Back to Basics: Paragraph Structure

Join the University of Chester's Academic Skills Team for The Skills Pod. In this episode we go back to basics and talk about paragraph structure. We begin with a discussion about sandwiches (bear with us - it will make sense in the end!) before going through the components of a critical paragraph. This episode features Liz, Anthony, and Emma. 

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Transcript

The Skills Pod: Back to Basics with Paragraph Structure

Emma: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Skills Pod. I'm Emma, one of the academic skills advisors here at the University of Chester, and I'm joined by my colleagues.

Liz: Hiya, I'm Liz. I'm one of the academic skills advisors at the University of Chester too.

Tony: Hello, I'm Tony, and I'm one of the senior academic skills advisors as part of the team.

Emma: And today we're going to talk about paragraph structure. So we're going back to basics. Where shall we begin?

Tony: Well, we're recording this at 11 o'clock, and it's nearly lunchtime. So, should we talk about sandwiches?

Emma: Let's talk about sandwiches, Tony.

Tony: Yes, and I'm sure this will all make sense. 

Liz: The idea is that if you think about a very basic cheese sandwich on white bread, maybe with a bit of butter—or perhaps you didn't even have time for that and just grabbed a slice of cheap cheese. When you put that in a sandwich, you end up with something that's quite bland. It's about breaking your paragraph up, putting interesting filling in it, maybe using fancy bread, and having lots of added extras.

Emma: Exactly, it needs to be appetizing to the lecturer who's going to be reading it. 

Tony: We want them to be able to digest that information, to continue the food theme.

Tony: So let's break down the idea of a sandwich. The top piece of bread is what we would call the topic sentence. Every paragraph should have a topic sentence at the start. The bottom piece of bread is what we would call our summary sentence. So, fundamentally, every paragraph has to start with a topic sentence and end with a summary sentence. Those are your two pieces of bread. What you do in the middle is how you make your filling more exciting.

Liz: But things can go wrong. For example, if your topic sentence talks about one thing and your summary sentence at the end has gone on to something different, then your pieces of bread don't match up. You're not giving the reader something cohesive to hold onto. It doesn't hold together, and the sandwich falls apart. That's why it's important to top and tail your paragraphs by coming back to that same single point.

Tony: And what we often find is that students don't actually write the summary sentence, so your entire filling just falls out. There's nothing to hold it together. It's so important when you are writing to think about that. 

Emma: You want the same bread to bookend your sandwich. Why don't they make sandwiches with one slice of brown and one slice of white bread? 

Tony: Because it's weird, that's why.!

Liz: What did I have this morning? I had an open sandwich. It was malted bloomer and it had butter, a slice of corned beef, a fried egg, and fried mushrooms.

Tony: I'll come round to yours for breakfast!

Liz: Pepper, spinach... it was really good.

Tony: So that sounds like a good paragraph that was just missing its summary sentence! You had different fillings in there: you've got your corned beef, your butter which holds it together, and your fried egg.

Emma: I think that's a really good point about making sure that you're keeping on point with both your opening and closing sentence. So, what do we expect in the middle of the paragraph? A boring cheese sandwich might just have one piece of evidence. That’s not what your tutors want to see. They want to see that you've explored an array of sources, that you're drawing those sources in, and you're showing your tutor why that information matters.

Tony: Absolutely. We treat the items within that sandwich as evidence. So you have some cheese in there. Then you want to present something else, something slightly different, like a couple of slices of tomato. But you want something that links those two, like a bit of mayo or butter. Then you might have a bit of lettuce. What we don't want to see in a paragraph—which should be around 200-250 words—is loads of ingredients without anything to connect them.

Emma: All random ingredients. You wouldn't put peanut butter with cheese.

Liz: Some people probably would.

Tony: I personally wouldn't. Let's think about that. If you're having a cheese sandwich, you're not going to throw in mango.

Emma: Mango chutney, maybe. That actually sounds quite nice.

Emma: You wouldn't have fish and jam.

Liz: No, that is weird. That's quite niche, isn't it?

Tony: That's a good example because the jam or the fish is something unconnected and it doesn't fit. It's random. If you read that, it would look weird, just as it would taste weird.

Emma: It's like you've read some evidence and just tried to make it fit into your point, but it doesn't actually work. So you get something very random, like jam and fish.

Tony: What we often see is students presenting loads of literature in those 200-250 words. On the face of it, that seems really good. But what's missing is the connection between them all—the element of what we call critical analysis. What do those sources mean in relation to each other?

If I can take you to a different sandwich now: a club sandwich. What makes a club sandwich special is that there's often a third piece of bread in the middle. For our analogy, that middle piece of bread is where your critical analysis goes. You're saying to your reader, "Okay, I've presented all this literature to you. Now, halfway through the paragraph, this is what it all means." Then you go to the rest of the filling and end with that summary sentence. We're stopping halfway to explain what everything means, rather than just presenting literature after literature and then summarizing at the end. It's really good to stop at certain points and explain the literature so the reader doesn't get lost.

