Belajar Bahasa Inggris From Paragraph to Essay
As in any piece of writing, your paragraphs should respond to the questions: “What do I want to say?” “To whom do I want to say it?” “How do I want to say it?” These questions, as always, respond to the largest question: “Why do I want to say it?” What is your goal, and have you constructed a paragraph that will accomplish that goal?
An essay is a collection of paragraphs unified by a controlling goal and purpose. Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. To put it another way, we can think of a paragraph as rather like a miniature essay. Paragraph problems often arise from three interrelated sorts of difficulties: trouble with unity, trouble with coherence, and trouble with development.
A unified paragraph has a single clear focus, and all its sentences relate to that focus. The focus for a paragraph is achieved by means of a controlling idea, just as the focus for a whole essay is achieved by means of a controlling goal. In an essay, that idea appears in the thesis, either clearly implied or explicitly stated. Similarly, in a paragraph the controlling idea is clearly implied or, more commonly, explicitly stated in the topic sentence. The topic sentence sums up the central idea of the paragraph. It serves as your guide for developing that idea and as the reader’s guide for understanding it.
Once students have put together ideas in a way which shows relationships between them, they can consider other methods of achieving coherence such as repeating key words and phrases, using parallel grammatical structure, using transitional markers (signals), and using old information to introduce new information.
The thesis statement is the means by which you communicate your topic and indicate your goal. A careful stated thesis introduces and summarizes the entire paper—puts into a nutshell the central idea, which the rest of the paper explores and develops.
You should be immediately suspicious of any thesis statement that is a compoundsentence. Such sentences usually contain two central ideas joined by a coordinating conjunction. Because each idea receives equal emphasis in the sentence, the unifying purpose of the thesis statement is defeated.
Effective Beginnings.
Consider
beginning with a statement of fact, a startling statement, or an unusual
detail. For instance:
FACTUAL STATEMENT
Ninety-two percent of the students
at State College live at home and commute.
STARTLING STATEMENT
There’s a fine line between cheap
and sleazy. I know. I recently drove right along it. Let me explain.
UNUSUAL DETAIL
Grandmother Gardner didn’t drink
tea; she drank beer.
Effective Endings
1) Consider
concluding with a restatement of your thesis statement or with a quotation that
illustrates your thesis.
2) Consider
summarizing the major ideas that you developed in your paper. A summary serves
the double purposes of bringing your paper to a conclusion and of reminding
your readers once more of the major points you discussed.
3) Consider
a conclusion drawn from the facts you present. Especially if your purpose in a
paper has been to argue a point of view, you need to write a conclusion that
derives from the evidence or reasons you presented.
4)
Consider
ending with a punch line. The punch line ending usually contains an element of
surprise or irony.
Paragraph Unity
A unified paragraph has a single clear focus, and
all its sentences relate to that focus. Unity means that you discuss only one
main idea in a paragraph.
The focus for a paragraph is achieved by means of a
controlling idea.
Paragraph Coherence
Coherence means that your paragraph is easy to read
and understand because:
1. Your
supporting sentences are in some kind of logical order, and
2. Your
ideas are connected by the use of appropriate transition signals.
A well-written paragraph contains
five elements:
1. A
topic sentence,
2. Supporting
sentence,
3. A
concluding sentence,
4. Unity,
and
5. Coherence.
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5. Coherence.
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