Following the MEAL plan, a good paragraph should include the following components. During paragraph writing remember that every sentence in your paragraph should play an identifiable role. There should be no fluff, and you should be able to explain (and defend) the role of every individual sentence in your paragraph. This model will potentially produce 12-19 sentences which is more than enough for a single paragraph. Use the checklist before submitting your essay.
- Hook / Transition (1 Sentence)
- Optional, but can be often helpful in smoothing out paragraph breaks.
- Consider connecting the last sentence of your previous paragraph to the first sentence of your current one.
- Topic Sentence (1-2 Sentences)
- A coherent and clearly written sub-claim of your overall thesis.
- A topic sentence should ideally contain a combination of dependent / independent clauses to keep it from being too simplistic (but this is not always true).
- A topic sentence should announce its topic, but should also provide a controlling idea / position on the topic.
- Bridge Sentence (1-2 Sentences)
- Optional, but can help to guide the reader into the evidence.
- A further, optional development / clarification / restatement of your sub-claim.
- This might be an elaboration on the topic sentence, or it might be a restatement.
- Evidence / Analysis (4-6 Sentences)
- When using evidence, aim to provide the reader with context of what your evidence is.
- The evidence that you use should be appropriate to the point that you want to make.
- Without spelling out the obvious, you should be able to tell the reader why you’re using the evidence and what role it has in providing your sub-claim.
- For evidence, try to include the following:
- 1. Provide a single-sentence overview of what the subject is.
- 2. Provide a general statement of what topic’s engaged in your evidence.
- 3. Explicitly state the evidence through paraphrase or direct quote.
- 4. Add any information that helps to understand the evidence in its original form.
- Evidence / Analysis (4-6 Sentences)
- Although not always necessary, making your point with difference evidence will not only make it stronger.
- Make sure that your evidence is somewhat unified, but consider a different approach to making the same point.
- Transition / Link (1 Sentence)
- This sentence should either guide the reader to the next idea or signify how the sub-claim develops the overall thesis.
- If you are linking to the next paragraph, consider language that suggests another idea avoid introducing the ideas directly. Go for something like: “But in addition to considering photography’s impact on the family, it can also reshape other aspects of day-to-day life.”
Source: AEssay Team
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