W 079 F

INTRODUCTION
Writing paragraphs often causes problems to students when they have to write essays, because they have to know many rules for writing well built up essays. An essay will be well built up if the paragraphs are well organised and developed in details. I will give in this paper some ideas and advice to students about the rules of paragraphing, according to some reference books. Before doing it, I will present some definitions of paragraph:

"A paragraph is a collection of sentences that should begin with an indention and that should explain a controlling idea" (Leggett, Mead & Kramer 1988 p. 374). Another book defines a paragraph as a

"small box of sentences, making a whole shape that is at the same time part of another whole. It is a miniature essay itself, with its own variable structure" (Hall, 1988 p. 219).
And finally:
"A well-structured paragraph contains a topic sentence which states the main point, supporting sentences with details to convince the reader that the main point is of value, and a concluding sentence which will help the reader completely understand the topic idea" (Gray & Melis, 1996 p. 10).
The keywords of paragraph writing are unity, main idea and topic sentence. Although there are several types of paragraphs (introductory, body and concluding paragraphs), these keywords exist in all sorts.

METHOD
I did library research to get an answer to my question - 'How to write a well organised paragraph?' - I was looking for books dealing with analysing and describing paragraphs, I watched their contents, then I borrowed about six - seven books that present the main rules of paragraph writing. I read the chapters about paragraphs and paragraphing, and I took notes. There were some books from which I could not take notes, because they were without explanation, but full of examples. These books were also very useful, because the sample paragraphs helped me a lot. After I had read all the books I wanted, I tried to connect the ideas from each book to write my paper. I chose this topic because I have a lot of problems with writing. I often do not know how to begin, what to write, or how to finish a paragraph or an essay. Reading the reference books was very useful for me, because they gave me a lot of advice. I hope that my work will be clearer and that I will write better paragraphs in the future, and I also hope that this paper will be useful if students read it.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Paragraph writing has some rules that the writer has to follow in order to write a good essay. First of all, a paragraph must be a unit and secondly, it must be coherent. These two features belong together, because a paragraph cannot be a unit without being coherent. Coherence links the writer's thoughts within a paragraph, and also among the paragraphs of the essay. Another important aspect within a paragraph is developing: to explain and illustrate the main idea of the paragraph. If the writer misses one of these elements, the paragraph will collapse. Lack of unity means jumping from subject to subject with no clear purpose, lack of coherence means that the ideas are not clearly connected, and the lack of developing does not make a sense for the reader (Leggett, Mead, & Kramer, 1988 p. 374). The next step the writer has to remember is that he or she has to take into consideration the reader to whom he or she writes his or her paragraph.

The first step that the writer has to take into consideration when writing an essay or a paragraph is the concept of unity supported by topic sentences and relating sentences. A unified paragraph has a single clear focus and each sentence relates to that focus. If any sentence is unrelated, it is out of the subject and can destroy the paragraph's unity. The writer achieves that focus by organising the paragraph around the main idea, which is called the thesis. The thesis can be implied, but usually it is explicitly stated in the topic sentence. Topic sentences help the reader to understand easily the main idea and they also raise the reader's expectations toward the rest of the paragraph (Leggett, Mead, & Kramer, 1988 p. 377). The role of the topic sentence is to summarise the main idea of the whole paragraph, and to present its subject. This main idea is often a generalisation, and the rest of the paragraph supports its evidence by examples and details, which explain and elaborate this topic. Topic sentences consist of two parts: a general and a specific one. They summarise the content of the whole paragraph and can contain keywords. All my reference books call the reader's attention to the importance of topic sentences that hold the paragraph together. Without good topic sentences the reader will not understand the main idea of the text. When the writer has found the good topic sentence, the next step is to develop the paragraph with other sentences taking into account the conceptions of coherence and unity. The writer must concentrate on the main idea, and the relating sentences must be connected to each other and to the topic sentence, too.

