How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

For information about ClearWriters instructional materials and programs, email

[email protected], visit www.clearwriter.com or write to:
Fourth Floor
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street NW
Washington, DC 20007
Tel: 202-775-2183
Fax: 202-775-2135
For more techniques for writing great paragraphs, see Bruce Ross-Larsons book,
Powerful Paragraphs, published by W.W. Norton.

1999, 2007, 2008, 2010

ClearWriter
A division of Communications Development Incorporated

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

Bruce Ross-Larson

ClearWriter
Washington, DC

Contents

An approach to paragraphs

vi

1 Unify each paragraph around the point

Be clear about your point

Make sure every sentence bears on the point

Work with your writing to unify each paragraph around one point

2 Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

iv

10

11

Repeat a key term

12

Count the elements

16

Link your sentences by signaling whats to come

20

Subordinate one idea to another

24

Repeat a sentence structure

28

Work with your writing to bind the sentences of your paragraphs

32

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Contents

3 Make your points in compelling ways

33

Lead with the point and support it

34

Lead with the point, conclude with a comment

38

Lead with the point, join details using conjunctions

42

Introduce the subject, conclude with the point

46

Start with a question, answer it immediately

50

Undermine a premise at the end of a paragraph

54

Set off a list with bullets

58

Work with your writing to develop new kinds of paragraphs

62

4 Link your paragraphs

65

Repeat a word from the preceding paragraph

66

Order paragraphs chronologically

68

Announce an example

70

Ask a question and answer it

72

Ask a question about the preceding paragraph

74

Undermine the point of the preceding paragraph

76

Work with your writing to create smooth transitions

78

Appendix A More ways to develop a paragraph

81

Appendix B More transitions

95

Appendix C Other kinds of paragraphs

Appendix D Sources of exemplary paragraphs
Appendix E Recommended solutions

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Contents

101


107
109

An approach to paragraphs

Many writers think of paragraphs as a collection of sentences framed by the

Tab and Enter keys, running perhaps 10 or 12 lines. Few have the language
to describe whats goodor badabout a paragraph. This book shows you
what it means for a paragraph to be unified, coherent, and well developed.
The idea here is to give you a way of looking at paragraphs that will change
the way you write.
A paragraph is unified if each sentence is clearly related to the point
coherent if you make it obvious to your reader how each sentence is linked
to the point. You can make the link more obvious by repeating key words
and phrases. And you can change the structure of your sentences to reveal
parallel or subordinate ideas. These techniques do more than make your
paragraphs coherentthey also give them pace.
A paragraph is well developed if its sentences unfold in a way that makes
your argument perfectly clear to the reader. One of the best ways to do this
is to express the point of the paragraph as a general statement in the first
sentence and then to support it in subsequent sentences with details and
examples. Used for perhaps half to two-thirds of all paragraphs in expository
writing, this model is the most common. Some of the other ways are to
conclude with the point, to phrase the point as a question and answer, and
to undermine an argument to make the opposite point. Deciding how to
develop a paragraph depends on the details, examples, and comments you
have to support your point.

vi

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs An approach to paragraphs

To help you write more powerful paragraphs, the four sections of this
workbook show you how to:
Make a point and unify a paragraphs sentences around that point.
Use the traditional rhetorical devices to bind your sentences tightly in a
coherent flow.
Arrange those sentences to develop the strongest possible support for your
point.
Link your paragraphs by creating smooth transitions between them.
By doing these four things, you will enliven your writing and make your
arguments clear to your readers.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs An approach to paragraphs

vii

1 Unify each paragraph around the point

Writers rarely take the time to figure out the subject of paragraphs
before they write them. But only by knowing the subject can you
make a strong point about it. And only with a strong point can you
assess whether all of a paragraphs sentences are related to it.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

Be clear about your point

In this paragraph, the subject is circled, and the point is underlined.

At first the Internet was seen as the making of the media business in
the last century. It was going to slash costs: media products, unlike
most retail goods, can be delivered directly down wires, so the
Internet would eliminate the need for factories and distribution
networks. It was going to boost revenues: previously inaccessible
markets would become reachable and data collection would make
advertising more valuable. And it was going to lower barriers to
entry, generating a crop of healthy new companies.
The subject is the Internet. The point, clear in the first sentence, is
that the Internet was supposed to improve the media industry. Each
successive sentence supports that point.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Circle the subject and underline the point.

A hero sandwich deflected a robbers bullet and may have saved the life of
a Brooklyn man, Jos Fana. When a young man entered Fanas East New
York deli, whipped out a handgun, and opened fire, Fana used a sandwich
he had just made to shield his face. Fana was treated at Jamaica Hospital
and released. The hero sandwich was wrapped in paper and topped with
lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Circle the subject and underline the point.

Color psychology can be a useful technique in selecting jurors. There is a
very high correlation between preferences for red, yellow, blue, or green
and certain personality types. Those who prefer red (16 percent of the
population) are dominant and unemotional. Yellows (8 percent) are freethinking and emotional. Blues (58 percent) are traditional and compromising.
Greens (12 percent) are analytical and uncompromising. Because of their
leadership qualities, reds and greens are usually chosen to be jury
forepersons. It is important to identify potential forepersons quickly during
jury selection, because they will account for 25 percent of the discussion
during deliberation.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Circle the subject and underline the point.

In 2006, almost 500 million people, about 9 percent of the worlds population,
were more than 60 years old. That number will nearly triple by 2030,
according to a recent report. As life expectancy rises and birthrates slow,
the proportion of the elderly in the population is growing fast, particularly in
developing countries. As a result, systems of caring for the elderlysuch as
pensionsare being strained, putting old people in financial jeopardy and
limiting economic growth. The report recommends that countries diversify
government-dominated support systems for the elderly by encouraging a
greater reliance on personal savings and the management of old-age funds
by the private financial sector.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Make sure every sentence

bears on the point

After youve written a paragraph, check to make sure each sentence

supports the point. Too often sentences are loosely related to the
subject of the paragraph, but not tied to the point. Below, the
subject is again circled and the point is underlined. Does each
successive sentence elaborate on the point? A Y indicates a
sentence that clearly supports the point, an N a sentence that is
unrelated, and a ? one that is questionable.
The lifeblood of a Chinese company is guanxiconnections. Pene
trating layers of guanxi is like peeling an onion: first come
connections between people with ancestors from the same province
in China; then people from the same clan or village; finally, the family.

It does not matter much whether a Chinese businessman is in

Hong Kong or New York, he will always operate through guanxi.

But these networks do not enforce conformity.

Chinese

tend to be far less concerned with consensus than the Japanese.

As long as they honor their word and look after their own, they

can do whatever they want.

The second and third sentences clearly support the point that
connections are the lifeblood of a Chinese company. The fourth
might be sliding into another pointand could open another
paragraph. The fifth and sixth sentences deal with this second,
albeit related, pointand undermine the paragraphs coherence.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Fill the box after each sentence with a Y, N, or ? to indicate a clear,

unclear, or questionable link between the sentence and the point
of the paragraph.
Although ranchers claim that wolves will devastate the sheep industry in
the West, studies show that wolves kill far less than 1 percent of the sheep
available to them. Ranchers also face a declining American demand for wool
products, as synthetics become more popular and less expensive.
The number of wolf-caused sheep deaths would have to be almost 30
times higher than predicted before it matched the number of deaths
caused by ovine ineptitude.

For instance, more Montana sheep

starved to death in 2007 because they rolled over onto their backs and
were unable to get up.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Again, fill the boxes with a Y, N, or ?.

Winston Churchill had other human failings. He was a more or less faithful
husband, but a bad father.

He had deplorable taste in friends, was

in general a bad judge of men, whether politicians or generals, and

surrounded himself with chancers and mountebanks, from Beaverbrook to
Birkenhead to Brendan Bracken.
better judge of character.

His wife, Clementine, was a much

It is hard to fault the almost admiring

Boston-Irish description of him as a fine two-handed drinker, Joseph

Kennedys phrase.

He is an icon venerated by British politicians and

American columnists.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Again, fill the boxes with a Y, N, or ?.

Businesses do not have a natural propensity to do good. What is natural for
them is to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Although this self-

interested competition adds in aggregate to the common wealth, it is no

guarantee that individual companies will not rape the environment, indulge
in slavery, or rip off their customers.

Respecting the environment has

become an issue of vital importance in the 2000s.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

Work with your writing to unify each

paragraph around one point

Take a sample of your writing and select several paragraphs.

Identify the subject and point of each, circling the subject and
underlining the point. If you cannot easily identify the subject, you
have a problem. And if you cannot easily determine the point, try
rewriting the paragraph around a single idea that makes a strong
statement about your subject.
Now take the same paragraphs and identify sentences that clearly
support your point, those that might support the point if written
differently, and those that are clearly unrelated. For sentences with
questionable or weak links to your point, try rewriting them to link
them more clearlyor take them out.

10

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Unify each paragraph around the point

2 Bind a paragraphs sentences

in a linear flow

A paragraph is unified if each sentence is clearly related to the

pointcoherent if you make it obvious how each sentence is linked
to the point. You can make the link more obvious by repeating key
words and phrases. You can also use transitional words and phrases
to enumerate and coordinate the paragraphs sentences. And you
can change the structure of your sentences to reveal parallel or
subordinate ideas. These techniques do more than make your
paragraphs coherentthey also give them pace.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

11

Repeat a key term

Once youve rid a paragraph of extraneous material, try repeating a

key word or phrase to bind the sentences even more. Using different
terms for the same idea simply to avoid repetition will confuse your
readers.

