Methods of Paragraph Development

Paragraphs can be organized and developed in many different ways: a narrative of events in chronological order, a series of descriptive details that create a verbal image, explication of an idea using specific examples, argument based on logical reasoning, and so on. Here are some examples of various methods of paragraph development.

Definition

Hope is paradoxical. It is neither passive waiting nor is it unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot occur. It is like the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the moment for jumping has come. Neither tired reformism nor pseudo-radical adventurism is an expression of hope. To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime. There is no sense in hoping for that which already exists or for that which cannot be. Those whose hope is weak settle down for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish all signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born.    

 -Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope.

Description

In the years I am talking about I was living in a large house in a part of Hollywood that had once been expensive and was now described by one of my acquaintances as a “senseless-killing neighborhood.” This house on Franklin Avenue was rented, and paint peeled inside and out, and pipes broke and window sashes crumbled and the tennis court had not been rolled since 1933, but the rooms were many and high-ceilinged and, during the five years that I lived there, even the rather sinistral inertia of the neighborhood tended to suggest that I should live in the house indefinitely.    

 -Joan Didion, “The White Album.”

Narration

Díaz left Veracruz late in December 1875, accompanied by General Manuel Gonzalez, aboard the British Atlantic packet, La Corsica. The ship was bound for Europe, but Díaz disembarked at Brownsville, Texas. Two months later, accompanied by four hundred poorly armed men, Díaz crossed into Mexico, attacking the port of Matamoros. By the time the city fell in early May, several rebel movements in southern Mexico were already well under way, in accord with Díaz’s strategy of encouraging multiple centers of revolt.    

 -Guy Thomson & David LaFrance, Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Mexico.

Argument by Analogy

But why, then, did Marxism pretend to be a theory of social causation? Because, given the time, the place, and the circumstances…men want to be assured that what they are fighting and dying for has been “scientifically” proved to be true—just as purchasers of soap or cigarettes like to be assured that “science” shows the product they use to be superior. In another age, in another country, revolutionists would not formulate their program in terms of dialectical materialism, but in terms, say, of a crusade to free the Holy Places from the infidel. It just happens that in the present age the former type of formula appeals and so provides the oppressed classes with a rationale for the revolutionary acts which one wants them to perform.

 -W. T. Jones, “Marxism.”

Examples Organized by Place

People do extreme things in the name of beauty. They invest so much of their resources in beauty and risk so much for it, one would think that lives depended on it. In Brazil there are more Avon ladies than members of the army. In the United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services. Tons of makeup—1,484 tubes of lipstick and 2,055 jars of skin care products—are sold every minute. During famines, Kalahari bushmen in Africa still use animal fats to moisturize their skin, and in 1715 riots broke out in France when the use of flour on the hair of aristocrats led to a food shortage. The hoarding of flour for beauty purposes was only quelled by the French Revolution.    

 -Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest.

Statistics Ordered by Time

Although it is important to acknowledge the racial divisions in America so that they can be meaningfully addressed, the incessant attention given to these gaps has obscured the following fact: blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans share many concerns, are besieged by many similar problems, and have important norms, values, and aspirations in common. Take the issue of values. An analysis of the responses to questions that were variously asked in national surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey since 1982 reveals only marginal racial differences in core values pertaining to work, education, the family, religion, law enforcement, and civic duty. For example, in a 1982 survey, 90 percent of whites and 89 percent of blacks felt that one’s own family and children were very important; in a 1984 survey, 88 percent of whites and 95 percent of blacks felt that the obligation of American citizens to do community service was very or somewhat important; and in a 1993 survey, 95 percent of whites and 92 percent of blacks felt that hard work in life outcomes was either important or very important…      

-William Julius Wilson, “Rising Inequality and the Case for Coalition Politics.”