Writing Skills: The Paragraph — Transcript

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1. 0:02Hi, welcome again to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson is about the paragraph. It's
2. 0:08a writing lesson, and I want to show people what a paragraph is and how to construct one,
3. 0:14what to do, what not to do so you can write very clear, very tight paragraphs. This is
4. 0:20especially important for IELTS, TOEFL, SAT students but everybody has to follow the exact
5. 0:26same rules. Now before I even begin, I must say that I'm
6. 0:30talking mostly about academic writing or even business writing. Creative writing like novels
7. 0:37or short stories, anything fiction, you can do anything you want. Only always remember:
8. 0:43somebody has to read what you wrote so it has to be clear. But academic essays, for
9. 0:49example, certain rules you have to follow; you have to be very careful about them. So
10. 0:54let's begin. In terms of like the actual way a paragraph
11. 0:58looks: you have to indent or skip a line. So let me just make sure you understand what an indent is.
12. 1:08This is an indent, the first line a little bit pushed in or you can make
13. 1:14sure you skip a line between paragraphs. But don't do both. If you skip a line, don't indent.
14. 1:22Okay? That's the main thing. Now, that's in terms of the way it looks.
15. 1:27In terms of content -- and this, I can't stress this enough -- very, very, very important:
16. 1:34one central idea in one paragraph. Okay? I've seen many people, I've seen many essays where
17. 1:41you start a paragraph talking about one thing, and then you go off on a tangent and talk
18. 1:46about something completely unrelated. So for example: if you start a paragraph and you're
19. 1:50talking about apples, continue to talk about apples. If you go to oranges, that's maybe
20. 1:57okay because you're still talking about fruit. But if you start with apples, go to oranges,
21. 2:02go to bananas, and then end up with monkeys in space there's a bit of a problem; the reader
22. 2:06has no idea what you're talking about. One paragraph, one central idea.
23. 2:12Now, make sure that you tell the reader what this central idea is. This is your thesis
24. 2:18statement. Okay? It's a very general sentence. All it does is introduce the topic of the
25. 2:25paragraph, nothing else. All the details comes after.
26. 2:31So speaking of details, we'll talk about details in detail, but all other ideas, all the other
27. 2:38sentences, all your sentences with the details must directly relate back to the main idea.
28. 2:45So let's say here is your thesis statement; very general, every sentence after must relate
29. 2:56back to that thesis statement. Okay? You can't go off to another idea. Everything must support
30. 3:07this, must talk about the same topic. Very important. Okay?
31. 3:12How long should your paragraph be? Technically, a paragraph could be one sentence, but in
32. 3:18an academic essay that rarely happens. But it could be any length you want, as long as
33. 3:24you're still on that one topic, as long as you still have things to write and things
34. 3:28to say about that topic, say it. If you have four sentences, fine; if you have 10 sentences,
35. 3:35also okay. Again, for IELTS, TOEFL, SAT students: four, five sentences should be your limit.
36. 3:42You can't be too long because you don't have time and you're going to start making mistakes.
37. 3:47So now, the details. Very important to have lots of details. Why is this topic important
38. 3:54to your overall idea of your essay? Not only tell me what is the topic, what is the thesis
39. 4:01statement of the paragraph, make sure you explain to me why this is important to the
40. 4:06general idea of the essay. Give me your reasons. Now, why is it important? And then reasons,
41. 4:12why you think what you're saying supports this idea. Examples, always use examples because
42. 4:19giving me the reasons is okay; examples make me see exactly what you're trying to say.
43. 4:25Very easy for me to understand what you're trying to say.
44. 4:29Now, in terms of flow, in terms of the way the reader can approach the paragraph, you
45. 4:34have to have bridges. What is, what do bridges mean? Basically, when you have one idea in
46. 4:41this sentence, you must connect it to the next sentence, you must connect it to the
47. 4:46next sentence. Every sentence must have a link to the next sentence. This creates flow,
48. 4:53makes it much easier to read and understand, and it keeps you on the one topic.
49. 5:00Now, key terms. If you're talking about something specific and you have to use a key term, use
50. 5:06it as many times as you need to. Otherwise, avoid repetition.
51. 5:15Try not to use the same word more than once in one paragraph. Okay? For example: if you're using the word "moreover"
52. 5:23in the paragraph, don't use it, don't use "moreover" again -- use "in addition to",
53. 5:28use "furthermore", "another", etc. Try to avoid using one word more than once, especially
54. 5:35in the same paragraph. But sometimes you'll get words, like for example you're writing
55. 5:39an essay about parents. Not many words you can replace for "parents" so if you have to
56. 5:45say "parents", "parents", "parents", "parents", so be it, do that. Once in a while: "mom and
57. 5:50dad", "mother and father" but you don't want to add like "mother and father" three words,
58. 5:54"parents" one word. Shorter is better, so keep that in mind.
59. 6:00At the end of your paragraph when you're coming to the end, if this is part of your body -- means
60. 6:05there's another paragraph coming -- leave me some sort of bridge to the next paragraph.
61. 6:12Or if you can't do that, then just conclude the paragraph, make sure it's a very clear
62. 6:17statement that this idea is finished; I'm done talking about this idea and then start
63. 6:22your next paragraph with some bridge to the previous one. So one paragraph connects to
64. 6:28the next paragraph. Same idea with flow: sentence connects to sentence, paragraph connects to
65. 6:34paragraph. Okay? Now of course the easiest way to understand all this is to look at an
66. 6:40actual paragraph and see all these points in it. Okay? So let's do that.
67. 6:46Okay, don't be scared. This is a paragraph. Okay? First, before we do anything, let me
68. 6:51read it to you so in case you can't see it clearly.