12

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Here is a paragraph that does not repeat key words:

A delightful fairy tale has taken hold lately in some economic policy
circles: the economy is poised for a glorious burst of sustained,
1960s-style growth without inflation. Its a story told by a spectrum
of influential figures, from conservatives to liberal luminaries. Like
most good fables, this one features a horrible monster who is
blocking the path to eternal happiness. That would be the chairman
of the Fed, who cannot see that the economic terrain has shifted.
Here is the same paragraph repeating key words:
A delightful fairy tale has taken hold lately in some economic policy
circles: the economy is poised for a glorious burst of sustained,
1960s-style growth without inflation. Its a tale told by a spectrum of
influential figures, from conservatives to liberal luminaries. Like
most good fairy tales, this one features a horrible monster who is
blocking the path to eternal happiness. That would be the chairman
of the Fed, who cannot see that the economic terrain has shifted.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

13

Circle the key word and repeat it to bind the sentences of this
paragraph.
A societys technology during its periods of rapid expansion greatly
influences the cityscape. The ways of putting up a building in 18th-century
France differ greatly from the architectural techniques used in 20th-century
America. That is why Paris is so different from New York. And the methods
used for getting from one place to another in 19th-century England are quite
unlike the transport modes in the United States during the postwar era. So
the streets of London are nothing like the streets of Minneapolis.

14

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Circle the key word and repeat it to bind the sentences of this
paragraph.
It is less than 50 years since we first talked in the United States of the two
sectors of a modern societythe public area (government) and the private
portion (business). In the past 20 years the United States has begun to talk
of a third subdivision, the nonprofit partthose organizations that
increasingly take care of the social challenges of a modern society.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

15

Count the elements

If you have two or three discrete details to support your point, your
readers may absorb them better if they are counted.
Here are some words that number your sentences:

16

The first

The second

The third

First

Second

Third

First,

Next,

Last,

One

A second

Yet another

One,

Two,

Three,

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Here is a paragraph that does not count its parts:

The yield on junk bonds did not compensate for their risks. The
market was too young to have built up a proper record of likely
default rates, especially during a recession.And a large group of
junk bond investorsthe savings and loan associationshad an
extra leg up into high-yield investment because of federal insurance
of their source of cash deposits.
Here is the same paragraph with its parts counted:
The yield on junk bonds did not compensate for their risks, for two
related reasons. The first was that the market was too young to have
built up a proper record of likely default rates, especially during a
recession.The second was that a large group of junk bond
investorsthe savings and loan associationshad an extra leg up
into high-yield investment because of federal insurance of their
source of cash deposits.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

17

Announce and number the supporting sentences of this

paragraph.
From the experience of developing countries in managing their technological
development, certain messages are clear. The technology for making a
product is not a singular element that is either created at home or bought
overseas. It is a bundle of technological elements and requirements. Also
singing out from this survey is that not all these elements have to be supplied
domestically. Many canand shouldcome from overseas.

18

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Announce and number the supporting sentences of this

paragraph.
The increase in capacity is essentially due to recent changes. Fiber optic
cables are being used more frequently. These now cost much the same as
copper wire to lay down and much less to maintain, but they carry vastly
more traffic. A single fiber thinner than a hair can carry 30,000 simultaneous
telephone conversations. Switchestelephone exchangeshave moved on
from eavesdropping operators and clunky electromechanical devices to
become increasingly like computers, their costs falling and their capability
expanding inexorably.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

19

Link your sentences by signaling

whats to come

Revealing the relationships between sentences, transitional words

can signal continuation (and, in addition, further, furthermore,
similarly), reversal (or, but, still, despite, otherwise, even so,
nevertheless), and conclusion (so, thus, after all, in sum, in short, in
brief).
Here are some words that can signal whats to come:

20

And

But

So

In addition

Still

Thus

Further

Even so

After all

Furthermore

Nevertheless

In sum

Similarly

Despite

In short

Accordingly

Otherwise

In brief

Nor

Or

For example

As a result

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Here is a paragraph that does not link its sentences:

The vastness of the project would stagger most national govern
ments. Unlike most supersized projects, this one is being paid for
with relatively little borrowing. There will be no new taxes, and the
government will retain a sizable reserve afterward. The original
budget, $21.2 billion, was trimmed this year to $20.3. According to
the project coordinator, it will probably come in at less than that.
Here is the same paragraph with its sentences linked:
The vastness of the project would stagger most national govern
ments. But unlike most supersized projects, this one is being paid
for with relatively little borrowing. So there will be no new taxes,
and the government will retain a sizable reserve afterward.
Furthermore, the original budget, $21.2 billion, was trimmed this
year to $20.3. And according to the project coordinator, it will
probably come in at less than that.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

21

Use transitional words to link the sentences of this paragraph.

Many culprits have been fingered for the 2008 housing crisis: unscrupulous
mortgage lenders, dishonest borrowers, underregulated financial
institutions.

all of them played a role.

too

little attention has been paid to the most fundamental cause: the contagious
optimism, seemingly impervious to facts, that often takes hold when prices
are rising. Bubbles are primarily social phenomena.

until we

understand and address the psychology that fuels them, they're going to
keep forming.

22

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Use transitional words to link the sentences of this paragraph.

The recent commitment by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve,
to extend the Fed's lending window to investment banks into 2009 may offer
some reassurance.

investors still worry that medium-sized

American banks may be allowed to go bust.

too big nor too complex to fail.

they are neither

in Britain the share price of

Bradford & Bingley, a mortgage bank, sank even further, dropping a long
way below the rights-issue price and reopening debate about its future.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

23

Subordinate one idea to another

Whenever two short sentences have the same subject, see whether
you can fold one into the otherto show your readers which is the
less important idea, which the more. Such folding is one of the
easiest and most effective ways of picking up the pace of your
paragraphs and tightening your sentences.

24

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Here are two sentences that are not subordinated:

The reporters on the Post have few scruples.
It is a good newspaper.
Here are the same sentences subordinated in several ways:
Because the Post is a good newspaper, its reporters have few
scruples.
Because the reporters on the Post have few scruples, it is a good
newspaper.
Even though the reporters on the Post have few scruples, it is still a
good newspaper.
Although the Post is a good newspaper, its reporters have few
scruples.
The reporters on the Post, a good newspaper, have few scruples.
See how the meaning can change dramatically depending on the
idea subordinated and the word used to subordinate it?

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

25

The following sentences open a paragraph that is continued on the

facing page.

It is important for every Western businessperson that Japan is now

trying to boost the yen, but unfortunately in quite the wrong way
by further distorting its capital market and capital flows, not by
making them freer and more open. The latest concession is a
Japanese classic.

26

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

For these three pairs of sentences, subordinate the less important

idea to the more important by collapsing each pair in a single
sentence.
Pair 1

Seven Japanese trust banks have volunteered to reduce the

purchase of foreign securities by their pension funds. They have
done this on orders from the ministry of finance.

Pair 2

These pension funds have been investing abroad more than 30

percent of their net intake of funds during the past seven months.
They have been tempted by high interest rates and Wall Streets bull
run.

Pair 3

Now they will cut overseas investment to 20 percent. They hope to

reduce capital outflows and so strengthen the yen.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

27

Repeat a sentence structure

If sentences do similar work, they are easier to understand if they

are similar in structure. As with repeating a key word or term,
repeating a structure can strengthen the links among your
supporting sentences, and between those sentences and your
point.

28

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

This paragraph does not use parallel sentence structures:

The responses to the White House proposal on nuclear weaponry
differed widely. From Moscow there was silence. Leaders in Western
Europe were outraged. And there was a quiet word of support from
Japans Diet.
This one does:
The responses to the White House proposal on nuclear weaponry
differed widely. From Moscow there was silence. From Western
Europe there was outrage. And from Japan there was a quiet word
of support.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

29

Make the supporting sentences parallel in structure.

History has a capricious memory, and its anyones guess how it will
remember James C. Wright Jr. of Texas. It may remember him grandly,
because he was the House Speaker who most aggressively muscled his way
into foreign policy. If he is remembered more simply, it will be as one of the
forgotten figures who served between two white-haired partisans, Thomas
P. ONeill Jr. of Massachusetts and Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Or he may be
poignantly remembered as the forlorn man who was toppled from the
giddiest heights of American politics . . . over a book.

30

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

Make the supporting sentences parallel in structure.

Crash. Stock market bulls can act as brave as they like, but they cannot
deny the terror that this simple word strikes in their breasts. They may
reassure themselves with talk of record profits or the death of inflation. All
the ways in which Wall Streets bull run is not like others that ended in tears
is something they may point out. But the stark reality: stock markets are
notoriously fickle and can turn against you at a moments notice, and this
they cannot deny.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

31

Work with your writing to bind the

sentences of your paragraphs

Identify paragraphs in your writing sample that could use some

tightening, then experiment with the techniques listed here to bind
the sentences together.
Repeat.
Is there a key word or phrase you could repeat to pull your readers through
the paragraph?
Announce and number.
If you have a list, or if you are presenting several ideas, announce the
number of elements you are presenting in the paragraph and then count
them.
Link.
Using the words listed on page 20, help your readers understand the
relationships between your supporting sentences.
Combine two independent clauses that have the same subject.
Subordinating one sentence to another helps your readers understand
which idea is more important. It also cuts a few words and makes your main
idea clearer.
Make sentences parallel in structure.
Sentences conveying similar ideas are easier to read if their structure is
parallel. Try rewriting a few of your sentences so that they follow a single
grammatical pattern.

