State the main point of your paragraph in a topic sentence. For example, "Nearly all living creatures manage some form of communication." Stick to the main point and develop it throughout your paragraph by providing examples emphasizing your paragraph's focus. For instance, if you make a claim, expand on it with evidence that convinces the audience of your claim.
Group items in your paragraph into categories that adhere to the same principles. For example, the philosopher Francis Bacon once wrote "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Bacon classified books by the amount of attention they deserve. Dividing a topic requires the writer to take an item and divide it into parts. Similar to classification, dividing a topic into parts requires a constant principle in order to make sense of the subject matter.
Your paragraph's sentences should flow from one another naturally. This is done by linking ideas together coherently and either supporting the topic sentence directly or supporting another sentence that supports the topic sentence. For example, the sentence "Though the open-space classroom works for many children, it is not practical for my son, David," is a topic sentence. A direct supporter of this sentence is "First, David is hyperactive." An indirect supporter is "When he was placed in an open-space classroom, he became distracted and confused."
Parallel structure is used to emphasize the similarity of ideas within a paragraph and link a series of similar sentences. For instance, Margaret Mead writes with parallel structure in "New Superstitions for Old" to present similar information: "The salt spills. A knife falls to the floor. Your nose tickles." The effectiveness of the information would be lessened if written as: "The salt gets spilled. Mother drops a knife on the floor: Your nose begins to tickle."