THE PARAGRAPH

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THE PARAGRAPH

The sentences developing each of the divisions of a composition make one paragraph. A paragraph, therefore, is the treatment of one of the natural divisions of a subject. The length depends on the topic to be treated. Two cautions may be given:

Do not write paragraphs containing only one sentence. Such paragraphs do not represent divisions of the subject. They are simply statements which have not been expanded as they deserve, or they are sentences that should be placed with the preceding or succeeding sentences in order to make a good paragraph. Some business men in their letters and advertisements use the one-sentence paragraph too frequently to concentrate the attention of the reader. A writer divides his composition into paragraphs in order to aid the reader to follow the thoughts he is presenting. When the reader sees the indentation that indicates a new paragraph, he thinks that the writer has said all that he intends to say on the topic in hand and now intends to open a new topic. It is confusing to find that the new paragraph is simply another sentence on the same topic as the preceding paragraph. Notice the jerky effect of the following extract from a letter:

We are sending you a copy of our latest catalogue, which gives illustrations and prices of all our stock.

The illustrations are all made from actual photographs and are faithful in representing the shoe described.

Bear Brand Shoes are shipped in special fiber cases, thus lessening freight bills and eliminating the annoyance of shortage claims because they cannot be opened without immediate detection.

Errors of any kind should be reported without delay.

Imperfect or damaged goods must be returned for our inspection; otherwise no allowance will be made.

Do not go to the other extreme, writing paragraphs of great length. Much depends, of course, on the matter to be treated, but, as a rule, in a student's theme a paragraph should be not longer than one page. If one of the divisions of your subject is necessarily long, subdivide it, allowing a paragraph to treat each of the subdivisions.

Whether it is to be long or short, a paragraph must treat but one topic; from the first sentence to the last, it should be the development of one idea. Moreover, this topic must be revealed to the reader in no unmistakable way. Sometimes the subject is so simple that the topic may easily be gathered from the details given, but usually it is well to have one sentence that in a brief or general way states the topic. This is called the topic sentence. It may be at or near the beginning; in this case the rest of the paragraph defines or illustrates what it states. It may, however, be found at almost any point in the paragraph, not infrequently acting as a sentence of conclusion, summing up the details that have been presented.

A paragraph that begins with a topic sentence sometimes ends with a sentence of conclusion. The first sentence states the topic, the following sentences explain or illustrate it, and the last sentence summarizes or otherwise indicates that the topic has been completed. This form has been called the hammock paragraph, because it has a solid "post" at each end with a mass of details "swinging" between. It is a good form to use in writing paragraphs on given subjects, when each paragraph is to stand alone, complete in itself, not forming part of a longer composition. The practice of writing such paragraphs induces clear, forceful thinking.

Exercise 208

Study the following paragraphs for—

Topic sentence, if there is one.
Development of the topic.
Sentence of conclusion, if there is one.

1 The problem in many large firms is how to develop office efficiency to the highest possible degree. In this respect the monthly examination scheme has been found a great success. The examination consists of a list of questions about merchandise and business procedure. The questions are given out on the last Saturday of the month, and the answers are returned for criticism on the following Wednesday. The employees are told that they may consult as many authorities as they wish, but each man must write his own paper. A poor percentage in three of these tests usually means dismissal. Thus the inefficient are dropped, and the ambitious who have studied are recognized. The vice-president of one concern that uses this system says that it is a strong reminder to his men that they must make themselves worthy of the organization. Besides maintaining an even standard of efficiency, the plan has resulted in developing a number of valuable executives, whose latent powers were brought out by the rigidness of the tests.

2 Every month the department head in one big eastern concern, watch in hand, times a large force of typists individually, testing how rapidly they can write a letter of 200 words from their shorthand notes. Rapidity, punctuation, spelling, and neatness are carefully recorded. This plan has had a desirable influence in bringing stenographers up to grade in their daily work, because a good examination mark is reduced one-half by careless daily work, and a poor examination mark correspondingly raised by excellent daily work. When both examination average and daily average are excellent, the stenographer's salary is increased; when both are below good, the stenographer is dismissed. In this way the standard of stenographic work is kept high.

3 In his effort to succeed many a young business man overlooks the detail of business courtesy. He does not realize the value that a buyer places upon that commodity. The more experienced man, however, knows that courtesy does more to hold a buyer than do bargain sales. In our large cities merchants have incurred great expense to fit up rest rooms where customers may spend an idle hour, write letters on stationery that is provided, and read the latest magazines. In the rural districts, where such luxuries are often impossible, the merchant provides chairs for his customers and a place for stationing their teams. The country merchant, however, can often accomplish his object more quickly than the city dealer by spending an hour gossiping with his customers. He recognizes the fact that buyers are flattered when the proprietor himself takes the time to say a few words to them. He knows just as well as his city competitor does, that if a buyer feels at home in his store, sales are practically guaranteed.

