reading reports what the words show. Saying that Lincoln's paragraph narrows is checkable on the page; claiming to know what he felt as he wrote it is not. Interpreting a writer's figures of speech, such as "as dead as a door-nail", belongs to Chapter 26; this section reads the architecture.

Picture an architect walking through a famous old building with a notebook. She does not simply admire it. She notes where the main door is, how the corridors lead from it, why the great hall sits at the centre, and where the building ends. Each note is checkable: anyone can walk the same corridor. Close reading a paragraph is that walk: the topic is the door, the development is the corridors, the order is the plan, and the length is where the walls stop.

Every earlier section built or revised paragraphs. This section turns the Paragraph Check into a reader's tool, applied to published paragraphs quoted exactly. It draws on topic sentences (Practice), implied ideas (section 21), development by evidence (section 22), closing moves (section 28), length as judgement (section 29) and summary (section 34). Section 40 asks you to build and defend your own paragraph with the same eye, and Chapter 28 turns from architecture to a writer's voice.

Here is the case that takes the most judgement: a one-sentence paragraph whose idea is not what it seems to say. Read Jane Austen's opening again: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Run the Topic question literally. The sentence states a claim: everyone agrees that a rich single man must want a wife. Is that the paragraph's idea? Read the word choices closely. The phrase "a truth universally acknowledged" is grand for what is really a piece of social gossip. The sentence puts the wanting on the man, while the novel's first chapter soon shows a mother eager to marry her daughters to him. A careful reader begins to suspect that the 'truth' is being presented with a raised eyebrow. So the paragraph's idea may be implied rather than stated: not that rich men want wives, but that society likes to dress its own wishes up as universal truths. A summary must be careful here. "Austen says rich men want wives" reports the words but may miss the idea; "Austen opens with a mock-solemn 'truth' that the novel goes on to question" is closer, and is supported by what follows. Notice what this does to Length. One sentence is enough, because the paragraph's job is to plant the claim; the following chapters develop and test it. The test is not only what a paragraph's sentence says, but what the whole text shows that sentence is doing. Close reading keeps both in view, and supports every claim with the words on the page.

Did you know that there are several handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address, and that their wording is not identical? Abraham Lincoln gave the address in November 1863 at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery. Five copies in Lincoln's hand are known, usually named after the people they were given to. They differ in small ways: a word here, a phrase there. The Bliss copy, written out later, is the one Lincoln signed and dated, and it has often been treated as a standard text. That is why the second paragraph in this section is quoted from it, and named. For a close reader, this is a lesson in exactness. When you quote a text, say which version you are quoting, and quote it exactly. A single word can change how a paragraph's architecture is read.

Quote exactly, including punctuation and spelling, and name the edition or copy when versions differ. Report what the words show. Do not claim knowledge of a writer's feelings or intentions that the text does not support. Great paragraphs are not judged against one template. A one-sentence paragraph can be a deliberate length decision. Figures of speech such as 'as dead as a door-nail' belong to Chapter 26; a writer's distinctive voice belongs to Chapter 28. This section reads the paragraph's architecture.

1. Read the paragraph twice: for sense, then slowly.
2. State its idea in one sentence of your own.
3. Decide whether the topic is stated or implied, and where.
4. Number the sentences and name each one's job.
5. Name the order and say why it suits the paragraph's purpose.
6. Ask why the paragraph ends where it does.
7. Quote exactly, including punctuation.
8. Name the edition or copy when versions differ.
9. Support every observation with words on the page.
10. Prefer checkable observations to general praise.

• Priya noted that Dickens states his topic in the first sentence, "Marley was dead: to begin with.", and that the words "to begin with" mark it as the foundation of the story.
• Arjun pointed out that the third sentence gives evidence: "The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner."
• Meera observed that the last sentence, "Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.", returns to the topic sentence in a fresh and memorable form.
• Tom noticed that Lincoln's paragraph narrows from "a great civil war" to "a great battle-field of that war" and then to "a portion of that field".
• Emma wrote that Lincoln's last sentence, "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.", is a judgement that closes the paragraph by approving the act of dedication.
• Yusuf argued that Austen's one-sentence paragraph, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.", is complete as it stands, because the following chapters develop and test its claim.

• Ananya observed that Dickens's fourth sentence, "Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.", saves the most trusted witness for last.
• Vikram wrote that "Dickens uses lovely language in this paragraph."
• Kavya quoted Dickens as writing "Marley was dead, to begin with", with a comma.
• Oliver noted that Lincoln's first sentence, "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.", sets the widest frame before the paragraph narrows.
• Grace wrote that Lincoln must have been nervous, because the paragraph is short.
• Hana observed that in Lincoln's paragraph, "We are met on a great battle-field of that war." points back with "that war" to the civil war of the first sentence.

Independent performance

Independent performance means planning, writing, checking and defending a paragraph with no scaffolding: the whole chapter, used together.

The Paragraph Check runs through every stage: Topic and Development shape the plan, Order shapes the writing, Boundary shapes the check, and all four supply the defence.

A defence is what turns a good paragraph into a demonstrated skill. Each sentence of it names a choice and a reason.

Notice three things. First, a strong defence can be checked. Anyone can look at the task and see that it says one way; anyone can follow the chain. A weak defence reports a feeling.

