A sentence is a combination of words put together to convey a fact, an idea, a question, a statement, a request or a command. Sentences usually have a subject and a predicate, and they are often joined together using conjunctions or punctuation. Sentences can also vary in tone and diction, whether they are declarative (statement), interrogative, imperative or exclamatory.
A coherent paragraph is one that flows smoothly from one sentence to the next, with clear ties between old information and new information. It can be difficult to achieve this with an informal writing style, but the use of carefully chosen transition words can help you establish coherence in your paragraphs.
Although most paragraphs should have a topic sentence, there are some situations when you might be able to omit this: if the paragraph continues developing an idea that you introduced with a topic sentence in the previous paragraph, or if the whole paragraph is an example illustrating the point. You can signal a change in the direction of a paragraph’s argument by including a topic sentence at the beginning.
In the example below, the topic sentence indicates that the paragraph will address evidence that contradicts the main point that the meat industry has a large environmental impact. This contradictory evidence makes it seem that a move towards veganism would be a more environmentally responsible choice for consumers. The paragraph will continue arguing that the truth is more complicated than the topic sentence implies, and it will explore some of the reasons that the meat industry has such an enormous impact on our environment.
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