Read Lovely Books
There are a lot of writing rules out there, and they can be restricting, especially when they
The truth is that these rules are meant to be guidelines to make writing easier for you
If they start to do the opposite, though, they defeat the purpose
So here is what you really need to know: There is no general rule for how long
A good paragraph isn’t one that has a set amount of sentences
However, despite what I just said, sometimes you just have to follow the formula, so I’ll
While I am going to focus on academic papers, I’ll also talk about good paragraphs in
Before you start thinking about length, you should first start thinking about what makes a good paragraph
However, if you just take a tiny little nibble, you will barely taste it at all
However, if there is only one sentence, then there won’t be enough meat to let your
There are many acronyms that help determine paragraph structure
In school, you might have learned something like ICE for body paragraphs, which stands for introduce, cite,
Only the last letters of these are different, so let’s talk a bit about what each
A good way to test this is to do what is called a reverse outline: Summarize each
If you cannot get a complete sentence to sum up your paragraph, then it is too short
If you can’t fit the point into one sentence, then you likely have two main ideas,
You can put in a sentence or two explaining how you know your main sentence is true
Somebody might read the same quote, data, or theory as you and come to a completely different
So once you add in some evidence, take another two or three sentences and explain how that
Once you’ve finished the information in your paragraph, you can’t just move on
Alternatively, you might want to focus on getting into your next main point
When you first start writing, your audience has no idea what you are discussing, so they need
Then, once you get into the body, you should be narrow and focused on your topic
Finally, at the end, you should send your reader back out to the rest of the world
However, introductions and conclusions are a little different
You want to get your readers interested in your topic and let them know why they want
This is where you will give the reader enough information to catch them up on the topic
Let them know what they need to know to understand and follow your paper
If you start with ABC, then it makes sense that you should end with XYZ
Likely, you want them to go away from academic writing being convinced about your thesis statement
Y: Let them know why (y) they should care about all the information they just read
Z: Zap them with a final hook in the concluding sentence so they don’t forget what
However, I also acknowledge that there are best practices when it comes to paragraph length, and it
This is how many it takes to convey all of the necessary information I mentioned above into
You could also think of it as about half a page long, though that depends on how
Shorter than that, and it won’t feel like it has enough depth (and if you have
It’s usually because they don’t have enough sentences in their analysis section
I spent a lot of time talking about a good paragraph in academic writing because that tends
However, the answer to what makes a good paragraph (and how many sentences that paragraph should have)
So here is where I will talk more about some other common types of writing that you
Thus, it is always smart to break up paragraphs more than you would in a paper
If your readers can skim your writing and still get the important information you want to relay
You likely want to keep your paragraphs tight and to the point
You don’t need a lot of sentences to give readers the facts
Your best bet is to find some good samples that will help you see what is expected
A good email paragraph in a professional context is one that gives the reader enough information to
That question should be directly stated so that it is more likely to get answered
In other words, it should be exactly how long it needs to be and no longer
This is really all that is needed in the paragraph(s) of an email
The reason for this is because creative writing is like the Wild West: There are no rules,
Well-known books have paragraphs as short as one word and as long as the entire novel! A
Still, though, if you want to get published and develop an audience, you might have to stick
While that isn’t a complete list, it is a good starting point
For example, check out the Readability Report, which will help you figure out which paragraphs are hard
If it’s very difficult, it might mean there is too much information in there
Try breaking it down and running the report again to see if it improves your score