The characteristics of a 'just right' paragraph

Ah, the paragraph. I have made a few posts on this topic (here), but there is always a bit more to do, especially when someone as guru-like as Tara Brabazon creates a vlog on the topic. While Tara writes and supervises PhDs, there is always something we can learn - at any level - from such an expert.

A key issue which Tara identifies about the paragraph is that each one needs to be 'just' the right length; a Goldilocks length. Interestingly, "the overwhelming majority of students start writing very, very short paragraphs; one sentence, two sentences, three sentences, and what that does is [...] fragments your argument" (Brabazon, 2024, 3:09). We chop up our thoughts into unconnected pieces... a bit like loose Lego blocks. Our ideas have the shadow of something, but we have not yet done the work to bring our writing into sharper focus. In addition, at the other spectrum end we may have written too much, not chunking our prose into ideas; instead gushing a deluge of text for two pages in a single paragraph. Neither the fragments nor the gush helps our reader to understand what we are trying to convey. What is even more interesting; Tara thinks there is a similar cause for both the fragments and the gush: and that is reading.

• Not enough quality input. In the fragmented paragraphs, it seems that we may not have "done [enough...] reading and that means [we] just can't extend the ideas. [We] don't [yet] have enough to say" (3:59). We fix this by taking in more good quality materials (Brabazon, 2024). However, I think there are two other roadblocks in this area:
• In note-taking mode: this is where we are still information-gathering. We are not yet ready to write, because our ideas lack form. While yes, we may we need to read more, needing to read more niche research so we can better connect our ideas; or not yet reading enough may not be the problem. It might be that the field itself is unclear as to an appropriate way forward. If so, this is hard for a junior researcher: we need to leap into the unknown.
• Lack confidence to interpret/critique. In addition/alternatively, perhaps we lack the depth of understanding to accurately interpret what the literature days, nailing our colours to the mast with a "And what this means is...". Or we might lack confidence in critiquing what other authors say. We might have a dose of the "I am not worthys". This too is hard: and again, we need to make the leap.
• Too much input. Whereas in the gush, the writer has read too much, but has held back writing to this point, so what has been thought about then pours forth in a vast synthesis without pause to consider structure. We can fix this by creating - for example - a fishbone diagram of the topics to be covered before we begin, which will then guide our writing process (Brabazon, 2024).

These are two interesting problems, but both are solvable.

Paragraphs are fascinating tools. I suspect that we don't teach paragraph writing deliberately enough... which means all of us have poorer writing than we could have.

Sam

Reference:

Brabazon, T. (2024, May 17). Outrider 55 - The Paragraph [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/af_-RikKZmA