summary of chapter 4

In Chapter 4 of Rules For Writers it focuses on building an effective paragraph. The first step to building an effective paragraph is to focus on a main point. The reader should be able to detect the main point in the topic sentence. A writer must make sure to stick to the point he/she has chosen. There are many suitable patterns of organization in a paragraph, these range from examples and illustrations, narration, description, process, comparison and contrast, analogy, cause and effect, classification and division, and definition. These are all different ways to process a paragraph. Providing transition words in a paragraph can be helpful to readers. It helps them to move from sentence to sentence. If it is necessary a writer may want to adjust the length of a paragraph based on where the paragraph is being seen. For example, paragraphs shorter than 100 words can be found in things such as newspaper articles.