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Paragraphs Versus Essays: Similarities

*The essay is automatically corrected by Microsoft Word in some parts.

Do you think you know what does paragraph mean? How about essay? What regulations do you have to bear in mind both when writing a paragraph, narrative or descriptive or argumentative or whatever type it is, and an essay? If you can answer all of the questions, bless you. If not, then look no further. There is a set of restrictions controlling any writing job; it is almost as solemn as the law. We are going to discuss both the similar points between writing a well-refined paragraph and a beautifully woven essay, in which we would talk about some examples too.

Generally, the (artificial) universal rules of writing are where the somewhat-resembling aspects of paragraphs and essays lie. For (the first) instance, as we have been taught in our sophomore year or before then, a good paragraph must have unity. It means all the sentences in a paragraph must point to the same persona, namely, the main idea of the paragraph. In much the same way, the Writers Taskforce of Fictional World has been enforcing the same rules on all the essays writers in the world; the punishment for those neglecting the Law of Unity is called Sorry-but-your-work-is-not-published syndrome. All the sentences and paragraphs in an essay must point to one and only one Thing, and it is called, in this case, the thesis sentence.

Second, there is an angel named coherence, who dearly wishes to be a part of every paragraph, floating omnipotent in every language’s arsenal of lexicon. Coherence defies the Buddha’s teaching stating that the world is lack of continuity by prohibiting the surreal art instinct of the authors from showing itself too much. Every sentence in a paragraph must be related in one way or another with the preceding sentence. The said relationship may be that one sentence is the cause or an effect of the other, or the sentence X may be the other side of the sentence X-1, for example. This prevents the readers’ suffering from severe headache. Violating this, too, spells horrible disasters for any human writer. For instance, no one would ever want to read a short story, which is a set of finely sorted compositions (a kind of writing very similar to essay), whose point of view is constantly changing to and fro between the protagonist and her maid, who lives a blissful yet (seemingly) boring life, and sometimes even wander around pointlessly—or, to be frank, hopelessly—as far as some villains smoking his cigarettes in prison or the heroine’s aunt’s cousin’s sister who has the ability to play the piano perfectly. The effect of such a thing (not having coherence) would result in the very same feeling I bet you must have had when you were reading the sentence describing it—desperate confusion. That exactly could be another point of view of the word (coherence), that is, the meaning of not talking (or writing) too aimlessly.

The third similarity between a paragraph and an essay is the use of transitional words; they are the words that help to link ideas between sentences. These words include “and”, which suggests the ideas’ friendship, or, well, “or”, which means the preceding sentence is having an argument with the following, and many others. These kinds of idea sound familiar, huh? In fact, embedding those linking words into one’s work is a part of making its coherence, so I wouldn’t preach you again about them. However, it is obligated that we separately say about transitional words because it is one of the most important things to achieve the said coherence.

To conclude the whole thing into just one sentence, there are three essential things in common to bear in mind when writing a paragraph or an essay: unity, coherence, and transitional words. Everyone, from as great a writer as Jane Austen or J.K. Rowling to any Mr. Writer Wannabe, more or less uses or even manipulates them. Nevertheless, there is one last short note to be noticed. It is that the whole essay does not and would never mean that one could not abuse the rules or even treat them as Death Note’s MU—nothingness—if the situation requires. The most vivid example type of writing is (literally translated) “experimental type” of a certain two-time S.E.A. Write Thai author. He wrote a whole short story out of just nouns (and another one using only interrogative sentences). Hence, what is being emphasized here is that, the stated three similar laws between paragraphs and essays are forceful, but they are not the sacred cow to be worshipped.

Summary: There are regulations regarding both a paragraph and an essay. First, both must have unity; all the sentences must relate to only one idea. Not writing so makes the work unpublished. Next, there is coherence—the smooth structure of the work. Bouncing around in every direction leaves readers confused. The last mandatory thing is the use of transitional words to link sentences, which is in fact a part of coherence. Sometimes, however, these rules could be bended.

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Create Date : 09 กันยายน 2552

Last Update : 7 ตุลาคม 2554 22:04:26 น.

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