4 The rural landscape of Norway, on the long easterly slope that leads up to the watershed among the mountains on the western coast, is not unlike that of Vermont or New Hampshire. The railway from Christiania to the Randsfjord carried us through a hilly country of scattered farms and villages. Wood played a prominent part in the scenery. There were dark stretches of forest on the hilltops and in the valleys; rivers filled with floating logs; sawmills beside the waterfalls; wooden farmhouses painted white; and rail-fences around the fields. The people seemed sturdy, prosperous, independent. They had the familiar habit of coming down to the station to see the train arrive and depart. We might have fancied ourselves on a journey through the Connecticut valley if it had not been for the soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness of the railway officials.

—Van Dyke: Fisherman's Luck.

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in the series may be read with pleasure separately; yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. It must be remembered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life and manners of England, had appeared. Richardson was working as a compositor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narrative, therefore, which connects together the Spectator's essays gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. That narrative was, indeed, constructed with no art or labor. The events were such events as occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so far as to go to the theater when the "Distressed Mother" is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the honest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up, and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt that if Addison had written a novel on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered not only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great English novelists.

—Macaulay: Essay on Addison.

Exercise 209

Prepare a paragraph developing each of the following topic sentences:

The kitchen was a cheerful place. (Tell all the details that will explain the word cheerful.)
In the kitchen the preparations for the feast went on merrily. (Give the details that will help one get the picture.)
Examinations are helpful to the student. (In what ways are they helpful? If possible, use examples to illustrate the point.)
Winter is more enjoyable than summer. (Contrast the pleasures of the one with those of the other, showing that those of winter are more enjoyable.)
Riding a motorcycle is apt to make a boy reckless. (Develop by using examples.)
A man must like his work if he is to succeed in it.
Farm lands vary in price.
The farmer feeds the world.
Every department store should have regular fire drills.
Every sale ought to be an advertisement.

Exercise 210

Paragraph the following so that the paragraphs will represent the divisions in thought. If there are any topic sentences, underline them.

I have often noticed that every one has his own individual small economies, careful habits of saving fractions of pennies in some one peculiar direction, any disturbance of which annoys him more than spending shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old gentleman of my acquaintance, who took the intelligence of the failure of a Joint Stock Bank, in which some of his money was invested, with a stoical mildness, worried his family all through a long summer's day because one of them had torn (instead of cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless bankbook. Of course, the corresponding pages at the other end came out as well, and this little unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy) chafed him more than all the loss of his money. Envelopes fretted his soul terribly when they came in. The only way in which he could reconcile himself to such a waste of his cherished article was by patiently turning inside out all that were sent to him, and so making them serve again. Even now, though tamed by age, I see him casting wistful glances at his daughters when they send a whole inside of a half-sheet of note paper, with the three lines of acceptance to an invitation written on only one of the sides. I am not above owning that I have this human weakness myself. String is my foible. My pockets get full of little hanks of it, picked up and twisted together, ready for uses that never come. I am seriously annoyed if any one cuts a string of a parcel instead of patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring themselves to use India-rubber bands, which are a sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do I cannot imagine. To me an India-rubber band is a precious treasure. I have one which is not new—one that I picked up off the floor nearly five years ago. I have really tried to use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit the extravagance. Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot attend to conversation because of the annoyance occasioned by the habit which some people have of invariably taking more butter than they want. Have you ever seen the anxious look (almost mesmeric) which such persons fix on the article? They would feel it a relief if they might bury it out of their sight by popping it into their own mouths and swallowing it down; and they are really made happy if the person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly breaks off a piece of toast (which he does not want at all) and eats up his butter. They think that this is not waste. Now, Miss Matty Jenkins was chary of candles: We had many devices to use as few as possible. In the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for two or three hours—she could do this in the dark or by firelight—and when I asked if I might not ring for candles to finish stitching my wristbands, she told me to "keep blind man's holiday." They were usually brought in with tea, but we burnt only one at a time. As we lived in constant preparation for a friend who might come in any evening (but who never did), it required some contrivance to keep our two candles of the same length, ready to be lighted, and to look as if we burnt two always. The candles took it in turns; and then, whatever we might be talking of or doing, Miss Matty kept her eyes habitually fixed upon the candle, ready to jump up and extinguish it and light the other before they had become too uneven in length to be restored to equality in the course of the evening.

