Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 4

Some students space paragraphs, trying to separate points when the process of writing is over.

This is a
major mistake. How much easier your writing would become if you looked at it from another angle! It is
reasonable to use different types of paragraphs WHILE you are writing. In case you follow all the rules,
you'll have no difficulty in bringing your message across to your reader.

If you browse for ‘the types of paragraphs' you'll be surprised how many results you'll get. Among
others, the four following types should be distinguished: descriptive, expository, narrative, and
persuasive paragraphs. Mastering these types will help you a lot in writing almost every type of texts.

Descriptive: These paragraphs have four main aims. First of all, they naturally describe something or
somebody, that is conveying the information. Secondly, such paragraphs create powerful images in the
reader's mind. Thirdly, they appeal to the primary senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, to
get the maximum emotional response from the reader. And finally, they increase the dynamics of the
text. Some grammar rules may be skipped in descriptive paragraphs, but only for the sake of imagery.

Expository: It is not an easy task to write an expository paragraph, especially if you are an amateur in the
subject. These paragraphs explain how something works or what the reader is to do to make it work.
Such paragraphs demand a certain knowledge. Nevertheless, writing them is a great exercise to
understand the material, because you keep learning when you teach.

Narrative: These paragraphs remind a story within the story. The structure of a narrative paragraph,
including the start, the middle, and the end, reminds that of any whole piece of writing, such as a short
story or an essay.

ypes of Paragraphs

Sample Descriptive Paragraph—Nonfiction

“Let’s walk,” she says serenely, slipping her arm in mine and heading into Central Park. As she strolls
along, folks check her out and occasionally point. She is tall, strong, and straight-backed, glowing with
vegan health and moving confidently through the crowds in her all-black ensemble. In videos and
photos, she looks like she has a prominent jaw, but in person it is much softer, as are her other features
(Windex-blue eyes, glossy black hair). Her voice is gentle and melodious, and she looks you square in the
eye when she speaks.
—from Jancee Dunn’s “The Cole Truth,” Rolling Stone 786, May, 1998.

Sample Descriptive Paragraph—Fiction

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn’t pointed it out, Harry wouldn’t have noticed it was
there. The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to
the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most
peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered
him inside. For a famous place, it was dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner,
drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking
to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter
stopped when they walked in.

—from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic, 1999)

Sample Narrative Paragraph—Nonfiction

During the final years of his life, [Franz] Kafka’s health deteriorated rapidly. In 1923 he fell in love with
Dora Dymant and settled in with her in Berlin; he asked Dora’s father for permission to marry her but
was refused. In the winter of 1923-24 he moved into a series of clinics and sanitariums. He died, Dora at
his side, on June 3, 1924, at a sanitarium in Kierling, near Vienna. His surviving family, including his
sisters, all perished several years later in Nazi concentration camps.

—from “The Modern Period” of Literature of the Western World, Vol. II, 3rd edition. Eds. Brian Wilkie
and James Hunt (Macmillan, 1992)

Sample Narrative Paragraph—Fiction

None of it came up until my early thirties, when I got involved with a woman. Her name was Jeanne. We
had been classmates at Cornell, both pre-med, both of us seeing someone else. Years afterward I was
working for a drug company in N— that was coming under fire for manufacturing an anti-depressant that
had bad side effects. We were trying to gather some support for the drug from the medical community,
and I met Jeanne again at a conference. She had become a shrink. Excuse me, a psychiatrist. And yes, she
had done a lot of research on posttraumatic psychosis and even had a healthy share of Holocaust
survivors and incest victims and Vietnam veterans among her clients.
—from Pink Slip, by Rita Ciresi (Delta Publishing, 1999)

Sample Expository Paragraph—Nonfiction

The use of wedding rings has evolved as the latest of all the bridal traditions. From the earliest times,
kings used initial rings to sign documents because they were unable to write. Since the initial, or signet,
ring had the potency of the king’s signature, anyone possessing a facsimile was put to death
immediately. Later, during Greek times, when Alexander the Great died, his vast kingdom was, according
to his instructions, divided among his generals. They also got copies of his signet ring. They used these
themselves and even allowed trusted advisors to use them when they served as the generals’ proxies.
Eventually, rulers even allowed their courtiers to wear copies of their royal signets. Finally, the custom
spread among the common people, and nearly everybody who couldn’t write signed official documents
with a signet ring. Rings thus became a sign of contractual agreement, which meaning was eventually
applied to wedding rings.

Sample Expository Paragraph—Fiction

Many of the Jews of Iberian origin had long ago been robbed of the knowledge of their rituals, forced,
during the time of the Inquisition, to convert to the Catholic faith. These so-called New Christians were
sometimes sincere in their conversions, while others had continued to practice their religion in secret,
but after a generation or two they often forgot why they secretly observed these now-obscure rituals.
When these secret Jews fled Iberia for the Dutch states, as they began to do in the sixteenth century,
many sought to regain Jewish knowledge. My father’s grandfather had been such a man, and he
schooled himself in the Jewish traditions—even studying with the great Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel—and
he raised his children to honor the Jewish traditions.

—from A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss (Random House, 2000)

Sample Argumentative Paragraph—Nonfiction

Nothing gives the English more pleasure, in a quiet but determined sort of way, than to do things oddly.
They put milk in their tea, drive on the wrong side of the road, pronounce Cholmondeley as “Chumley”
and Belvoir as “Beaver,” celebrate the Queen’s birthday in June even though she was born in April, and
dress their palace guards in bearskin helmets that make them look as if, for some private and
unfathomable reason, they are wearing fur-lined wastebaskets on their heads.

—from Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (Doubleday, 1995)

Sample Argumentative Paragraph—Fiction

The pure argumentative paragraph is primarily a nonfiction writer’s tool. But occasionally in fiction, the
author needs to persuade the reader to accept the premise upon which the story is based, as in this
opening paragraph from Chris Bohjalian’s Water Witches (Scribner, 1997):

Some people say that my wife’s sister is a witch. My father, for one. My brother, for another. And while I
will not dispute their use of the term when they are merely alluding to her somewhat contrary nature, I
do take issue with them when they use the word to malign what she believes is her calling. After all, it is
a calling that to a lesser extent my wife hears as well. No, my sister-in-law is no witch, at least not
literally. She, along with my wife and my mother-in-law, is simply a dowser. She is capable of finding
underground water with a stick. She is capable of divining underground water with a stick. And unlike my
wife and my mother-in-law, she is an active dowser. She does not merely have the power, she uses it.

Вам также может понравиться