32

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Bind a paragraphs sentences in a linear flow

3 Make your points in compelling ways

Few writers consider how or where to make a point in a paragraph.

Most express the point in the first sentence and support it in
subsequent sentences with details and examples. While effective,
this construction becomes less so when it is overused, and more so
when alternated with other ways of making a point. Deciding how
to make your point depends on the details, examples, and comments
you have to support it.
Other ways to make a point are to conclude with it, to phrase the
point as a question and answer, to undermine an argument to make
the opposite point, and to end a straightforward series of details
with a subtle (or not so subtle)comment.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

33

Lead with the point and support it

The most common way to develop a paragraphsecond only to not

making a point at allis to state the point in the first sentence and
support it in subsequent sentences with details, examples, and
comments.
Make a point.
Support the point with examples and details.
When you lead with the point, your readers can identify it
immediately, and a skimmer can pick up your line of argument by
reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This form of paragraph
development is what most of us use for two-thirds of our writing.
It becomes less effective when overused, and more when alternated
with other ways of developing a point.

34

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

Mr. Li likes to shroud his business maneuvers in mystery. It is entirely
plausible that he has not yet decided between a variety of different
endgames, any one of which might make him a great deal of money.
His aides maintain that buying the shares in Jardines is just another
part of Mr. Lis expanding portfolio of investments.
The first sentence makes the point, and the second and third
sentences support that point with examples.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

35

Identify the point and move it to the beginning of the paragraph.

For seven decades, Congress was the governments mostly docile rubber
stamp. Since winning the lower house last year, the opposition parties have
been trying to shape a role both for it and, with a presidential election less
than two years away, for themselves. The saga of Mexicos bank bailout
still unresolved, despite a supposed deal last weekhas been their first real
chance to practice. Real politics is rather a new thing for Mexico.

36

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Identify the point and move it to the beginning of the paragraph.

In the 1950s, most households consisted of two parents, only one of whom
was a wage-earner. Now society is more polarized between two-earner
households and jobless single-parent families. It is hard for single mothers
to earn good incomes. In America, the second most important cause of
increased income inequality has been a change in household structure. The
proportion of families headed by women among the poorest fifth of
households has doubled over the past 60 years to around 35 percent. In
contrast, the richest fifth of households is increasingly dominated by highincome two-earner couples: well-paid women tend to marry rich men.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

37

Lead with the point,

conclude with a comment

A slight variation: lead with the point and conclude with a comment.
Make a point.
Support the point with examples and details.
Make a comment.
Concluding a paragraph with a comment can inject a bit of your
personality and, at times, humor. Comments can also put a
paragraph in perspective, create a bridge to the next paragraph, or
reinforce your point after presenting a series of facts.
Gauge how much humor, irreverence, and personal opinion your
readers will tolerate: you shouldnt make so many comments that
you distract readers from your argument.

38

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

Most of our contributors [to the quarterly poll] remain keener on
shares than on bonds; none more so than Daiwa, another newcomer.
It has more equities in cash and less in bonds than any of the others.
It prefers shares because of rising inflationary expectations and
improving market confidence. But some investorssuch as Phillips
& Drew and Lehmanhave cut their exposure to non-Japanese Asian
equities, believing that the markets have already discounted a
recovery. Indeed, Phillips & Drew detects a slowdown in reform
following the recovery in share prices. The emerging market crisis is
gone, perhaps, but not forgotten.
The comment ends the paragraph with a personal flourish.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

39

Add a comment at the end of the paragraph.

Ulysses has a long history of translation. It was greeted as a great work of
literary modernism when it appeared in its highly original English in 1922.
But it was available in German and French before it was legally for sale in
Britain or the United States. Even the Latvians have their own version; the
Japanese have four. Chinese translators never got around to it.

40

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Add a comment at the end of the paragraph.

Whatever the political calculations, the economic facts are clear: women are
catching up and are making the most of Americas economic opportunities.
No wonder men feel threatened. On June 4th, Pamela Davis became the
first woman to pitch for a major league farm club in American baseball.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

41

Lead with the point,

join details using conjunctions

If you have, say, three supporting sentences of equal weight (none

more important than the others), try linking them with also and and
in the pattern shown here (X is . . ., X is also . . ., And X is . . .).
Make a point.
Support it with a detail or example.
Add a second detail or example, using also.
Add a third, using and.
By using conjunctions and the same pronoun in each sentence, you
can stress the equality or sequence of the details, pulling your
readers through the paragraph. This works best if you have three
details.

42

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

At first sight the virtues of teamwork look obvious. Teams make
workers happier, by giving them the feeling that they are shaping
their own jobs. They also increase efficiency, by eliminating layers
of managers whose job was once to pass orders downward. And, in
principle, they enable a company to draw on the skills and
imagination of a whole workforce, instead of relying on specialists
to watch out for mistakes and suggest improvements.
The three supporting sentences follow the pattern: X is . . ., X is
also . . ., And X is . . ..

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

43

Emphasize a series by adding alsos and ands.

The five directors have much in common. They share major influencesnot
only Stanislavsky, but also Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brook. They
turn frequently to modern greats like Ibsen, Chekhov, and
Beckett.

they are quite often drawn to opera as a way of

honing their stage skills.

44

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Emphasize a series by adding alsos and and sand remember to

watch for parallel construction.
In part, this is because Mediobanca has spun a tight web between the
countrys main industrial financial groups, leaving little room for others. As
well as 11 percent of Snia, Mediobanca owns a stake in Assicurazioni
Generali, Italys biggest insurer and a part owner of Gemina. It
owns bits of Ferruzzi Finanziaria, and Montedison, its chemicals arm.
then there are the banks stakes in Fiat, Olivetti, Pirelli, a tire
company, Italmobiliare, and GIM, a metals group.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

45

Introduce the subject,

conclude with the point

Occasionally, try putting the point at the end of a paragraph to

build a bit of suspense. Do this sparingly, however, because your
readers will tire of having to wait for you to get to the point.
Open with examples, details, and comments.
Make the point.

46

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

Imagine that a mad scientist went back to 1950 and offered to
transport the median family to the wondrous world of the 1990s and
to place them at, say, the 25th percentile [income] level. The 25th
percentile of 2006 is a clear material improvement over the median
of 1950. Would they accept his offer? Almost surely notbecause in
1950 they were middle class, while in 2006 they would be poor, even
if they lived better in material terms. People dont just care about
their absolute material level, they care about their level compared
with others.
The point at the end of this paragraph brings together a series of
details.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

47

Identify the point and move it to the end of the paragraph.

New York Newsday, a Manhattan tabloid launched 10 years ago, published
its last issue on July 16. There was a time, in the days of Citizen Kane, when
New Yorkers could choose among 13 daily newspapers. Even in the 1990s,
an age when few cities support more than two papers, the Big Apple has
boasted four. Last week, however, the Los Angelesbased Times Mirror
company pulled the plug on one of them.

48

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Identify the point and move it to the end of the paragraph.

The technological changes that have swept across the telecommunications
industry have two distinct effects. Together, they will transform the
industryalthough the pace at which they take effect will be partly set by
regulation. One is to create glut instead of the capacity shortages of the
past. The other is to reduce barriers to entry and make possible new sorts of
competition.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

49

Start with a question,

answer it immediately

Asking a question in the first line of a paragraph grabs readers

attention and sets up your point. Using an immediate, direct answer
to make your point demonstrates a firm stance, emphasized by the
surety of a fragment.
Ask a question.
Answer it to make a point.
Support it with examples, details, and comments.
Immediate answers make you seemmerely seemunequivocal.
They also engage your readers with a conversational tone. And
they dont leave the answer to the reader.

50

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

So will squash eventually rival tennis as a spectator sport, and will
Jansher Khan and Peter Marshall become as rich and famous as
Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi? Almost certainly not. For all the
gimmicks of a glass-walled court, a special white ball, and more and
better cameras, squash remains fearsomely difficult to televise. Not
only does the ball move too fast, but the camera lens foreshortens
the action. Squash, therefore, is destined to remain a sport better
played than watched. Given its propensity for what the tennis
authorities term audible obscenities, that may be just as well.
The question asked in the first sentence is immediately answered
to make a point.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

51

Turn the point into a question and answer.

Our current system of teaching and learning is not very effective in serving
the new definition of learning. Inhibiting its effectiveness are outmoded
assumptions about who students are and about the teaching and learning
process. Classroom-based, residential institutions were developed to serve
a relatively homogeneous student population, a population quite different
from todays students. Prior to the 1960s, college students were similar in
age (young), sex (male), ethnicity (white), and economic means (affluent).
The size of the nations student body was relatively small, reaching about
3.2 million in 1960. The collegiate experience, itself a homogeneous one,
constituted at that time a rite of passage with widely accepted milestones
along the way. Notions about the small liberal arts college as the best form
of higher education reflect that long past era of shared purpose in educating,
or socializing, a common student body.

52

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Turn the point into a question and answer.

