The Paragraph- Features of Good Paragraph/ Unity L5

2.5. Features of paragraphs
Unity
The first characteristic of an effective paragraph is unity, which means that all sentences in the paragraph explain, develop, and support a central idea in some way. In other words, every paragraph must have a purpose within your paper, and all the sentences must somehow advance that purpose. This means that all sentences (topic sentence, supporting ones, and concluding sentence) must be more than loosely related to the sub-topic. They must all advance the paragraph’s purpose as well as the thesis because in a dis-unified one, a writer’s purpose and the connections between the sentences can be unclear.
To achieve unity, begin with a clear topic sentence. This doesn’t mean that it has to appear at the beginning of the paragraph, although a topic sentence usually does in academic writing. What is important, however, is that the main idea or purpose, stated in the topic sentence, sets the agenda for the rest of the paragraph. Because the topic sentence provides the unifying idea, this sentence must be clear, concise and make a point about your thesis. You can think of it this way: a good topic sentence provides the bones of a paragraph that support the skin and muscle of all the sentences that follow. Once you know what point you want to introduce in your topic sentence, you can create a unified paragraph by making sure that all the rest of the sentences are clearly related to the first one. For example, a paragraph might begin like this: “In the second chapter of the “Mountain People,” Turnbull (1972) uses an informal, colloquial writing style to involve his readers in the lives of the Ik people of Africa.” In this paragraph, to maintain unity, the remaining sentences should all relate to the central concepts in the topic sentence: Turnbull’s informal writing style and/or how that style involves his readers. A sentence that mentions the informal writing style of another author would be a digression and would destroy the unity of the paragraph. Thus, unity is created when the topic sentence makes a promise to readers, and all the other sentences fulfill that promise.
One way to ensure that your paragraphs have unity is to underline the subject of each supporting sentence to see if it points back to the key concepts in the topic sentence. In the topic sentence about the “Mountain People,” for example, you might have sentences that begin, “Turnbull’s word choice is more informal…..” or “The author’s level of language…” In each case, the subject noun group relates to one of the main concepts in the topic sentence. If all of your sentence subjects develop one of the key concepts, chances are that you have a unified paragraph. If they don’t, you have probably digressed from your original purpose and must recast some sentences to get back on track.