Premise

How do you make a paragraph? Hm. Well, let’s start with the basics. Firstly, a paragraph is simply an indented block of text with a cohesive idea. You may have been taught in grade school that a paragraph needs five sentences:

1. Topic sentence
2. More specific claim
3. Cited (and sometimes quoted) evidence
4. Analysis of that evidence
5. Concluding analysis

This is a good starting premise, but it’s often ineffectively simplistic in its application. Some paragraphs might need just 3 or 4 sentences to accomplish their goal, whereas others need 5 or 8 or 12 or more. So how long should a paragraph be on a case-by-case basis?

Examples

So How Do You Decide?

While you can, again, start with the five sentence formula above, the reality is that different ideas have different complexities and therefore different levels of needed explanation. In practice, it’s really as easy as that. Just take the following two examples from two different students’ analytical papers. Both are complete and compelling paragraphs, but one simply requires more comprehensive details than the other to fully express its point:

Student One:

The author continues to develop her credibility by elaborating the long-term dissatisfaction of this situation. She points out that “Students as far back as 1991 have been writing articles about this exact problem within the newspaper” (Rollins 5). Her ability identify that this exact parking issue has been discussed by students for decades, not only strengthens readers’ trust that she has researched this topic in full, but also starts to make logical connections which she will build upon as she forges ahead with her main argument.

Student Two:

While her sound logical reasoning is likely perceived by most audiences as compelling evidence, parts of her writing where she elicits emotional appeal might not be equally effective. This inconsistent impact starts midway through the article, where her writing becomes less balanced between rhetorical appeals—often focusing on the aforementioned incomplete emotional rather than comprehensive logical reasonings. Such a shift is perhaps most potently seen where she includes a three line paragraph which offers an entire subpoint of argument without any clear evidence. She declares that “Already stressed students should also never have to worry about where their food comes from. We’re the ones paying for the university to run, after all. We’re the ones, who without us, the university would cease to exist” (Dobbins 3). This claim might be fine if it were building upon an already established point. But as mentioned, this is a completely new argument without prior context. The link to the article’s main point remains unclear, which is an oversight we see more and more of as we delve deeper and deeper into her piece. Of course, other students reading this article who also feel this way might be liable to agree, but what about those who aren’t already on her side?

Once more, the complexity of the content determines how long these paragraphs need to be. In fact, if you try to map our five sentence paragraph model upon Student One, it simply doesn’t quite fit. This is because the nature of the details lend themselves to being optimally represented in just three sentences:

1. A single topic sentence that merges both the first and second sentence considerations normally present in a paragraph
2. Introduced quoted evidence, and
3. A concluding analysis with emphasis on the impact here.

Hence while we still have all the constituent parts, it’s a bit shorter at only three sentences total.

Of course, the challenge here is knowing when to expand and by how much. The Student Two paragraph is much longer at 10 sentences total, including the quoted evidence. Part of the trick in this particular case is related to where the paragraph occurs within its particular piece. The Student One introduces a new point but one that is relatively concise in its identification and explanation because there’s really no other context to link it to. However, the Student Two paragraph builds upon and contrasts with previously expanded content.

Keep in mind that there are many other reasons for why a paragraph might end up shorter or longer like in the example above, such as the nature of the ideas themselves. You could have an early “background” paragraph in your piece, for example, that is quite long because even in just identifying one point, it might be comprehensive itself to need more than 5 sentences to fully explain that specific idea.

The Reverse Outline Tool

One of the best tools to deciding if your paragraphs are too short or too long is to do a “reverse outline” of them. What the heck’s a reverse outline, you ask? Simply put, while traditional outlining is the process of planning out your content via a bulleted or numbered scaffold or framework, a reverse outline reassess what you have already generated in each paragraph and considers what more can or should be done. We have a whole article on this process here (or at least we will once we finish it). So check it out to see how these considerations apply in either breaking up paragraphs into multiple ones for elaboration or expanding upon what you already have for clarification.

Further Considerations

• There’s actually different ways to format paragraphs. Take this article here, for example, where (as with much internet content like online news pieces) the paragraphs are actually identified by non-indented blocks of text with line breaks instead (just scroll back above and you’ll see what we mean). But why is this the case? Different formats have different conventions along these lines for “readability.” It’s a whole other topic of examination, so maybe we’ll do an article on it at some point. But for now, rest assured that there are clear reasons behind such distinctions.
• What about super short or super long paragraphs? Great question! Just like with sentences, paragraphs can indeed be super short or super long. The most extreme versions of this spectrum are often seen in creative works, like stories and novels. Just take a look at two at the first paragraphs of these two books like The Martian, by Andy Weir; and On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. The former has a one sentence first paragraph; the latter, a ten sentence one. Why the difference? You’ll just have to read them yourselves (we recommend both!) and notice the difference in tone, pacing, and narrative purpose to find out!
• Why does this all matter? You’re not alone if you wonder, Well, why not just let AI generate these calculations for me? The simple reason for why that’s a bad idea is because this is really a cognitive consideration. Believe it or not, practicing these types of information processing and how much space and detail to represent it all within linked paragraphs literally exercises your brain. This further develops neurological connections that are useful in many other aspects of life, be they personal, academic, or even professional. When you automate this step, it’s like automating your workout routine.