This document discusses the four main types of paragraphs: descriptive, persuasive, expository, and narrative. It provides examples and definitions for each type. Descriptive paragraphs use details and sensory language to describe people, places, things, or events. Narrative paragraphs tell a story through a sequence of events with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Persuasive paragraphs aim to convince the reader of a position using facts and rhetorical devices. Expository paragraphs provide information to explain or analyze a topic using details, evidence, and examples. Each paragraph type has distinct features and purposes.

1. TYPES OF
PARAGRAPHS

2. PARAGRAPH
A paragraph can be defined as a
group of sentences related to the
same topic.

3. TYPES OF PARAGRAPHS
According to the writing propose, paragraphs
may be classify into four main categories:
Descriptive
Persuasive
Expository
Narrative
To describe something or someone
To tell stories or sequence of events
To explain something, give information or
instructions
T
o convince the reader

4. Descriptive paragraphs aim to:
Show the reader what a thing or person is
like without physical contact.
Allow the reader to experience the
phenomenon, item or event described in
detail.
DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPHS

5. Their feature are:
Words usually appeal to the five senses of
touch, smell, sight, sound, and taste.
They normally include modifiers (e.g.,
adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases)
Figurative language are very common
as well (e.g., metaphors, personification,
similes)
DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPHS

6. “I climb up on the loading platform in back of the small
country hardware store somewhere off Route 13 near
Nassawadox on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I am
looking for the proprietor. The air is cool in the shadows
of the storeroom and redolent of fresh-sawn lumber. I
hear voices behind me. The proprietor, middle-aged with
skin leathered by the sun, is taking to two young white
men in bib overalls. The young white men are leaning on
a rusting 1962 Ford station wagon of indeterminate
color. From the shadows of the storeroom, I move in
their direction.”
Defending the spirit by Randall Robinson
EXAMPLE

7. NARRATIVE PARAGRAPHS
Narrative paragraphs aim:
 to tell about a sequence of actions.
Their feature are:
There is always a clear beginning,
middle and end.
They usually follow a plot line

8. EXAMPLE
“John Payton, an old friend and brilliant Washington lawyer, told
me recently that UCLA Law School’s large entering class for fall
1997 would likely include not a single black , owing to general
retreat from affirmative action. This is the new and disturbing
national trend. In 1996 President Clinton signed a mean-spirited
welfare reform bill that promised to push millions of children,
black, brown, and white, into poverty. Month later, the President,
with much pomp and fanfare, called from a platform in
Philadelphia for mass volunteerism as an answer to our nation’s
growing social ills. Sharing the platform with the president, were
former presidents Carter and Bush. General Colin Powel
provided something of a black imprimatur for the idea of
substituting volunteerism for federal assistance to the poor.”
Defending the spirit by Randall Robinson

9. PERSUASIVE PARAGRAPHS
Persuasive paragraphs aim:
 to get the reader reaction
 to accept or understand the writer’s
position or proposal.

10. PERSUASIVE PARAGRAPHS
Their feature are:
They often require the gathering of
facts and research.
Usually, rhetorical devices are employed
in order to influence the reader's opinion.

11. EXAMPLE
“We believe that we can change the things around us in
accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise
we can see no favorable outcome. We do not think of the
outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favorable:
we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our
desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that
we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes
unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as
we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us
round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze
into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so
imperceptible has it become.”
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

12. EXPOSITORY
PARAGRAPHS

13. Expository Paragraph
• An expository paragraph provides information.
• It is a paragraph that explains and analyzes a topic
giving you information, an explanation, facts, or an
illustration.
• Expository comes from the term expose, meaning,
“to reveal”.

14. Expository Paragraph
• These paragraphs are part of expository essay
writing, making up expository essays and reports.
• Although explaining a topic can be done in
several ways, the most common approach to
developing an expository paragraph requires
using details, evidence and examples.