—Adapted from Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford.

Dear Madam: We are sorry to say that we have no more house coats No. SP62 in size 38 at $4.50. As we advertised, SP62 is not a regular stock number, but represents a collection of $5, $6, and $7.50 coats remaining after the holiday sales and reduced to insure their being sold before spring. At the opening of the sale there were only a few coats in size 38, and they were sold almost at once. In our catalogue, pages 68 to 71 inclusive, you will find descriptions of all our stock house coats. On page 68 you will see No. 450HC, our regular $4.50 coat. If you would like us to send you one of these in size 38, we shall forward it to you at once. However, if you would like a $5, $6, or $7.50 coat, you will, no doubt, send us the difference in price on receipt of this letter. Of course, the more expensive garments are made of better materials, but all our coats show the same excellent workmanship. The best way for you to get the exact shade of trimming that you wish is to send us a sample of the goods that you would like to match. We assure you that we shall take all possible care to send you the proper color.

Yours truly,

Exercise 211

Paragraphs may be developed in different ways. For example, if you were going to write on the process of making a layer cake, you would explain in detail the different ingredients in the mixture, the proportion of each, and the steps in the process before the product could be sold as a layer cake.

By the use of explanatory details develop the following:

Making a kite.
Making a baseball.
Making fudge.
How to play checkers.
The manufacture of soap (or any article in a grocery).
The manufacture of a tin can.
The manufacture of pins.
Every man must have an ambition.
Why I intend to enter business.
The greatest modern invention.

By the use of examples to illustrate your point develop the following:

Electricity is making housework easy and pleasant.
Many sons of poor parents have won great wealth.
The wireless apparatus has saved many lives.
A boy can show that he is a good citizen.
Young Americans have little respect for authority.

By the use of comparison and contrast develop the following:

Improvements in modern lighting systems.
Improvements in modern heating systems.
Improvements in modern means of locomotion.
Two kinds of work, pleasure, or study.
Why I intend to have a business of my own.
The study that I like best.

By explaining cause and effect develop the following:

The advantages of public gymnasiums.
The success of loose leaf devices.
The objections to football.

Exercise 212

Develop the following into paragraphs; in each case be able to show what method or methods you have employed:

A man who cannot read and write English should not be allowed to vote.
Postal savings banks inspire the savings habit.
Women—the mothers of children—should vote.
Women should not vote because they do not read the newspaper.
The effect of school slang is bad.
I wish I had seen the coronation of George V. Every fairy story I had ever read would suddenly have become real.
Canada would gain by reciprocity with the United States.
The United States would gain by reciprocity with Canada.
Our forests should be preserved.
The waste of lumber by forest fires results from carelessness.
The waste of lumber in cutting railroad ties is too great.
The rotation of crops enriches the soil.
Apples are more easily gathered than cherries.
Efforts should be made to keep the birds in our city parks.
Every boy should learn a trade.
Peddlers should not be allowed to call their wares.
Great crowds gathered in the city during aviation week (or any celebration).
The electric toaster is good for hurry-up breakfasts.
Ironing with an electric iron is more convenient than with the old-fashioned kind.
The wireless apparatus makes sea voyages safer than before.
A mixed diet is best.
Cats should be exterminated because they spread disease.
The parcel post will decrease the profits of the express companies.
A good book is opened with expectation and closed with profit.
Merchants should charge for delivering purchases.
The object of the Child Welfare Exhibit is to promote the best interests of children.
One of the best enactments of our time is the Child Labor Law.

Exercise 213—Smooth Connection

We may as well confess at the beginning that smooth connection between sentences and paragraphs is a hard thing to learn. Primarily, it depends on clear thinking. In Exercise 135 we saw that the idea of one sentence must grow out of the idea of the preceding one. It is the same with paragraphs. The thought must develop gradually from one to the next. Each paragraph, we know, represents a unit within the larger unit of the composition; each represents a division of thought. Not infrequently the thought of one division differs considerably from the thought of the next. The tying together of such units is sometimes hard. It may be done in one of the following ways:

By repeating at the beginning of the new paragraph or sentence part of the preceding paragraph or sentence.
By using pronouns to refer to what has gone before.
By using connecting links, sometimes called transition words because they indicate the transition from one division to the next. Besides those mentioned in Exercise 135, we may use a numeral connection, as, in the first place, in the second place; or an expression much like a numeral, as, furthermore, in the next place; or an expression showing that an adverse idea is to be presented, as, on the other hand, however, in spite of this, nevertheless. But whatever you do, choose the right link, especially if you use such a one as possibly, probably, perhaps, certainly, surely. Use the one that expresses your idea exactly. Have none rather than the wrong one.

