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Effective Writing Center (EWC)

How do I organize my essay?

Paragraph Structure

Paragraph Structure PDF
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Effective paragraphs are important in all types of writing. Your paragraphs guide your reader through the paper by helping to explain, substantiate, and support your thesis statement or argument. Each paragraph should discuss one major point or idea. An effective paragraph has three parts: claim, evidence, and analysis.

  • Claim: This is also sometimes called a topic sentence. This will be your way of announcing the main focus of your paragraph; it should tell the reader what your paragraph will be about.

    It may be helpful to think of your claims as mini arguments that support the paper’s main argument or thesis. Just as in the thesis statement, your topic sentences should be debatable. In other words, they should be arguable claims that you will try to “prove” with your evidence.

    If you get stuck developing these claims, try to think of reasons why your thesis is true. Each claim should be a reason why the reader should believe your paper’s main idea. For example, perhaps you’re writing an essay about whether people should drink soy milk instead of cow’s milk. Your “reasons” for this might include health benefits, environmental benefits, cost-effectiveness, and safety, so you would focus one paragraph on each of these topics.

    One of the most common mistakes is to present a topic sentence that is actually an observation of facts or a description of events rather than an active argument. When you make a claim based on a fact or event in your topic sentence, you aren’t presenting an arguable claim that you can back up with your evidence in that paragraph.

    Here are some sample claims for the “health benefits of soy” paragraph:

    • Claim based on a fact or event (weak): Soy milk contains healthy isoflavones and nutrients.

    • Claim based on an active argument (stronger): The isoflavones and nutrients in soy milk help to protect the body from disease and promote good health, so soy is a better choice.

    • The first example is weak because it presents facts that cannot be disputed; the second example is stronger because it uses those facts to make an argument. As you can see, the second example not only tells the reader that soy contains healthy isoflavones and nutrients, but it also argues that these facts make soy milk a better choice.
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