Writing Tips: Beginning New Paragraphs

Paragraphs break up the text and ideas you are presenting so that the reader doesn't get overwhelmed reading one long block of text. In a single-spaced document, always double space between paragraphs. Use of subheadings is also helpful. The eye will quickly tire (and your reader will lose interest) if there are too many sentences strung together without a noticeable break.

Begin a new paragraph whenever you sense a shift in topic or idea. These shifts can be VERY subtle. If you have a hard time distinguishing these shifts, you may need to clarify what you are writing about for yourself/your reader. Three to four sentences should be the maximum length for a standard paragraph. Any more than that (depending on the length of sentence, of course) is too long and will tire your reader.

Paragraphs that are too long will encourage the reader to skip ahead to the next paragraph, losing potentially important information that is buried in a long paragraph. You may also want to use subheadings (to group a few paragraphs around a theme or topic) to keep paragraphs shorter but to cue the reader that all the paragraphs are speaking to the same issue.

Some people look at paragraphs as short, mini essays with a topic sentence with supporting sentences and then a transitional sentence at the end. If you use this approach, beware that it can lead to very long paragraphs. You may find that you need to use this approach if you are not being as thorough in your discussions as you would like to be. If that is the case, try to create other more natural breaks so you can talk in detail about the topic or idea without having paragraphs so long that your reader will skip ahead instead of reading.

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