CHAPTER IV

THE PARAGRAPH

The Paragraph Thought. When the mind, working upon some subject or part of a subject, develops more ideas or more thoughts than can be expressed and fully developed in a single sentence, the result is a paragraph thought. It differs from the sentence thought simply in magnitude. Once we begin to let our mind work upon the paragraph thought, it expands rapidly, and requires a group of sentences for its proper development. A paragraph, then, is a group of sentences all of which pertain to one thought or to one division of that thought. It is partitioned or separated from other paragraph thoughts on a page by the indention of the first line slightly to the right of the margin. The page we are reading illustrates this partition.

The Use of the Paragraph. When we were children, we spoke and wrote in short, disconnected sentences. This was because our thoughts were short and disconnected. Our minds either did not conceive paragraph thoughts, or were unable to develop them when they were conceived, for our expression always reflects our thinking processes. When we grew older, however, and our knowledge of things increased, we could no longer do justice to our thoughts by mere sentences. You and I most commonly express ourselves in paragraph form.

Are we telling John about the game we saw? Well, of course we cannot do it in a single sentence; we must use

many sentences. Probably we shall need more than one paragraph. His interrogations and our answers to them may take the form of short sentences, and we will write them as such. But if we observe closely, we shall see that even these may be grouped, and should be grouped, in a unified form. Indeed, a paragraph may be likened to an inning in this very baseball game, while its constituent parts or sentences correspond to the various batters. Each one has a definite object and purpose of its own, yet all are related, because each one is a factor in the general purpose of the game.

The Topic Sentence. A sentence thought is sufficient unto itself. It is complete and hints of nothing more:

John has a ball.

Tom went to the circus.

I will go if you will stay.

There are three letters in the word "cat."

We returned last evening.

When he entered, they greeted him.

Each one of these is a complete sentence thought. Nothing more is needed or suggested to follow in any of them. They are complete sentence thoughts, because no single word or phrase within them obligates us to explain or develop further. These sentences, on the contrary, are somewhat different :

1. Everything that happened that morning pointed to my failure. 2. Every detail of the scene thrilled me.

3. I am justified in my bad opinion of him by his conduct. 4. His defeat may be for the best, but I doubt it.

The thought in each of them seems to require the application of something further. Every one of them seems to call for elaboration, though each one may be complete and sufficient to itself. When we have finished reading the sentences, there seems to be a call, who? what? when? where?

why? or how? yearning to be satisfied. The call is imperative. We are obliged to go on. Of course, in our group of sentence thoughts we may apply one or more of our "handful of questions," our "quintet of queries," and may very properly proceed to answer the query in each case. But this is not necessary, while in the latter group such a questioning is necessary in order to develop the thought. Moreover, were we to answer one of the queries after any one of our first sentences, the answer would not be so closely related to the original sentence as to demand paragraph development. It would simply be another sentence, related in exactly the same way as question and answer are always related; that is, independently. But the answers to the sentences in the second group would be dependent on the original in every case. The incompleteness will be done away with, not by one sentence, but by several more, each bearing closely upon the other, all referring back to the first, and serving to develop its topic. We call such sentences as those in the latter group, Topic or Subject Sentences.

In the first chapter of this book, it was suggested that sentences be used to express each topic of a composition outline. These sentences were topic sentences, and each, as a rule, could have been made into a paragraph. The topic sentence is the core, as it were, of our paragraph, and it exhorts us to round out the thought which is partly contained in it and suggested by it. All of a sentence may not be topical or subject in its nature. Certain words only may constitute the topic. Those italicized in the group above are the topic words for their sentences. Such words call for explanation or elaboration of the ideas they suggest.

Kinds of Topic Sentences. Roughly speaking, there are four different types of topic sentences: Class I is expanded into a paragraph by enumerating incidents; Class

II is expanded by descriptions; Class III, by facts; Class IV, by thoughts or our own speculations.

In the sentence, "Everything that happened that morning pointed to my failure," the word "happened" suggests to us, "What were the happenings or incidents?" Consequently, we will tell in successive sentences just what the incidents were that pointed to failure, and so get an illustration of Class I. Before going to work upon these sentences, let us shape our material for this paragraph somewhat as we were directed to do in Chapter II:

Topic Sentence No. 1. morning pointed to my failure.

Everything that happened that

1. Overslept.

2. Missed train.

3. Forgot luncheon.

4. Lost books.

5. Called upon unexpectedly.

6. Failed.

Now we can proceed to write our paragraph, telling of some unfortunate incident in each sentence and perhaps concluding the whole with a sentence summing up in other words the idea conveyed by the topic sentence. This last is not necessary, but it will tend to emphasize our main theme or idea. Topic Sentence No. 2. Every detail in the scene thrilled me, may be treated in the same way:

1. The flag.

2. The cannon.

3. The soldiers.

4. The marching.

5. The salute.

These are not happenings, or events, or incidents. They make up a series of thrilling pictures, the details of some war

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pictures or a national pageant. This is, then, a descriptive topic sentence of Class II.

In Sentence No. 3, we will state the facts of the case. What have been the real facts of his conduct?

Topic Sentence No. 3.— I am justified in my bad opinion of him by his conduct:

1. He has been lazy.

2. He has been dishonest.

3. He has misrepresented.

4. He has been untrue to his friends.

Here are four facts that justify me in my opinion of him. We will expand each one, mold it into a good sentence with modifying phrases and clauses, and thus produce a good paragraph from a topic sentence of Class III.

Topic Sentence No. 4.-His defeat may be for the best but I doubt it, might be developed, for instance, according to the following points:

1. I doubt it because of

(a) his former record,

(b) his present politics,

(c) his irreproachable character.

The character of the subject matter in this paragraph requires development, we see, from our minds; in other words, we must do independent thinking and reasoning here, whereas in the three former cases our information was procured from outside sources, and our duty consisted in simply arranging it. We say, therefore, that this paragraph is developed by the thought process.

Taking all four types into consideration, then, the first, since it was developed by incidents, corresponds to that type of composition designated above as Narration. Number II was developed by enumerating the details in a particular