15. EXAMPLE
“A sentence is a group of words that make sense when
used together. A sentence expresses a complete thought. If
a sentence does not express a complete thought, it is an
incomplete sentence. A sentence begins with a capital letter
and ends with a period(.), an exclamation point(!), or a
question mark(?). Every sentence has a subject and a verb.
Sentences are the basic units of all writing. Below you will
see examples of incomplete sentences and complete
sentences.”
Clear writing: step by step by Diana Bonet

16. Types of Expository Text
• book reports
• complaints
• definitions
• directions
• editorials
• invitations
• journals
• lab reports
• letters
• newspaper articles

17. Topic Sentence
• A good expository paragraph begins by stating the topic–
it tells what the paragraph is mostly about.
• A strong introductory sentence is crucial to the
development of an effective expository paragraph.
• One of the most important jobs of an introductory
sentence is that it introduces the topic or issue. Most
explanations cannot be clarified without at least some
background information. Thus, it is essential to provide a
foundation for your topic before you begin explaining.

18. Topic Sentence
• In addition to introducing the topic of your
paragraph, your introductory sentence also
needs to introduce each of the points you will
cover in your body sentences. By providing your
audience with an idea of the points you will
make in your paragraph, your introductory
sentence serves as a guide map, not only for your
audience, but also for you.

19. Purposes of a topic Sentence
• Introductory sentences introduce the topic and
suggest why it is important.
Example: An analysis of the essay exam results of the new
English class shows that the new class format promotes close
reading and better essay organization.
• This sentence tells the reader both that the topic of
the paper will be the benefits of the new English class
and that the significance of these benefits is the
improvement of close reading and essay organization.

20. Purposes of a topic Sentence
• Introductory sentences outline the structure of
the paragraph and highlight the main ideas.
Example: Considering the results of the high school exit exam, it
is apparent that the school curriculum is not properly addressing
basic math skills, such as fractions, percentages and long division.
• This sentence indicates the main ideas (fractions,
percentages and long division) of the paragraph and
indicates the order in which they will be presented in
the body sentences.

21. Note: these two points will depend
on the writing style

23. Detail Sentences / Body sentences
• Details in the paragraph support the topic sentence.
• You need to provide some information or
explanation about the main idea. Give “hard
evidence” to support the main idea.
• In expository writing, the writer is like a lawyer who
is trying to prove a point. Good proof is factual
detail.

24. Detail Sentences / Body sentences
• Body sentences of an expository paragraph are weak
when no examples are used to help illuminate the
topic being discussed or when they are poorly
organized.
• Occasionally, body sentences are also weak because
the quotes used complicate rather than simplify the
explanation. Thus, it is essential to use appropriate
support and to adequately explain your support
within your body sentences.

26. Concluding Sentences
• The concluding sentences restates the topic and main
idea mentioned in the beginning of the paragraph.
• Since it is at the end of the paragraph, the
concluding sentence also should add a sense of
closure and finality to the clarification of the
paragraph.
• It is important to re-emphasize the main idea without
being repetitive or introducing an entirely new idea or
subtopic.

29. Transition Words/Phrases
• Transition words and phrases connect ideas in the
paragraph.
• Sentences in a paragraph should be logically
arranged and they should flow smoothly as well. So,
it is highly recommended to use transition words or
phrases
• Expressions such as next, then, after that, similar,
above, farther on, next to, and so forth. They are
called transitional words and phrases.

30. • Identify the writing form
• Does this prompt ask you to write general facts about a
topic or relate a topic to your life?
• Identify the audience
• The way your write will depend on who you are writing
for.
• Identify the purpose
• The purpose is the reason why you are writing.
TIPS

31. • Persuade, Inform, and Entertain
• Persuade (show that you actually know what you are
saying)
• convince the reader to do or believe something.
• Inform
• provide facts that clearly explain the topic.
• Entertain
• include interesting details to hook the audience.
TIPS

32. REFERENCE LIST
Basics: Language Art-English. (2015). Retrieved from:
https://sites.google.com/site/basicslanguagearts/home/compone
nts-of-a-paragraph/different-type-of-paragraphs
Bonet, D. Clear Writing : A Step by Step Guide. Menlo Park, CA,
USA: Course Technology / Cengage Learning, 1991. ProQuest
ebrary.
Learn English Online. (2015). Types of paragraphs. Retrieved
from:
http://www.learnamericanenglishonline.com/Write_in_English/W
L10_types_of_paragraphs.html
https://opentextbc.ca/buildingblocks/chapter/expository-
paragraphs/