Bulls wield two arguments when asked where the market is headed next.
The first is that the fall in the value of Hong Kong property is largely over,
even if Chinas speculative property market is now due for a correction.
Hong Kongs developers are largely shielded from the mainlands excesses.
Another is that even if Chinas economy is in for a bumpy year, Hong Kong
will be more than consoled for that by the buoyancy of much of the rest of
the world. Hongkong Bank reckons that Hong Kongs economy will grow by
nearly 6 percent this year.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

53

Undermine a premise at the end

of a paragraph

Undermining at the end of a paragraph is like concluding with the

pointbut in a backhanded way. It shows your understanding of an
alternative point of viewthen slams the direction of the argument
into reverse.
State a premise.
Support it with examples, details, and comments.
Undermine it to make a point.
Signals for undermining are the words however, but, and yet.
Undermining can:
Highlight an opponents flaws or weaknesses.
Present (and refute) a common misconception.
Introduce tension or create an atmosphere of debate.

54

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

For many years it has been argued that the present shape of the
American corporation, in which a vast and dispersed group of
shareholders exercises little or no control over the firms managers,
is in some way preordained. Organizing firms like this, runs the
argument, is simply the most efficient way of adapting to the
demands of modern capitalism. This view has its alluring points, but
it is wrong.
The point appears in the last sentence and refutes the premise
explored in the two preceding sentences. The first two sentences
of the paragraph repeat the word skeptical, alerting the reader to
question the information that follows.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

55

Undermine the italicized premise to make an opposing point at

the end.
Berlins designs on becoming a center for new industries such as media and
biotechnology are promising. Some 300 small media firms have set up in or
near the city since 1994, many of them clustered around the Babelsberg film
studios, once Germanys biggest. And several departments of Berlins
Humboldt University have moved to the Adlershof industrial park in an
eastern suburb, to work closely with the 200-plus technology firms that have
already moved in.

56

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Undermine the italicized premise to make an opposing point at

the end.
Jerky camera movements, shouts, cops rushing through a darkened
doorway, guns drawn. It all makes great television. Reality-based
programming has mushroomed in America, and it is easy to see why.
Almost everyone comes out a winner. The police look like heroes. Journalists
get a great story. TV firms get an endless stream of cheap programs. And
audiences love such in-your-face entertainment.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

57

Set off a list with bullets

With lists of numerical facts, complicated details, or recom

mendations, it can be difficult for readers to grasp all the elements
packed into a block of text. Breaking that block into bulleted items
clarifies those elements, a good style for setting up a line of
argument.
Make a general point that you will support with several details of
equal weight in no obvious order.
Set the details off with bullets.
Why do this?
To articulate three, four, or more facts.
To relieve a dense block of text or a long series.
To set each element apart, making it easier to remember.
To highlight a list of recommendations or important ideas.
As with any unusual style, use sparinglyor it will lose its
effectiveness.

58

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Read the following paragraph:

A world central bank is essential for the 21st centuryfor sound
macroeconomic management, for global financial stability, and for
assisting the economic expansion of the poorer nations. It would
perform five functions:

Help stabilize global economic activity.

Act as a lender of last resort to financial institutions.

Calm financial markets when they become jittery or disorderly.

Regulate financial institutions, particularly the deposit banks.

Create and regulate new international liquidity.

The bullets make this paragraph easier to navigate and the five
functions easier to identify and remember.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

59

Break up this paragraph with bullets.

Ensuring that firms, banks, and individuals live up to their promises is a
problem in all societies, but tends to be especially severe in the weak
institutional environments that characterize many developing countries.
Three imperatives for policy are to develop a strong legal and judicial
system, but create incentives to minimize recourse to it, and explore
innovative alternative approaches to enforcement.

60

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Break up this paragraph with bullets.

The way governments convey information to citizens, especially the poor, is
often critical. So are the ways they listen to citizens and what they learn
from them. Governments can ensure a two-way exchange of information
from society to government and from government to society. The starting
point in all this should be the poor. Countries should give the poor voice,
especially through better educational opportunities and better access to
telecommunications; learn about the poor from the poor; work through local
channels and earn the trust of the poor; and provide knowledge to the poor
in a manner they can use.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

61

Work with your writing to develop new

kinds of paragraphs

Select a few more paragraphs from your writing sample, and see if
there is much variation in the way youve developed them. Is the
point obvious? Does the point appear first? Is the point phrased as
a question? Have you injected personal comments or used bulleted
lists? If your paragraphs are relentlessly similar in structure, try
writing a few of them using one of the models listed here. Then
rewrite a few more.
Lead with the point.
State the point in the first or second sentence and support it with details
and examples.
Lead with the point and conclude with a comment.
Give a leading point a twist by making a personal comment in the last
sentence.
Lead with the point and build a series.
Use also and and to emphasize a series of otherwise undifferentiated
examples or details.
Conclude with the point.
Move the point to the end for a dramatic flourish.
Ask a question.
Turn the point into a question that you answer immediately.

62

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

Undermine the point at the end.

Set up an opposing argument and cut it down at the end.
Set off a list with bullets.
Break up dense material with bullets to help your readers through the
paragraph.
See appendix A for more models of paragraph development.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Make your points in compelling ways

63

4 Link your paragraphs

Many of the devices that bind sentences within a paragraph

repeating a key term, counting the elements, signaling whats to
come, asking and answering questionscan do the same work
between paragraphs, creating smooth transitions from one para
graph to the next.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

65

Repeat a word from the preceding

paragraph

To tie two paragraphs together, repeat a word from the last

sentence of the first in the first sentence of the next.
Only 3,100 surnames are now in use in China, say researchers,
compared with nearly 12,000 in the past. An evolutionary dwindling
of surnames is common to all societies, according to Du Ruofu of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences; but in China, he says, where
surnames have been in use far longer than in most other places, the
paucity has become acute.
To get an idea of just how acute, imagine that the combined
populations of the United States and Japan had to make do with but
five surnames. That, essentially, is how things are in China, where
the five most common surnamesLi, Wang, Zhang, Liu, and Chen
are shared by no fewer than 350 million people. Those named Li
alone number 87 million, nearly 8 percent of the countrys Han
people, the ethnic Chinese. Another 19 surnames each cover 1
percent or more of the population.

66

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Repeat a term from the first paragraph at the beginning of the

second.
So far, RNA editing has been seen in marsupials, protozoa, slime molds,
ferns, and flowering plants. Flies do it. Mice do it. And, it now appears,
people do it.
Or rather, in most cases, their mitochondria

Mitochondriathe cellular machines where glucose is burned for energy

are found in all cells more sophisticated than bacteria. Indeed, many
biologists suspect that the ancestors of mitochondria actually were bacteria
that gave up an independent life symbiotically in early complex cells. They
have their own genes, in any case. And these genes are turning out to be
heavily edited.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

67

Order paragraphs chronologically

When your paragraphs show a progression in time, use that natural

chronology to link them.
The old model was simple. Information was stored in the DNA of
genes. When needed, it was transcribed into template molecules
known as messenger RNAs. Then a piece of machinery called a
ribosome translated the template, constructing a protein as it went.
Later the model got a bit more complicated. Genes, it was
discovered, consist of lengths of informative DNA interspersed with
apparently meaningless stretches known as introns. Before a
messenger RNA template can be copied into proteins, the introns
must be removed from ita process known as splicing.
Now things are getting more complicated still. In the past
few years a new phenomenon has been discovered. Sometimes,
after the template has been made and the introns removed, the RNA
is edited. Sometimes, indeed, it is edited heavily. In the most extreme
examples known so far, more than half of the information needed to
make a protein has not come from the original gene. Instead, it has
been edited into the messenger RNA template.

68

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Add phrases that place the paragraphs in time.

, when relations between
China and the Soviet Union were at their worst, China provoked a series of
skirmishes, mostly along the Heilongjiang border. Harbins government,
believing a Soviet invasion to be imminent, set about building underground
corridors, about 3 kilometers long, that were meant to house the whole of
the citys population in the event of an attack. These were kept meticulously
ready until 1985, when peace broke out.
, they have a new use.
The corridors have been turned into a thriving temple of free enterprise
selling the latest fashions from Hong Kong. With the shelter the corridors
offer from Harbins 25C cold, and with the hundreds of jobs this
subterranean market has created, they must surely be Russias greatest gift
to the chilly city.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

69

Announce an example

Some paragraphs illustrate a previous point, opening with Take,

Consider, or For example.
And that is not all. Just as the new international dimension of finance
has added to some risks that may help to start a crisisgreater
instability in currencies, faster transmission of economic
disturbances across borders, new opportunities for leverage,
increased susceptibility to the illusion of liquidityso it has also
weakened (or anyway complicated) the traditional remedies of
economic policy. In the new world of finance, the seas are rougher
and the life rafts flimsier.
Consider the lender of last resort. Its task is to provide
liquidity at times of distress, in order to prevent isolated failures
threatening the integrity of the financial system as a whole. This is
more difficult now than it used to be, because, as a species of
monetary policy, it is subject to many of the confusions and
uncertainties discussed earlier. For instance, monetarists say that
the duty of the central bank in a crisis is not to rescue particular
institutions but to maintain the supply of money. But which
money? A run on banks would cause the different measures to
diverge: the amount of cash in the economy might increase even as
the amount of broad money (mainly bank deposits) shrank.

70

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Add a phrase to show that you are providing an example.

