How to Put Good Examples in a Paragraph

Material for this page was created by students in my Composition Class:

Daniel, Slav, John, Veronica, Ping, Lyubov, Tshion, Dina, Hidemasa, Mira, and Lydiya, EunHye, Kwangdea, and Kong

 

Before writing a paragraph, there are a lot of things to think about as you get ready:

  1. Choose a topic that you know well, or research topics until you do know them well and can pick one.

  2. Think about a topic sentence, a main idea for it.

  3. Think about your readers, be prepared to use words that they would understand easily.

  4. Find examples that connect directly to the main idea, and that your readers will find useful to help understand the main idea.

  5. Use transitions between each example, and clearly connect each to the main idea that it is trying to clarify.

  6. Keep your examples interesting: some should be long, some short, some should have a lot of detail, some a few. It all depends on why you need them!

  7. Use your most interesting example at the end of your paragraph. That is the one your reader is likely to remember!

  8. Make sure that your examples don't distract your reader from the main idea.

  9. Move on to the conclusion when your point is clear.

  10. Now you are ready to put your paragraph aside. A couple of days later, please come back to it and re read it. You will then be able to edit it much more easily!!

 

Answer these questions about your paragraph to see if your examples are good:

Does your paragraph have a main idea? yes No
Does your example connect directly to the main idea? Does it explain it well? Yes No
Is your example easy to follow? Yes No
Is your example about the right size? Not too long, not too short? Yes No
Did you use transition words or sentences to connect your examples to the main idea? Yes No
Do you have the right number of examples: not too many, not too few? Yes No

If the answer is Yes to all of these questions, you are using examples very well! Congratulations!