Section One What Is a Paragraph?
A paragraph is a group of related sentences that develops one topic (or subject). The number of sentences is not important；however, the paragraph should be long enough to fully develop this topic.A paragraph usually consists of three kinds of sentences: the topic sentence, several developing sentences, and the concluding sentence.
The following paragraph is written by a Chinese student.Read it carefully and identify its structure.
(1) Our university is a paradise for students who want to make academic progress. (2) First, students have access to a wide range of reference books on any subject. (3) For example, there are over two million books available in the library. (4) Also, new books, useful in understanding new theories, are sold in all of the campus' bookstores. (5) Second, computers are a great study-aid. (6) Students can get so much information by surfing the Internet and communicating with their professors via E-mail. (7) Additionally, they can learn English online instead of listening to radios or watching TV. (8) Finally, lectures given by guest speakers are excellent assets for students. (9) Listening to such informative lectures, they can acquire additional knowledge usually unavailable in books. (10) These lectures help students either gain insight into a particular subject or attain more learning techniques. (11) For the above reasons, there is no better place for students to grow than at our university!
In the paragraph you just read, sentence (1) is the topic sentence.It introduces the topic of the whole paragraph.The middle part of the paragraph is called the developing sentences.There are two types of developing sentences: major developing sentences (一级扩展句) and minor developing sentences (二级扩展句). Sentences (2) , (5) and (8) are major developing sentences.They are the main details that tell us about the topic sentence.Sentences (3) , (4) , (6) , (7) , (9) and (10) are minor developing sentences.They tell us more about the major developing sentences.Sentence (11) is the concluding sentence, which makes a final statement about the topic and indicates that the paragraph is finished.