Second, defending your choices often finds a weakness. If you cannot say why a sentence is there, the Boundary question may be telling you it should not be.

Third, architecture is not the whole of writing. Two learners could build the same paragraph architecture and sound completely different, because their word choices, rhythms and personalities differ. That is voice and style, the subject of Chapter 28. This chapter has given you the building; the next asks how you live in it.

Picture an apprentice carpenter on the day she makes her first piece of furniture alone. For months she has practised joints, measured cuts and sanded edges, each in a separate lesson. Now there is no lesson: only a request for a chair, a pile of wood and her tools. She plans the chair, cuts and joins it, checks that it stands level, and then explains to her teacher why each joint is where it is. The chair is the paragraph. The explanation is the defence. The lessons are this chapter.

This is the chapter's last section. Discover taught grouping and order; Practice, topic sentences and development; Craft, patterns, openings, closings, splitting and bridging; Master, the full check, exam tasks, notes, summaries, revision, genres and close reading. Here they combine in one unaided performance. Chapter 28, Voice & Style, comes next: once you can build a paragraph, the question becomes how it sounds and whose it is. Chapter 30 will assemble whole pieces from paragraphs built this way.

Here is the case that takes the most judgement: defending a choice that breaks a pattern this chapter taught. Suppose the task is: "Write a paragraph for a story about a child's first walk to school alone." A learner writes: "The gate clicked shut behind her. Ten steps, and the house was gone behind the neem tree. At the crossing, she stood exactly where her mother always stood, and waited for the stripes to stop the cars. They did. On the far side, she did not look back." There is no topic sentence. There is no closing restatement. A reader trained only on expository paragraphs might call it unbuilt. Now hear the defence: "The task is a story, so I let the details carry the idea - her growing independence - instead of stating it (section 21). The order is time, because the walk is a sequence. The close, 'she did not look back', finishes the idea by showing it, which suits a story better than restating it (section 28). Every sentence is part of the walk, so nothing strays." Every choice is defended by the task and the four questions. The paragraph breaks the expository pattern because the genre asked it to (section 37). The test of independent performance is not whether a paragraph follows a pattern from this chapter. It is whether the writer chose the architecture for the task and can say why.

Did you know that many traditional crafts have long ended an apprenticeship with a single piece of independent work? In some European craft guilds of the past, an apprentice or journeyman could be asked to produce a 'masterpiece' - originally a piece of work submitted to show that they had mastered the craft and could be trusted to work on their own. The word has since come to mean any outstanding work of art, but its older sense was closer to an examination. The idea was simple: practice is done in parts, under guidance; mastery is shown in a whole, alone, and judged by others who know the craft. This section is that kind of test for the paragraph. Not a perfect paragraph, but one built by you, for a task, and defended as a whole.

There is no single correct paragraph for an open task. Different architectures can succeed if each is chosen for the task and defended. A defence names reasons that can be checked: the task's words or the four questions. Run the check even on a planned paragraph; drafts drift. Architecture is not everything. How a paragraph sounds - its voice and style - is Chapter 28's subject; assembling whole pieces is Chapter 30's.

1. Underline the task's topic, task word and limits.
2. Choose the architecture the task needs, not a fixed template.
3. Write a four-line plan before writing.
4. State the claim first in an explaining or arguing task; let a story's details carry its idea.
5. Develop with the pattern the idea needs: examples, reasons, a chain, a comparison.
6. Order for the reader: chain, time, space, importance.
7. Close without opening a new idea.
8. Run the full Paragraph Check on your draft and cut before adding.
9. Defend each choice with a reason that names the task or a question.
10. If you cannot defend a sentence, test whether it belongs.

• A marked crossing outside the school gate would make our neighbourhood far safer for children walking to school. At present, pupils cross the main road between parked cars, where drivers cannot see them until the last moment. A crossing with painted stripes and a raised kerb would give them one fixed place to cross, visible from both directions. Drivers approaching it would slow down, because the stripes warn them that children are near. Over time, parents who now drive their children the last few hundred metres might let them walk, which would leave fewer cars at the gate. A single crossing, then, could protect children twice: from the traffic, and from the crowd of cars that their own safety creates.
• Riya's defence: "I kept to one way because the task says one way; a second would break its limit."
• The gate clicked shut behind her. Ten steps, and the house was gone behind the neem tree. At the crossing, she waited for the stripes to stop the cars. On the far side, she did not look back.
• Ben's defence: "I wrote it this way because it is right."
• Our neighbourhood could be safer in three ways. A crossing would help. So would lower speed limits. Lollipop wardens are also useful. In conclusion, safety matters.
• Sofia's defence: "I ordered the effects as a chain - stripes, slower drivers, more walkers, fewer cars - because each one causes the next."

• Arjun's defence: "I opened with the claim because the task word is explain, and the reader needs to know my point first."
• Kavya's check found a sentence about her cousin's school in Pune, and she cut it: "It was true, but it was about another school, not my neighbourhood."
• Neha's paragraph explained one way - a walking bus - and ended: "The council should also build a swimming pool."
• Harry's defence: "I stopped at five sentences because the chain had four links and a close, and nothing more served the idea."
• Ella planned her paragraph carefully, so she did not check it, and a sentence about her weekend stayed in.
• Kenji's story paragraph had no topic sentence, and he defended it: "The task asked for a story, so the details carry the idea of her courage."