69. 6:55"Great changes require a powerful hand to guide them and push them forward. Governments
70. 7:01have the power and influence of the law to support them. Moreover, they have access to
71. 7:06means with which to enforce the law and punish offenders. Individuals and corporations that
72. 7:13pollute our air and waters will not stop doing so as long as they can profit from this action
73. 7:20and do not fear consequences. A steel producer, for instance, will not cease dumping waste
74. 7:26in a nearby river if it does not affect its bottom line. Taxing this company, on the other
75. 7:32hand, might make it change its way of doing business. Yet, it is this very question of
76. 7:38costs that limits anyone but the government to act against pollution."
77. 7:43Okay, here's my paragraph. First of all, let me back up a little bit. My essay, what is
78. 7:49my essay about? General topic: pollution. What is the question? Who is responsible to
79. 7:56fix it? I say government is responsible to fix it. I suggested three reasons in my introduction:
80. 8:04power, cost, credibility. Okay? This is my first body paragraph. I listed three reasons:
81. 8:12power, cost, credibility. My first paragraph will also be my first reason mentioned.
82. 8:17I mentioned power in my introduction, I will talk about power in my first paragraph. Okay?
83. 8:24So first of all, I have my indent, okay? I prefer indent, some people prefer spacing.
84. 8:32But to be honest, figure out what style guide your professor or your company or whoever
85. 8:39is asking you to use. There is MLA, APA, Chicago Manual of Style, each of them will tell you
86. 8:47how to do this; to indent or to leave a line, etc., capitalization. Style guides are actually
87. 8:54very good sources of learning English. Very boring books, but very useful books.
88. 8:59Okay. Oh sorry, let me just mention also: OWL, OWL at Perdue is a very good website;
89. 9:07lots of information to help you with writing. Okay, so I have my indent. Now, "Great changes
90. 9:13require a powerful hand to guide them and push them forward." Have I said anything here?
91. 9:19No. All I did was talk about change because that's what my general topic of the essay
92. 9:23is, and power because that's my first focus, I'm going to talk about the power. Okay? Very,
93. 9:31very general. "Governments have the power and influence of the law", so now here we
94. 9:38go, I had... Where'd I go? "Powerful" and I'm still talking about power. I'm connecting
95. 9:43the two sentences. Next, I introduce a new idea: "the law". Much
96. 9:48more specific. Where does their power come from? It comes from the law. "...influence
97. 9:53of the law to support them. Moreover," now, I'm not going to a new idea; I'm adding to
98. 10:00this idea that I just mentioned. "...they have access to means" - means ways of doing
99. 10:07things - "with which to enforce the law". So here, again, another idea. Enforce means
100. 10:13put into effect, make sure that it actually happens. "...enforce the law and punish offenders."
101. 10:21So they have the power of the law, with this power they can enforce and punish. Everything,
102. 10:27I'm connecting everything to everything. Offenders, now here I'm talking about offenders.
103. 10:32"Individuals and corporations that pollute", these are the offenders. So one sentence flows
104. 10:39into the next sentence, into the next sentence. "...pollute our air and waters will not stop
105. 10:45doing so as long as they can profit". Okay? So here's my next idea. They will not stop
106. 10:51polluting because we're still talking about pollution. Okay? They will not, as long as
107. 10:56they can profit, as long as they're making money. Why do people pollute? Because it pays
108. 11:00to pollute. "...action and do not fear consequences." So they don't fear punishment and the law
109. 11:07doesn't scare them. Okay? And again, we're still talking about pollution.
110. 11:11"A steel producer, for instance," I'm introducing an example. Okay? If you can introduce a real
111. 11:19example like the name of the steel company, even better. But I don't want to offend anyone;
112. 11:25I'm keeping it a little bit more general. "The steel producer will not cease", now before...
113. 11:32Here's the word "stop", I don't want to use the word "stop" again. Why? Because I have
114. 11:37other words. I have the word "cease", "cease" means "stop". Okay? Vocabulary variety very
115. 11:44important. "...will not cease dumping" - it means throwing in or throwing away - "waste
116. 11:50in a nearby river" - waste, pollution, I'm still on the same topic - "...if it does not
117. 11:55affect its bottom line." Now I'm not sure if everybody knows what "bottom line" is,
118. 11:59but "bottom line" basically means "profit". I'm still connecting the ideas using different
119. 12:05words. "Taxing this company", so taxing is a form
120. 12:12of punishment for companies especially. "Taxing this company, on the other hand," - so now
121. 12:18I'm giving the other side of the situation - "might make it change its way of doing business."
122. 12:25Again, what is business? Business is all about making money, costs. "Yet, it is this very
123. 12:32question of costs" - and I'm connecting it. Where? Sorry, to business - "that limits anyone
124. 12:38but the government to act against pollution." I bring it right back to government acting
125. 12:44against pollution. This is my overall thesis: governments must act to stop pollution. Right?
126. 12:51So remember: the paragraph, everything must connect to itself, but the paragraph must
127. 12:56connect to the essay, to the whole idea. Now, what else did I do here? I introduced the
128. 13:02topic of "costs". What is my next paragraph going to be? Remember: I had three reasons
129. 13:08for thinking government must act; power, costs, credibility. My next paragraph is costs.
130. 13:15I've already introduced this idea, I've started the bridge. In the next paragraph, I will
131. 13:21end the bridge, get into my new topic. Costs and power are two different ideas. One paragraph:
132. 13:29power, one paragraph: cost, one paragraph: credibility, and then of course your conclusion.
133. 13:35Okay? So you have all these things, everything connects, sentence variety. Make sure that
134. 13:41you're sticking to one topic, make sure you're preparing the reader for the next topic, and
135. 13:46make sure that everything connects to the overall idea of the essay. Okay?
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