Attacking corporate fat cats has plenty of voter appeal, particularly when
few people have yet to feel much benefit from Britains economic recovery.
But there is no reason to suppose that the bulk of Labor politicians are only
pretending to hold these views. And, on their merits, none of these attacks
on profitable firms is sustainable.
, the

IPPR

s tud y

criticizes the external costs and regional concentrations of supermarket

chains using criteria so unreasonable that they would condemn most large
industries. The Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers
Commission studied supermarkets several times but found no proof of
serious market failure or lack of competition.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

71

Ask a question and answer it

Questions suggest answers. Posing a question at the end of a

paragraph signals the reader to look for your answer in the next.
The Feds latest rate cut was discretion in spades. Yet economists
mostly cheered. Dont they believe their own theory?
It would be odd not to, because the theory is very plausible.
The preference for rules over discretion is based on three main
observations. First, using monetary policy to fine-tune economic
activity is extremely difficult, because of the long and unpredictable
delays between changes in interest rates and their subsequent
effects on the economy. Second, in the longer term, changes in
monetary policy affect only inflation. In other words, it is impossible
through easier monetary policy to run the economy at a permanently
higher level of activity and lower rate of unemployment. Very few
economists would dispute either of these arguments; together, they
already imply that discretion is unlikely to be successful.

72

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Rewrite the italicized sentences in the form of a question and

answer.
Having to announce a big drop in profits is not the way any chairman would
choose to mark his second week on the job. That was the unenviable task of
the new chief of J.P. Morgan, one of Americas oldest and mightiest banks,
on January 12. Douglas Warner disclosed that the banks net profit in 1994
was $1.2 billion, 29 percent less than in 1993. In spite of this Mr. Warner looks
cheerful.
He thinks the banks hardest work has been done. Morgan is at the
tail end of a metamorphosis that started in the late 1970s, when this starched
commercial bank saw big corporate borrowers turning in masses from bank
loans toward cheaper sources of capital, such as bonds. Under the
chairmanship of Sir Dennis Weatherstone, Morgan changed further,
concentrating resources on the fee-earning businesses, such as advising
clients, and on trading securities. By the end of 1993, noninterest income
accounted for 72 percent of Morgans earnings, compared with 39 percent a
decade earlier.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

73

Ask a question about the preceding

paragraph

Opening with a question about the previous paragraph announces

that an explanation will follow.
Platinum may be more expensive, troy ounce for troy ounce, but
gold remains the noblest metal in the eyes of chemists. Other
so-called noble metals react fairly easily with their environmenta
copper roof turns green and silver tarnishesbut golds ability to
resist all but the strongest acids is part of the reason it has fascinated
kings and commoners for centuries. Even platinum helps other
chemicals to react, which is why it is used as a catalyst for car
exhausts. Gold, however, remains haughtily above such common
tasks, refusing to react with the molecular masses.
But why? It is not as though gold were chemically inert. After
all, anything less than 24-carat gold is an example of golds ability to
bond strongly with other noble metals. The unresolved puzzle has
been why oxygen, hydrogen, and other reactive constituents of the
atmosphereand the constituents of many acidsare hard put to
bond with gold. Theorists in Denmark now believe that they have
the answer. And their calculations do not only provide an explanation
for golds unique pedigree. They also point the way to designing
better catalysts.

74

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Rewrite the italicized sentence in the form of a question.

Many families can afford to send their children to school only if they also
work at the same time. It is this family dilemma that makes laws against
child labor so difficult to enforce. Thus in Mexico children obtain forged
birth certificates in order to secure jobs in the maquiladora factories
operated by U.S. firms along the northern border. And it is this that makes
worthy corporate codes of conduct liable to backfire: the danger is that, far
from contributing to the end of child labor, they merely shift it to shadier
areas of the economy that are far harder to police.
The course of action companies should take is unknown. Some
initiatives appear more promising than others. One such is the effort that
Levi Strauss, a maker of jeans, has made to provide schooling for child
workers in its suppliers plants in Bangladesh. The provision of other
benefits, such as medical care and meals, may also be appropriate.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

75

Undermine the point of the preceding

paragraph

By undermining the point of the first paragraph, you can propel

your argument in the next.
In principle, you might expect greens and businessfolk to be at
one anothers throats. A blind pursuit of profit, say environmen
talists, encourages companies to foul up the land, sea, and air.
Likewise, few things annoy the average capitalist more than rampant
tree-huggers and their ludicrous owl-protecting, business-destroying
rules. Across America, businesspeople are cheering the efforts of
Republicans in Congress to make a bonfire of green regulations.
Or so it seems. Yet a strange love affair is growing between
some firms and some parts of the green movement. In places such
as Washington and Brussels a fast-growing army of business
lobbyists is working for tougher laws. Many firms have discovered
that green laws can be good for profitseither by creating new
markets or by protecting old ones against competitors.

76

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Add a phrase or sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph

to undermine the point of the first.
The results are visible on the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest. Shops are
full of Western goods. Where grim-faced policemen once stared down pedestrians, street vendors now hawk their wares. The Communist Partys former headquarters in Warsaw houses Polands infant stock exchange. Pragues Wenceslas
Square is festooned with colorful advertisements. Hundreds of thousands of local
entrepreneurs have started small businesses. Scores of Western law firms, consultants, and accountants are setting up offices. From all appearances, business
is booming.
By most measures,
Eastern Europe is in the grip of a prolonged and savage recession. After declining by 8 percent or so last year, the five countries GDPs are expected to drop
another 8 percent this year. Industrial output has declined even faster, by 17 percent last year and probably 11 percent this year. Like all statistics about Eastern
Europe, these figures are endlessly disputed and have to be taken with a pinch
of salt. They may paint too grim a picture because they underestimate the
growth of private business. Yet these countries are clearly in economic trauma.
How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

77

Work with your writing to create smooth

transitions

Examine the transitions between your own paragraphs. Do the

paragraphs flow? Do they play off each other? Is your line of argument
continuous or interrupted? If your paragraphs do not flow easily from
one to the next, try using one of the transition devices below.
Repeat a word from the preceding paragraph.
Pick up a word from the last sentence of one paragraph and use it in the first
sentence of the next.
Place the paragraphs in time.
Start each paragraph with a word or group of words (In the 1980s, Today,
More recently) that places two or more paragraphs in time.
Illustrate by example.
Illustrate the point of the first paragraph by presenting an example in the
second, starting with For example, or Consider X.
Ask a question and answer it.
Ask a question at the end of the first paragraph and answer it in the first
sentence of the second.
Ask a question about the preceding paragraph.
Ask a question at the beginning of the second paragraph that continues with
an idea expressed in the first.

78

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

Undermine the point of the preceding paragraph.

Change the direction of argument by undermining the point of the first
paragraph in the first sentence of the second.
See appendix B for more transition devices.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Link your paragraphs

79

Appendix A More ways to develop a

paragraph

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

81

Undermine a premise immediately

Sometimes, you may not need to elaborate on the premise you

intend to debunk, allowing you to attack it immediately.
State a premise.
Undermine it to make a point.
Support the point.
Presenting a premise in the first sentence and undermining it in
the next can set up a dramatic contrast.

82

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Read the following paragraph:

This point is well taken. However, it is also misleading. The issue is
not the difficulty of writing but the fetishizing of difficulty, the belief
that fractured English, name dropping, and abstractions guarantee
profundity, professionalization, and subversion. With this belief
comes the counterbelief: lucidity implies banality, amateurism,
capitalism, and conservatism.
In this paragraph the opening premise is countered with an
opposing point, which is then supported with details.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

83

Make the point in the middle

Undermining the premise after youve given readers some

background allows you to fit the whole process (state premise,
support it, undermine it with a point, support point) into one
paragraph. That, however, can create long paragraphs.
Introduce the subject.
Make a point.
Support it.
This form is often used for opening paragraphs because it can make
a controversial point less conspicuous.

84

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Read the following paragraph:

Chroniclers of the rise of the industrial worker tend to highlight the
violent episodesespecially the clashes between strikers and the
police, as in Americas Pullman strike. The reason is probably that
the theoreticians and propagandists of socialism, anarchism, and
communismbeginning with Marx and continuing to Herbert
Marcuse in the 1960sincessantly wrote and talked of revolution
and violence. Actually, the rise of the industrial worker was
remarkably nonviolent. The enormous violence of this centurythe
world wars, ethnic cleansings, and so onwas all violence from
below: and it was unconnected with the transformation of society,
whether the dwindling of farmers, the disappearance of domestic
servants, or the rise of the industrial worker. In fact, no one even
tries anymore to explain these great convulsions as part of the crisis
of capitalism, as was standard Marxist rhetoric only 30 years ago.
The first two sentences introduce the point, the third makes the
point, and the last two support it.
To break this paragraph up, you could put the supporting sentences
into a continuing paragraph.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

85

Imply the point by presenting both sides

Sometimes you may want to present two sides without taking a

stand, because of ignorance or diplomacy. It is also a more neutral
version of undermining.
You may want to do this for several reasons:
To suggest the complexity of a debate.
To set up your point (choosing one side) in the following paragraph.
To avoid alienating readers when discussing a sensitive issue.

86

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Read the following paragraph:

Predictably, Syrian, Iranian, and Arab League officials all say that
Israel is the cause of the flare-up. Turkey, they argue, may have
profited from fresh Israeli intelligence on PKK activity in Syria:
Damascus is well in range of Israeli monitoring devices atop the
Golan Heights. Israel protests that it has nothing to do with it at all.
Its minister of defense even ordered the downgrading of routine
patrols in the Golan, so as not to provoke Syria.
Here, presenting both sides of a complex issue conveys the
information without alienating readers.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

87

Connect two subjects with an analogy

Another way to develop a paragraph is to create an analogy.

Analogies are a simple way to make topics more engaging, by
likening topic A to topic B.
Connect two subjects.
Elaborate on the connection.
Make a point about your subject based on your analogy.
Less direct than other models of development, this one expresses
the point powerfully and imaginatively. But dont use it too often
or you might annoy your readers by making them work too hard to
stay with you.

