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A paragraph is a self-contained unit of a discourse in a written text dealing with a particular point or idea, or the words of a speaker. The start of a paragraph is indicated by beginning on a new line and ending without running to the next passage. Sometimes the first line is indented, and sometimes it is indented without beginning a new line. At various times the beginning of a paragraph has been indicated by the pilcrow mark:¶.
Structure
Paragraphs are structured differently in different kinds of writing. In non-fiction material, a paragraph starts with the main point, followed by sentences with supporting details. The non-fiction paragraph goes from the general to the specific to advance an argument or point of view. Each paragraph builds on what came before and lays the ground for what comes next.
In prose fiction and Literary writing paragraph structure is more abstract, depending on the writer's technique and the action of the narrative. Facts and parts of the narrative are ordered to achieve poignancy and support rhetorical devices. A paragraph in prose fiction can start with a single detail and enlarge the picture with successive details. The point of a prose paragraph can occur in the middle, near the end, or in the final sentence.
A paragraph can be as short as one sentence or run the length of multiple pages.
The general American practice is to indicate new paragraphs by indenting the first line (three to five spaces), with blank lines between paragraphs, while business writing uses blank lines and no indent. For educational papers indents and no blank lines is preferred.
Most published books use a device to separate certain paragraphs further when there is a change of scene or time. Usually an extra space which sometimes, especially when co-occurring at a page break, may contain an asterisk, three asterisks, a special stylistic dingbat, or a special symbol known as an asterism.
Details
In literature, a detail is a small piece of information within a paragraph. A detail usually exists to support or explain a main idea.
In the following excerpt from Dr. Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets, the first sentence is the main idea, that Joseph Addison is a skilled "describer of life and manners". The succeeding sentences are details that support and explain the main idea in specific way.
- As a describer of life and manners, he must be allowed to stand perhaps the first of the first rank. His humour, which, as Steele observes, is peculiar to himself, is so happily diffused as to give the grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never "o'ersteps the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.
Paragraphs in HTML
In XHTML, the p element marks a block of text as a paragraph - the opening tag
References
- The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.
- Page 237 of Master the AP English Language & Composition Test, a book by Laurie Rozakis
- The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, etc.
See also
External links
Absatz (Text) | Paragraphe | Parágrafo | פסקה | Alinea | ئابزاس | Akapit | Абзац | Paragraph | Stycke
"Paragraph"