Page 70 - English for Writing Research Papers

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In all the examples in the table, I am talking about cases where you need at least
three sentences (or two quite long ones) to achieve the function desired. For example,
when you use fi rstly, secondly etc., you only need to begin a new paragraph if the
sentence that begins fi rstly is then followed by another two or more sentences. If you
only need one sentence for each item, then you don’t need to begin a new paragraph.

There is no minimum length to a paragraph. A paragraph can occasionally be just
one sentence. However, a series of paragraphs containing only one or two short
sentences would be a little strange.

Where you begin a new paragraph will also depend on which section you are
writing. In the review of the literature, you may want to begin a new paragraph
when (i) you begin to talk about a different phase in the logical build up of research

in your field, or (ii) you start talking about another author. In the Methods, it may
help the reader to identify the various components or understand the various steps,
if these components or steps are in separate (probably quite short) paragraphs.

3.15 Begin a new paragraph when you begin to talk

about your study and your key fi ndings
If you have phrases such as This study shows that / Our findings highlight / These

results indicate that in the middle of a long paragraph, readers may not even notice
the sentence. Thus you lose a good opportunity to get the reader to focus on your

findings. So whenever you want to highlight the importance of your study or fi nd-
ings, begin a new paragraph (Sect. 8.2 ).

3.16 Concluding a paragraph: avoid redundancy

Throughout this section I have underlined the need to help the reader understand the
logical progression of your ideas. But if your writing is clear, you don’t need to help
the reader too much. This means that the beginning of a paragraph should move on
from where the previous paragraph ended. So there is no need for a summary sen-
tence between the two paragraphs, but just a clear and logical link in terms of
advancing one idea to the next.
Some authors end a section by talking about the coverage of the next section, but
such information is often redundant, particularly if it is repeated again at the begin-
ning of the next section.