88

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Read the following paragraph:

No man is a hero to his valet: the close and obedient servant sees all
the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of his master. So it is with the
financial servant and its industrial master. Weaknesses in industry
and in its political, legal, and social surroundings are observed by
the financial system in their finest detail. Worst of all, finance is less
discreet than the valet. It passes on its masters frailties for all to
see.
The point, stated in the last line, is introduced by the analogy of
the servant to financial servant, and the master to industrial
master.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

89

Connect three subjects with a syllogism

More complicated than an analogy, a syllogism works by connecting

three things: if x = y and y = z, then x = z.
Connect one subject to a second.
Connect the second subject to a third.
Connect the first to the third.
Make a point based on the syllogism.
This is an effective rhetorical device, but like the analogy, it can
become annoyingand exhaustingif you use it too often.

90

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Read the following paragraph:

All the conversational devices of economics, whether words or
numbers, may be viewed as figures of speech. They are all
metaphors, analogies, ironies, appeals to authority. Figures of
speech are not mere frills. They think for us. Someone who thinks of
a market as an invisible hand and the organization of work as a
production function and coefficients as being significant, as an
economist does, is giving the language a great deal of responsibility.
It seems a good idea to look hard at this language.
The pointthat conversational devices of economics are not mere
frillsis restated in the last line after having been implied by the
syllogism in the paragraph.
The syllogism connects the three elements in this way:
x (conversational devices of economics) = y (figures of speech).
y (figures of speech) = z (not mere frills).
So, x (conversational devices of economics) = z (not mere frills).

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

91

Use only questions

Sometimes a series of pointed questions can assert a point better

than declarative statements can.
Ask a series of questions that set up a line of argument for your
point.
Such questions are often rhetorical, but they can also set up the
structure of argument that follows.

92

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

Here is a paragraph that uses only questions:

How did things break down? What public ethics reign in a land whose
police can kill 111 inmates in a raid on a security prisonand none of
the police officers go to jail, while 10 are promoted? Where the head
of the tax department has to resign for daring to levy duty on the 17
tons of booty brought back by Brazils footballers last summer with
the newly won World Cup? Where a state governor can walk into a
restaurant, shoot his rival, walk away to applause, and win a Senate
seat by a landslide? Where society gasps when the president
watches carnival arm-in-arm with a semiclad samba dancer, but
barely cares that the box he sat in belongs to racketeers?
The succession of questions implies that public ethics in Brazil are
a sad joke.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix A

93

Appendix B More transitions

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

95

Count

Counting is a simple but effective transitional device to link several

paragraphs.
Two other factors have changed the capital markets and encouraged
greater globalization. The first is the growing concentration of market
power in the hands of institutions such as pension funds and
insurance companies, which increasingly trade securities across
borders.
The second factor is financial innovation. The securitization
of funds (allowing firms to borrow directly from markets rather than
through banks) has increased the supply of financial assets that are
taxable and hence priced openly on global markets.

96

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix B

Comment

Making a comment is another way to link a paragraph to the one

preceding it.
Austria, Finland, and Sweden have joined the club. The new members
will do no more than tilt the map of Europe a bit to the north and
east, but that is proving enough to make those on the southern
fringes feel uneasy. They are worried that their concerns will seem
relatively unimportant to the northern majority. In particular, they
fret about North Africa.
With good reason. The Christmas hijacking of an Air France
jet by Islamic extremists served as a grim reminder to the French
that their former colony, Algeria, is fighting a civil war that may well
spill over into France and prompt an exodus of refugees across the
Mediterranean. Like France, Spain and Italy already receive a steady
flow of illegal immigrants from North Africa, where poverty and
fecundity combine to make the adventurous seek a better life in
Europe.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix B

97

Sum up

Sum up an argument to put it in perspective for your readers.

If there cannot be clear-cut answers to such questions, Chile does
well to worry about them all the same. With an income per head of
$3,700, it is still a relatively poor country. Any slowdown in growth
will risk threatening the political consensus that has been bought
with so much recent suffering.
Prudence and history thus argue in the same direction: for
caution, whether in imposing rigidities on the economy or in growing
government again. Among the lessons the developed world has to
teach Chile is that social spending, once raised, is difficult to reduce
in rich countries; and that laws to increase workers rights often have
perverse effects, creating large hidden costs by protecting vested
interests.

98

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix B

Restate

Another way to make a transition from one paragraph to the next is

to restate the argument from the preceding paragraph.
The best laid plans for the European Unions single currency may yet
go astray, but at least the blueprint is on the table. On May 31 the
European Commission released its ideas for economic and monetary
union (EMU) and proposed a publicity blitz to gain popular support
for a three-phase program: the decision to launch the single currency
and identify the countries qualified to use it; the irrevocable fixing,
within a deadline of the following 12 months, of the parities of those
countries currencies; and, within a deadline of three years after that,
the transition to the single currency, with its coins and notes
introduced over a few weeks at the most.
In other words, read the Maastricht treaty, which gives
starting dates for EMU of 1997 at the earliest and January 1st 1999 at
the latest, add a year and then another three, and by 2003 Europeans
will be emptying their pockets of marks and francs and filling them
with a new Euro-currency.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix B

99

String examples together

You can also string examples togethereither to extend them or to

contrast them.
But cuts here are political dynamite. Take the governments planned
cuts in state help to unemployed and poor people with mortgages,
on which spending has grown from 31 million in 1979 to 1.1 billion
today. Tony Blair, Labors leader, is determined to stop the cuts. So is
Nicholas Winterton, a Tory right-winger keen on cuts in general, who
threatens to lead a rebellion against Mr. Lilleys plans.
Or take the recent cuts in non-means-tested invalidity
benefits. Many of those claiming the benefits are middle-income
people who had to retire early and were advised by their employers
to top up their pensions with the benefit. And what are many doing
with their newfound leisure? Spending it at Tory coffee mornings,
thats what. Mr Lilley has warned colleagues that opposition to cuts
in invalidity payments has yet to peak.

10 0

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix B

Appendix C Other kinds of paragraphs

As we saw in the first section of the workbook, the purpose of

most paragraphs is to make a point and support that point
effectively. But not all paragraphs make a point. Some introduce or
conclude an argument. Some signal a shift to a new set of ideas.
And some continue to elaborate on a previous paragraph. Examples
of each of these three kinds of pointless paragraphs appear on
the next few pages.
So, there are exceptions to the point-per-paragraph standard.
Sparing use of introductory, swing, or continuing paragraphs can
support your other paragraphs more effectively and give variety to
your writing.
When to start a new paragraph? There are no rules, but keep these
things in mind:
A new paragraph usually signals a new point, with some exceptions
as discussed above.
Paragraphs that run too long will tax your readers attention and
patience.
Trust your instincts. Most people have an innate sense of where a
logical break would occur.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

101

Opening and closing paragraphs

Opening or closing paragraphs introduce or summarize a point or

argument.
There are strong opening paragraphsand weak ones. Opening
paragraphs that recite the structure of what is coming serve little
real purpose, especially if you have a table of contents. By contrast,
strong opening paragraphs that convey the main and supporting
messages of a piece of writing do the reader a service. At the very
least, you should try to capture your readers attention.
Here is a typical opening paragraph:
This report will examine the problems that lie in wait for social
security. Part one will examine short-term problems and potential
solutions. Part two will focus on long-term problems and potential
solutions. Part three will address the question of reconsidering the
whole system.
Here is a more engaging opening paragraph:
More young Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 say that they
believe in unidentified flying objects (46 percent) than expect to
collect social security checks at retirement (9 percent), according to
a recent study.
The second paragraph moves past the structure of what is coming
and immediately captures the readers interest.

102

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix C

Strong closing paragraphs often convey the essence of an

arguments main points without restating all of its detail. The
strongest closing paragraphs put the main points in perspective
and provoke thought.
Here is a typical closing paragraph:
It has been demonstrated in this report that France wants to use its
six-month presidency of the EU to protect the French language.
Frances proposal is to have every secondary school pupil in the
Union learn two foreign languages. England is on the other side of
the debate. A careful study of both sides of the issue has led to this
conclusion: the biggest beneficiary is likely to be the French. This is
doubtless a good thing in its own right, however much it panders to
French patriotism.
Here is a more memorable closing paragraph:
So France is in fact the biggest beneficiary in this debate. This is
doubtless a good thing in its own right, however much it panders to
French patriotism. But try telling that to the English.
In the second paragraph, the details have been suppressed, and the
comment at the end makes the close more memorable.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix C

103

Swing paragraphs

Swing paragraphs signal a transition from one point to another.

This paragraph sums up previous paragraphs and then poses a
question that leads into the next one:
Either way, inflated international tariffs and a goodly slice of telecoms
operators profits would vanish. With so much of their revenue under
threat, what is the future of the old giants?
Here is another example of a swing paragraph:
Fast-forward a quarter century or so.
This one line orients the reader and provides a transition into the
next paragraph.