In the following the first and second paragraphs are connected according to (1) above; the second and third are connected according to (3) above.

There comes to every prosperous man a time when he wishes to know the best way of securing a steady income from his accumulated savings without the burden of responsibility of managing some property in order to gain his income. The merchant may not wish to put back into the business all the earnings he gets from it, and yet he wishes to prepare for his old age. The farmer may wish to give up active work, but he realizes how soon his broad acres may deteriorate through soil-robbery when he rents his property "on shares." With such a problem before him the thoughtful man makes an effort to learn how to act to secure a good income all his life.

One of the first things he learns, if he studies the situation carefully, is that there is a wide difference between an income derived from one's business ability, such as the profit secured from running a store, factory, jobbing house, or farm, and the income which is derived as the result of money "working" by itself. In the first case, a man must of necessity keep up his business responsibilities; in the other, once he has selected a safe investment, practically all he has to do is to collect his income from time to time as it falls due. There is in the latter no depreciation of land, buildings, machinery, or the like; no insurance payments to worry about; no crop failures to consider.

It is evident, then, that if one wishes to put surplus money away—say the proceeds from the sale of a business or a farm—and get a steady income from it without bother or worry, the most important thing to consider is how to go about it to select something which, once purchased, will turn out to be a safe investment.

Exercise 214

In the following paragraphs taken from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Philosophy of Nomenclature, point out all the transition words that join (1) sentence to sentence, and (2) paragraph to paragraph:

To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt from the very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one of my numerous praenomina. Look at the delight with which two children find they have the same name. They are friends from that moment forth; they have a bond of union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. This feeling, I own, wears off in later life. Our names lose their freshness and interest, become trite and indifferent. But this, dear reader, is merely one of the sad effects of those "shades of the prison house" which come gradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it affords no weapon against the philosophy of names.

In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that name which careless godfathers lightly applied to your unconscious infancy will have been moulding your character and influencing with irresistible power the whole course of your earthly fortunes. But the last name is no whit less important as a condition of success. Family names, we must recollect, are but inherited nicknames; and if the sobriquet were applicable to the ancestor, it is most likely applicable to the descendant also. You would not expect to find Mr. M'Phun acting as a mute or Mr. M'Lumpha excelling as a professor of dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider names, independent of whether they are first or last. And to begin with, look what a pull Cromwell had over Pym—the one name full of a resonant imperialism, the other mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree. Who would expect eloquence from Pym—who would read poems by Pym—who would bow to the opinions of Pym? He might have been a dentist, but he should never have aspired to be a statesman. I can only wonder that he succeeded as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first upon the roll of men who have triumphed, by sheer force of genius, over the most unfavorable appellations. But even these have suffered; and, had they been more fitly named, the one might have been Lord Protector and the other have shared the laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must not forget that all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley—what a constellation of lordly words! Not a single commonplace name among them—not a Brown, not a Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would stop and look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if Pepys had tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a blot would that name have made upon the list! The thing is impossible. In the first place, a certain natural consciousness that men have would have held him down to the level of his name, would have prevented him from rising above the Pepsine standard, and so haply withheld him altogether from attempting verse. Next, the booksellers would refuse to publish, and the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal appellation. And now, before I close this section, I must say one word as to punnable names, names that stand alone, that have a significance and life apart from him that bears them. These are the bitterest of all. One friend of mine goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight of this misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a man's name is a joke, when he cannot be mentioned without exciting merriment, and when even the intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter into many a home.

So much for people who are badly named. Now for people who are too well named, who go topheavy from the font, who are baptized into a false position, and who find themselves beginning life eclipsed under the fame of some of the great ones of the past. A man, for instance, called William Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown into too humbling an apposition with the author of Hamlet. His own name coming after is such an anti-climax. "The plays of William Shakespeare?" says the reader—"O no! The plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill," and he throws the book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this favored town, has never attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new path and has excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked example of triumph over this is the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rosetti. On the face of the matter, I should have advised him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the last-named gentleman, and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. Rosetti has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his mighty name-father; and the voice of fame supports him in his boldness.

Exercise 215

Turn back to Exercise 210, 1. How are the different paragraphs that you have made connected?

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