Liz: Absolutely. That can be a really useful thing to do when you've got a complex point to make, or you have a lot of fundamental evidence you need to incorporate before bringing it up to date. It's a pause before you carry on. It’s making sure you're getting that analysis in and giving the reader a chance to catch up with where you've progressed your argument to before you move on.

I also like to think of the mayo or the butter as being our academic sentences and signposting language—words like 'furthermore,' 'therefore,' and 'in conclusion.' They're the bits that keep all the filling in and make it slide from one point to the next, as opposed to just being separate statements of information that don't flow into an argument.

Emma: It's like the glue that holds everything together.

Tony: Butter, mayo, chutney...

Emma: I am really hungry now.

Tony: That's not unusual, but I really am now. So thank you both.

Emma: No problem. So, to move away from the sandwich metaphor, it might be useful to talk about paragraph structure in the terms that we use. A good paragraph should always begin with a topic sentence, which is a signposting sentence for your reader that introduces the key point. Then we've got our filling: the evidence and analysis. You have evidence from your wider reading, and then your analysis of why that evidence matters, what it means for your key point, and what the implications might be. This is what your tutors want to see. Finally, we have that concluding sentence that draws everything together and suggests what the evidence and analysis mean for your key point.

It can be useful to think of your paragraphs as little assignments. You've got your introductory sentence, your main body (evidence and analysis), and your concluding sentence.

Tony: Top tip: you should be able to read just the first and last sentence of your paragraph and have it make sense. As advisors, when we read your work, we should be able to look only at your "bread" and still understand your conclusion. Your topic sentence should state your point, and your summary should be an answer to that. This is what your assignments do as a whole: the introduction says what you're going to do, and the conclusion provides the answer.

We see it time and time again: students losing easy marks by either discussing something different from what they promised in their topic sentence or, more often than not, just ending on a citation without a summary sentence. A lot of students ask us, "How do I get my opinion across?" Your informed opinion comes in that summary sentence. It could start with, "It could be argued that..." or "To summarise..." and it doesn't have a citation, which indicates to your reader that it's your own critical thinking. So please, make sure you have them in.

Emma: My pet hate is ending paragraphs on a citation. You're ending your paragraph with someone else's idea. You're not bringing it back to your overall considered viewpoint and the key takeaway for your reader.

Liz: One of the things we talk about is colour-coding a paragraph to see if you are writing critically. Split up the individual sentences into different colours so you can see if you have a clear opening and closing statement, if you have signposting language, and if it's clear that this is your understanding of the evidence. Are you just making statements? We see that a lot, where students state an interpretation but don't use the language to signpost it as their own. What they end up with is a statement without any evidence supporting it, so we don't know where it comes from or why you think that.

If you break your paragraph down by sentences and colour-code them, you can see if you've got these unsupported sentences. You can then put something in place to make it clear to the reader what you're doing, and you'll be able to get marks for it instead of the lecturer asking, "What do you mean by this? How do you know this?"

Emma: And now we're all hungry.

Tony: I'm actually going to eat my lunch now. It's twenty past eleven.

Liz: You can't, Tony, that's terrible!

Tony: It's lunchtime somewhere in the world, isn't it?

Emma: Okay, well, thanks for listening to this episode of the Skills Pod. I am Emma... I don't know why I had to think about my name there.

Liz: She's hungry, that's why!

Tony: I'm Tony.

Liz: And I'm Liz. Bye!

University of Chester: Academic Skills Support

Hi there. If you're a University of Chester student, here are the ways you can access support from your academic skills team.

On our Moodle pages, we've got lots of interactive resources for you to use. On our Literacies Moodle page, you'll find help with a range of skills from academic writing to revision. On our Maths and Statistics Moodle pages, you'll find help with different statistical tests, calculations, and formulas.

You can also use our 'feed-forward' email assistance service. You can send 750 words (which is around three paragraphs) of your work to ask@chester.ac.uk, and we'll respond within three working days with generic and developmental advice on aspects such as paragraph structure, criticality, and referencing.

You can also book a one-to-one with an academic skills advisor via our Moodle pages. These appointments typically last 30 minutes and are available online and in person. You're able to see the campuses we're at by looking at our booking scheduler. You can send across an extract of your work for us to look at in preparation for the one-to-one, or you can book an appointment to discuss a generic skill such as referencing or critical thinking.

If you and a group of your course mates are struggling with the same academic skill, you can book an 'Ask Together' session by emailing ask@chester.ac.uk with details of your availability, how many people are in your group, what skills you want to cover, and where you'd like the session to take place.

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook using the handle @AcadSkillsUOC, where we post practical tips on a range of academic skills, and it's also a great way to see what the team are up to.

And of course, you've got the Skills Pod. If you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or you'd like to be involved with our podcast, please email ask@chester.ac.uk.

ASK: Supporting your success.