10 4

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix C

Continuing paragraphs

Continuing paragraphs, perhaps the most common of the three,

offer more information for a point previously stated.
Heres a continuing paragraph that provides an example:
China is a prime example of this approach. Earlier this year it banned
approvals for any new foreign joint-venture car plants until after
1996. Chinas ban delighted Volkswagen and Peugeot-Citroen, which
found that their joint ventures in China are now considered part of
the local car industry and, according to officials in Beijing, worthy of
government support.
Heres one that defines a concept:
Economists define the real exchange rate as the ratio of domestic
prices of goods and services to foreign prices: when domestic prices
rise relative to foreign ones, the real exchange rate rises. If the
nominal exchange rate is fixed, capital inflows can push the real
exchange rate up by causing domestic inflation as more money is
printed to buy the foreign currency.
And heres one that elaborates on a previous point:
More surprisingly, some of Mr. Pattersons worries are shared by
Richard Monette, a leading classical actor who is serving as the
festivals artistic director. He says, only half-jokingly, that he would
like all the plays to be by Shakespeare.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix C

105

Appendix D Sources of exemplary

paragraphs

The exemplary paragraphs in this workbook are taken from many

sources, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Educom
Review, Harper's, The National Journal, The New York Times, and
World Development Report 1999 (New York, Oxford University
Press, 1999). Many of the less than exemplary paragraphs have
been adapted from superior paragraphs or simply concocted. The
spelling and punctuation in the exemplary paragraphs have been
made consistent with the overall style of the workbook.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

107

Appendix E Recommended solutions

page 3Circle the subject and underline the point.

A hero sandwich deflected a robbers bullet and may have saved the life of a
Brooklyn man, Jos Fana. When a young man entered Fanas East New York
deli, whipped out a handgun, and opened fire, Fana used a sandwich he had
just made to shield his face. Fana was treated at Jamaica Hospital and
released. The hero sandwich was wrapped in paper and topped with lettuce,
tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise.
page 4Circle the subject and underline the point.
Color psychology can be a useful technique in selecting jurors. There is a
very high correlation between preferences for red, yellow, blue, or green
and certain personality types. Those who prefer red (16 percent of the
population) are dominant and unemotional. Yellows (8 percent) are freethinking and emotional. Blues (58 percent) are traditional and compromising.
Greens (12 percent) are analytical and uncompromising. Because of their
leadership qualities, reds and greens are usually chosen to be jury
forepersons. It is important to identify potential forepersons quickly during
jury selection, because they will account for 25 percent of the discussion
during deliberation.
page 5Circle the subject and underline the point.
In 2006, almost 500 million people, about 9 percent of the worlds population,
were more than 60 years old. That number will nearly triple by 2030,
according to a recent report. As life expectancy rises and birthrates slow,
the proportion of the elderly in the population is growing fast, particularly in
developing countries. As a result, systems of caring for the elderlysuch as
pensionsare being strained, putting old people in financial jeopardy and
limiting economic growth. The report recommends that countries diversify
How to Write Powerful Paragraphs

109

government-dominated support systems for the elderly by encouraging a

greater reliance on personal savings and the management of old-age funds
by the private financial sector.
page 7Fill the box with a Y, N, or ?.
Although ranchers claim that wolves will devastate the sheep industry in
the West, studies show that wolves kill far less than 1 percent of the sheep
available to them. Ranchers also face a declining American demand for
wool products, as synthetics become more popular and less
expensive.

The number of wolf-caused sheep deaths would have to

be almost 30 times higher than predicted before it matched the number of

deaths caused by ovine ineptitude.

For instance, more Montana

sheep starved to death in 2007 because they rolled over onto their backs
and were unable to get up.

page 8Fill the box with a Y, N, or ?.

Winston Churchill had other human failings. He was a more or less faithful
husband, but a bad father.

He had deplorable taste in friends, was in

general a bad judge of men, whether politicians or generals, and surrounded

himself with chancers and mountebanks, from Beaverbrook to Birkenhead
to Brendan Bracken.
character.

His wife, Clementine, was a much better judge of

It is hard to fault the almost admiring Boston-Irish

description of him as a fine two-handed drinker, Joseph Kennedys

phrase.

columnists.

He is an icon venerated by British politicians and American

page 9Fill the box with a Y, N, or ?.

Businesses do not have a natural propensity to do good. What is natural for
them is to minimize costs and maximize profits.

Although this self-

interested competition adds in aggregate to the common wealth, it is no

guarantee that individual companies will not rape the environment, indulge
in slavery, or rip off their customers.

Respecting the environment has

become an issue of vital importance in the 2000s.

110

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

page 14Circle the key word and repeat it.

A societys technology during its periods of rapid expansion greatly

Building technology
that

influences the cityscape. The ways of putting up a building in 18th-century

differs

France differ greatly from the architectural techniques used in 20th-century

America. That is why Paris is so different from New York. And the methods

transport technology
that

is

used for getting from one place to another in 19th-century England are quite
unlike the transport modes in the United States during the postwar era. So
the streets of London are nothing like the streets of Minneapolis.
page 15Circle the key word and repeat it.
It is less than 50 years since we first talked in the United States of the two
sectors of a modern societythe public area (government) and the private
portion (business). In the past 20 years the United States has begun to talk

sector

of a third subdivision, the nonprofit partthose organizations that

increasingly take care of the social challenges of a modern society.
page 18Announce and number.
From the experience of developing countries in managing their

First,

two

technologicaldevelopment, certain messages are clear. The technology for

making a product is not a singular element that is either created at home or
bought overseas. It is a bundle of technological elements and requirements.

Second,

Also singing out from this survey is that not all these elements have to be
supplied domestically. Many canand shouldcome from overseas.
page 19Announce and number.

two

First,

The increase in capacity is essentially due to recent changes. Fiber optic

cables are being used more frequently. These now cost much the same as
copper wire to lay down and much less to maintain, but they carry vastly
more traffic. A single fiber thinner than a hair can carry 30,000 simultaneous

Second,

telephone conversations. Switchestelephone exchangeshave moved on

from eavesdropping operators and clunky electromechanical devices to

become increasingly like computers, their costs falling and their capability
expanding inexorably.
How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

111

page 22Use transitional words.

Many culprits have been fingered for the 2008 housing crisis: unscrupulous
mortgage lenders, dishonest borrowers, underregulated financial
institutions.

And

Baut

all of them played a role.

too

little attention has been paid to the most fundamental cause: the contagious
optimism, seemingly impervious to facts, that often takes hold when
prices are rising. Bubbles are primarily social phenomena.

So,

until we understand and address the psychology that fuels them, they're
going to keep forming.
page 23Use transitional words.
The recent commitment by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve,
to extend the Fed's lending window to investment banks into 2009 may
offer some reassurance.

But

investors still worry that medium-

sized American banks may be allowed to go bust.

neither too big nor too complex to fail.

And

After all,

they are

in Britain the share

price of Bradford & Bingley, a mortgage bank, sank even further, dropping
a long way below the rights-issue price and reopening debate about its
future.

112

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

page 27Subordinate the less important idea to the more

important.

Seven Japanese trust banks have volunteered to reduce the purchase of

^,

foreign securities by their pension funds. They have done this on orders
from the ministry of finance.,

These pension funds have been investing abroad more than 30 percent of
their net intake of funds during the past seven months. They have been

_tempted by high interest rates and Wall Streets bull run.,

^
^

ing

Now they will cut overseas investment to 20 percent. They hope to reduce

^,

capital outflows and so to strengthen the yen.,

page 30Make the supporting sentences parallel in structure.

History has a capricious memory, and its anyones guess how it will
remember James C. Wright Jr. of Texas. It may remember him grandly,

as

because he was the House Speaker who most aggressively muscled his way

It may remember him

into foreign policy. If he is remembered more simply, it will be as one of the

forgotten figures who served between two white-haired partisans, Thomas

it may remember him

P. ONeill Jr. of Massachusetts and Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Or he may be

poignantly, remembered as the forlorn man who was toppled from the

giddiest heights of American politics . . . over a book.

page 31Make the supporting sentences parallel in structure.
Crash. Stock market bulls can act as brave as they like, but they cannot
deny the terror that this simple word strikes in their breasts. They may

reassure themselves with talk of record profits or the death of inflation. All
the ways in which Wall Streets bull run is not like others that ended in tears .

is something they
may point out. But the stark reality: stock markets are
_
notoriously fickle and can turn against you at a moments notice,. and this
they cannot deny.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

113

page 36Identify the point and move it to the beginning of the

paragraph.

^ For seven decades, Congress was the governments mostly docile rubber
stamp. Since winning the lower house last year, the opposition parties
have been trying to shape a role both for it and, with a presidential
election less than two years away, for themselves. The saga of Mexicos
bank bailoutstill unresolved, despite a supposed deal last weekhas
been their first real chance to practice. Real politics is rather a new thing
for Mexico.
page 37Identify the point and move it to the beginning of the
paragraph.

^ In the 1950s, most households consisted of two parents, only one of whom
was a wage-earner. Now society is more polarized between two-earner
households and jobless single-parent families. It is hard for single mothers
to earn good incomes. In America, the second most important cause of
increased income inequality has been a change in household structure. The
proportion of families headed by women among the poorest fifth of
households has doubled over the past 40 years to around 35 percent. In
contrast, the richest fifth of households is increasingly dominated by highincome two-earner couples: well-paid women tend to marry rich men.
page 40Add a comment at the end of the paragraph.
Ulysses has a long history of translation. It was greeted as a great work
of literary modernism when it appeared in its highly original English in 1922.
But it was available in German and French before it was legally for sale in
Britain or the United States. Even the Latvians have their own version; the
Japanese have four. Chinese translators never got around to it.

Perhaps they were spared.

114

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

page 41Add a comment at the end of the paragraph.

