1.03 What's in a Name?

Learn

Writer's Block

Paragraphs

You will be writing in the Task. Let's review what components are needed to have a well-written paragraph. What is a paragraph?

When writing a paragraph, you will need to include:

a topic sentence,
detailed sentences, and
a conclusion.

Topic Sentence

The first sentence in your paragraph is called a topic sentence. The topic introduces the main idea of the paragraph. You are summarizing what you are writing in one sentence. Let's look at an example.

example paper topic sentence

The above paper reads, "In the short story "Desiree's Baby," Kate Chopin uses racism to illustrate how damaging racisim is to those who are judged and those who are judging." In this example, the reader knows that the paragraph will be about how Kate Chopin uses racism in her short story.

Supporting Details

The next sentences in your paragraph will be the supporting details. Supporting details come right after the topic sentence, and they make up the body of the paragraph. These sentences provide specific details to help develop the main idea of your paragraph. The details can be:

facts,
examples,
textual evidence, and
information to support the writing.

The details in the example are geared toward the topic sentence and provide additional information about Armand's intolerance towards their child. Look at this example.

example paper

The above paper reads, "In the short story "Desiree's Baby," Kate Chopin uses racism to illustrate how damaging racisim is to those who are judged and those who are judging. Desiree marries into a well-to-do family where she hopes she can build a lifelong unity of marriage and family. Her husband, Armand, knows that she comes from an adoptive family, but does not care because of his lofe for her. After the birth of their son, Armand notices distinctive features in him. The character states, '...the child is not white; it means you are not white.' This passage suggest he wants nothing more to do with either of them. Aristocratic society in Antebellum Louisiana did not accept biracial couples. Armand breaks their marriage vows by demanding that they both leave."

The highlighted sentences after the intro provide support and specific details to back up the writer's opinion.

Textual Evidence

Since you are required to include textual evidence in your writing, let's discuss what that really means. When you provide textual evidence, that means that you are inserting a passage directly from the text that you read into your writing to support the topic in your paragraph. See an example of textual evidence below.

example paper

The paper reads, "In the short story "Desiree's Baby," Kate Chopin uses racism to illustrate how damaging racisim is to those who are judged and those who are judging. Desiree marries into a well-to-do family where she hopes she can build a lifelong unity of marriage and family. Her husband, Armand, knows that she comes from an adoptive family, but does not care because of his lofe for her. After the birth of their son, Armand notices distinctive features in him. The character states, '...the child is not white; it means you are not white.' This passage suggest he wants nothing more to do with either of them. Aristocratic society in Antebellum Louisiana did not accept biracial couples. Armand breaks their marriage vows by demanding that they both leave."

The highlighted section is textual evidence.

Sentence Starters

Even though you are adding information directly from the text, you don't want to begin with the quote without providing some kind of information to let the readers know what you are doing. Look at some of the sentence starters to help you begin.

Make sure you introduce the author and title of the selection of the work you are providing as evidence. This is mostly inserted into the topic sentence, but it can be placed in the body.

Supporting Evidence

After you provide the textual evidence, you will want to give your own commentary, or interpretation, to explain what the quote means. It will help to answer the question, "Why is this quote important?" or "How does this evidence support my topic?"

You are explaining how the textual evidence you used supports the idea of your topic. Don't forget to use a sentence starter for this part as well. The commentary provides clarification of the quote and connects it with topic.

example paper

The highlighted section is a sentence starter that explains the preceding textual evidence.

Conclusion

Your last sentence is your conclusion.

The conclusion should refocus the reader on the topic by tying the evidence and commentary back to the topic sentence.
The conclusion wraps up and closes the paragraph.
The concluding sentence reinforces what the topic of the paragraph contains
It needs to show the reader that the paragraph is finished and nothing new is being addressed.

example paper and conclusion

The last sentence (highlighted) is the conclusion in our example.