Secondly, the writer has to provide coherence, which means to link the thoughts and the sentences within the paragraph in a logical way. These linked ideas should be related to the paragraph's main idea to be clear, and the relationship between the sentences also must be clear. The paragraph must seem a whole, "not just a collection of individual sentences" (Hall, 1988 p. 227). Besides connecting the ideas, the writer has to use the means of connecting language that means repeating keywords and phrases, parallel grammatical structures and transitional markers, and using old information to introduce new information (Leggett, Mead, & Kramer, 1988 p. 395).

Transitions occur within the paragraph as the way to move from one sentence to another or between paragraphs as the way of moving from topic to topic while keeping the essay whole. Transitions also help the writer to "gain time to complete the argument with eloquence and confidence" (Gray, & Melis, 1996 p. 12). When the writer has the main idea in mind, and he or she knows what to write, then he or she has to begin to organise these ideas and build up a coherent paragraph from them. A logical organisation makes the paragraph more comprehensible: the reader understands more easily the writer's idea. It is not enough to present the ideas one after other, the writer must also create some link between them and reveal those links to the reader who may not find them as obvious as they seem to the writer. A typical mistake of paragraph or essay writing is, for example, when the writer jumps from pronoun to pronoun, so there is no coherence between the sentences, and that is why the reader cannot follow the writer's purpose or understand to whom the whole paragraph is written. Another problem of coherence can be if the writer presents an idea, and in the next sentence he or she presents a new idea which is totally different from the previous one, and there is no link between them. In this case, the reader will not understand the text, because the sentences fall into pieces: they do not hold together.

The next step that the writer has to follow, is to develop the paragraph by giving details about the subject stated in the topic sentence. The reader needs these details to be able to understand the writer's thinking. Using paragraphs effectively enables an idea to draw attention to ideas they want to highlight and to separate the points from each other (Gere, 1988 p. 251). The type of development we use - Donald Hall calls it the 'how' of the paragraph - depends on the material the writer is using - the 'what' - and the purpose he has in mind - the 'why'. "The container takes its shape from what it contains" (Hall, 1988 p. 243). The means of development can be a series of features: definition, comparison, contrast, analysis, classification, cause, effect. In the developing part of the paragraph the writer explains and supports the general statement of the main idea, expresses the ideas clearly and completely. If the writer gives too little information, his or her paragraph will not be developed and comprehensible for the reader. Giving too much information can also cause problems, because the writer can become lost in details and can derive from the main idea of the text. While developing a paragraph, the writer has to take into consideration the conceptions of order and clarity. Thoughts must follow each other with a sense of purpose, because purpose makes clarity. Chronological order is the easiest and the most common method for ordering the material in a paragraph, but the writer can use other methods too, such as from less to more important, or from periphery to centre, from smaller to larger.

Another important aspect of paragraph writing is the point of view of the reader, for whom the paragraph or the essay is written. There is a strong connection between the writer and the reader, because paragraphs package the writer's meaning for the reader (Leggett, Mead, & Kramer, 1988 p. 374). For the reader paragraph signals a break, it calls the attention to the fact that something changes and it gives directions and helps to connect the writer with the audience, and it manipulates the reader's attention (Hall, 1988 p. 220). The writer also has to take into consideration the reader's expectations and the point of view from which the reader will see the writing. If it is not a unit, not coherent enough or not well developed, the reader will not understand the writer's purpose. The reader wants to understand the text when he or she begins to read it, and if it is not comprehensible, he or she will not get to the end of it.

CONCLUSION
Paragraph writing is not an easy exercise, but everyone can learn it following the given rules. The writer has to begin his or her paragraph with a topic sentence, which presents the main idea of the paragraph; the other sentences have to support this main idea and give details about it. Then he or she has to develop the paragraph, taking into account that the thoughts and sentences must be linked in order to provide coherence and unity in the paragraph. Without this, the reader will not understand what the writing is about, because it is the reader who will read the writing and evaluate it. He or she has to follow and understand the writer's ideas and main purpose, so the writer has to be as clear as possible.

In this paper I tried to follow the rules of paragraph writing. Students often do not have these rules in mind. They do not write topic sentences or they lack unity, coherence or development. My aim with this paper was to present to students the rules of well organised paragraphs. If the writer follows these rules, he or she will be able to collect and connect his or her ideas and will write effective, well organised paragraphs which are useful in essays and compositions.