Whatever the political calculations, the economic facts are clear: women are
catching up and are making the most of Americas economic opportunities.
No wonder men feel threatened. On June 4th, Pamela Davis became the
first woman to pitch for a major league farm club in American baseball.

Consider this a home run.

page 44Emphasize a series by adding alsos and ands.
The five directors have much in common. They share major influences, not
only Stanislavsky, but also Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brook. They

also
Beckett.

turn frequently to modern greats like Ibsen, Chekhov, and

And

they are quite often drawn to opera as a way of

honing their stage skills.

page 45Emphasize a series by adding alsos and and sand
remember to watch for parallel construction.
In part, this is because Mediobanca has spun a tight web between the
countrys main industrial financial groups, leaving little room for others. As
well as 11 percent of Snia, Mediobanca owns a stake in Assicurazioni Generali,
Italys biggest insurer and a part owner of Gemina. It

also

owns

bits of Ferruzzi Finanziaria, and Montedison, its chemicals arm.

it has

And are the banks stakes in Fiat, Olivetti, Pirelli, a tire company,
then there
Italmobiliare, and GIM, a metals group.
page 48Identify the point and move it to the end of the paragraph.
New York Newsday, a Manhattan tabloid launched 10 years ago, published
its last issue on July 16. There was a time, in the days of Citizen Kane, when
New Yorkers could choose among 13 daily newspapers. Even in the 1990s,
an age when few cities support more than two papers, the Big Apple has
boasted four. Last week, however, the Los Angelesbased Times Mirror
company pulled the plug on one of them.

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

^
115

page 49Identify the point and move it to the end of the paragraph.
The technological changes that have swept across the telecommunications
industry have two distinct effects. Together, they will transform the
industryalthough the pace at which they take effect will be partly set by
regulation. One is to create glut instead of the capacity shortages of the
past. The other is to reduce barriers to entry and make possible new sorts of
competition.

page 52Turn the point into a question and answer.

How effective is
?
Our current system of teaching and learning is not
_ very .effective in serving
^
^
the new definition of learning. Inhibiting its effectiveness are outmoded
assumptions about who students are and about the teaching and learning
process. Classroom-based, residential institutions were developed to serve
a relatively homogeneous student population, a population quite different
from todays students. Prior to the 1960s, college students were similar in
age (young), sex (male), ethnicity (white), and economic means (affluent).
The size of the nations student body was relatively small, reaching about
3.2 million in 1960. The collegiate experience, itself a homogeneous one,
constituted at that time a rite of passage with widely accepted milestones
along the way. Notions about the small liberal arts college as the best form
of higher education reflect that long past era of shared purpose in educating,
or socializing, a common student body.
page 53Turn the point into a question and answer.

Bulls wield two arguments . when asked where

the market is headed next. ^
_
The first is that the fall in the value of Hong Kong property is largely over,
even if Chinas speculative property market is now due for a correction.
Hong Kongs developers are largely shielded from the mainlands excesses.
Another is that even if Chinas economy is in for a bumpy year, Hong Kong
will be more than consoled for that by the buoyancy of much of the rest of
the world. Hongkong Bank reckons that Hong Kongs economy will grow by
nearly 6 percent this year.

116

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

page 56Undermine the italicized premise.

Berlins designs on becoming a center for new industries such as media and
biotechnology are more promising. Some 300 small media firms have set up in
or near the city since 1994, many of them clustered around the Babelsberg film
studios, once Germanys biggest. And several departments of Berlins Humboldt
University have moved to the Adlershof industrial park in an eastern suburb, to
work closely with the 200-plus technology firms that have already moved in.

Still, Berlin has a long way to go.

page 57Undermine the italicized premise.
Jerky camera movements, shouts, cops rushing through a darkened
doorway, guns drawn. It all makes great television. Reality-based
programming has mushroomed in America, and it is easy to see why.
Almost everyone comes out a winner. The police look like heroes.
Journalists get a great story. TV firms get an endless stream of cheap
programs.

And

audiences

love

such

in-your-face

entertainment.

Perhaps the only loser is the person being searched or arrested in the full
glare of publicity. What if the person turns out to be innocent?
page 60Break up this paragraph with bullets.
Ensuring that firms, banks, and individuals live up to their promises is a
problem in all societies but tends to be especially severe in the weak
institutional environments that characterize many developing countries.

:
^

Three imperatives for policy are _to develop a strong legal and judicial

To

To

system,. but create incentives to minimize recourse to it,. and explore

innovative alternative approaches to enforcement.
page 61Break up this paragraph with bullets.
The way governments convey information to citizens, especially the poor, is
often critical. So are the ways they listen to citizens and what they learn
from them. Governments can ensure a two-way exchange of information
from society to government and from government to society. The starting

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

117

:
^

point in all this should be the poor. Countries

_ should give the poor voice,
especially through better educational opportunities and better access to

telecommunications;. _
learn about the poor from the poor;. work
through local
_

channels and earn the trust of the poor;. and provide

knowledge to the poor
_
in a manner they can use.
page 67Repeat a term from the first paragraph.
So far, RNA editing has been seen in marsupials, protozoa, slime molds,
ferns, and flowering plants. Flies do it. Mice do it. And, it now appears,
people do it.

Or rather, in most cases, their mitochondria

do it

Mitochondriathe cellular machines where glucose is burned for energy

are found in all cells more sophisticated than bacteria. Indeed, many
biologists suspect that the ancestors of mitochondria actually were bacteria
that gave up an independent life symbiotically in early complex cells. They
have their own genes, in any case. And these genes are turning out to be
heavily edited.
page 69Add phrases that place the paragraphs in time.

In the 1950s

, when relations between

China and the Soviet Union were at their worst, China provoked a series of
skirmishes, mostly along the Heilongjiang border. Harbins government,
believing a Soviet invasion to be imminent, set about building underground
corridors, about 3 kilometers long, that were meant to house the whole of
the citys population in the event of an attack. These were kept meticulously
ready until 1985, when peace broke out.

Today

, they have a new use.

The corridors have been turned into a thriving temple of free enterprise
selling the latest fashions from Hong Kong. With the shelter the corridors
offer from Harbins 25C cold, and with the hundreds of jobs this
subterranean market has created, they must surely be Russias greatest gift
to the chilly city.

118

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

page 71Announce an example.

Attacking corporate fat cats has plenty of voter appeal, particularly when
few people have yet to feel much benefit from Britains economic recovery.
But there is no reason to suppose that the bulk of Labor politicians are only
pretending to hold these views. And, on their merits, none of these attacks
on profitable firms is sustainable.

For example

, the

IPPR

s tud y

criticizes the external costs and regional concentrations of supermarket

chains using criteria so unreasonable that they would condemn most large
industries. The Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers
Commission studied supermarkets several times but found no proof of
serious market failure or lack of competition.
page 73Ask a question and answer it.
Having to announce a big drop in profits is not the way any chairman would
choose to mark his second week on the job. That was the unenviable task of the
new chief of J.P. Morgan, one of Americas oldest and mightiest banks, on
January 12. Douglas Warner disclosed that the banks net profit in 1994 was $1.2

So why does he look so cheerful?

billion, 29 percent less than in 1993. In spite of this Mr. Warner looks cheerful.

Perhaps because

He thinks the banks hardest work has been done. Morgan is at the
^
tail end of a metamorphosis that started in the late 1970s, when this starched

commercial bank saw big corporate borrowers turning in masses from bank
loans toward cheaper sources of capital, such as bonds. Under the
chairmanship of Sir Dennis Weatherstone, Morgan changed further,
concentrating resources on the fee-earning businesses, such as advising
clients, and on trading securities. By the end of 1993, noninterest income
accounted for 72 percent of Morgans earnings, compared with 39 percent a
decade earlier.
page 75Ask a question about the preceding paragraph.
Many families can afford to send their children to school only if they also
work at the same time. It is this family dilemma that makes laws against
child labor so difficult to enforce. Thus in Mexico children obtain forged
How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E

119

birth certificates in order to secure jobs in the maquiladora factories

operated by U.S. firms along the northern border. And it is this that makes
worthy corporate codes of conduct liable to backfire: the danger is that, far
from contributing to the end of child labor, they merely shift it to shadier
areas of the economy that are far harder to police.

So what should companies do?

The course of action companies should take is unknown. Some

initiatives appear more promising than others. One such is the effort that
Levi Strauss, a maker of jeans, has made to provide schooling for child
workers in its suppliers plants in Bangladesh. The provision of other
benefits, such as medical care and meals, may also be appropriate.
page 77Undermine the point of the preceding paragraph.
The results are visible on the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest. Shops
are full of western goods. Where grim-faced policemen once stared down
pedestrians, street vendors now hawk their wares. The Communist Partys
former headquarters in Warsaw houses Polands infant stock exchange.
Pragues Wenceslas Square is festooned with colorful advertisements.
Hundreds of thousands of local entrepreneurs have started small businesses.
Scores of Western law firms, consultants, and accountants are setting up
offices. From all appearances, business is booming.

But appearances are deceiving.

By most measures,

Eastern Europe is in the grip of a prolonged and savage recession. After

declining by 8 percent or so last year, the five countries GDPs are expected
to drop another 8 percent this year. Industrial output has declined even faster,
by 17 percent last year and probably 11 percent this year. Like all statistics
about Eastern Europe, these figures are endlessly disputed and have to be
taken with a pinch of salt. They may paint too grim a picture because they
underestimate the growth of private business. Yet these countries are clearly
in economic trauma.

120

How to Write Powerful Paragraphs Appendix E