
Ron Johnson introduces paragraph writing fundamentals, guiding you through what a paragraph is, unity, coherence, topic sentences, transitions, proofreading, and editing for clear writing.
Learn to craft high-quality academic paragraphs through a structured writing process: brainstorming, pre-writing, drafting, proofreading, and revision, for essays, reports, and exams.
Identify your topic clearly before writing and use quick brainstorming to generate ideas, then select the best thoughts and organize them for the planning stage.
Engage in targeted research for unfamiliar topics and relevant facts, including quotations when needed, then build a web or outline to organize main points and details for clear paragraphs.
Explore how topic sentences act as an umbrella for paragraphs, outline content, and guide placement—from openings to thesis in intro paragraphs—while avoiding overly specific or general statements.
Craft balanced topic sentences that are specific but not overly narrow, supported by a web plan, with Beagles and Dalton as examples to guide paragraph development.
Align every sentence with a single main idea and the topic sentence. Eliminate unrelated sentences to maintain unity and coherence.
Learn how coherence links ideas and sentences with logical connections, transitions, and consistent ordering—from chronological and spatial to order of importance—for smoother, stronger paragraphs.
Learn how supporting sentences develop a paragraph between the topic and concluding sentences, using methods such as compare and contrast, anecdotes, and quotations to build unity and coherence.
Learn to craft vivid descriptions with evidence and cited facts, using various methods of development to analyze causes, effects, and connections in hometown writing.
Discover how transition words link sentences and paragraphs to improve readability and comprehension, while using examples of addition and time-order terms to guide sequence.
Learn to use transition words to show contradiction, effect, place, emphasis, and sign posts, with examples and practice to connect ideas clearly.
Discover how signposts guide readers through text by signaling change and showing where you came from and where you're going, as transitions in longer essays.
learn to craft a strong concluding sentence that ties the paragraph together by restating the main idea and supports, while avoiding new material or copying the topic sentence.
Master concluding sentences by analyzing topic sentences, supporting details, and transitions to craft cohesive paragraphs that reiterate the main idea and tie the essay together.
Explore four paragraph types—exposition, narration, description, and persuasion—and learn how paragraphs often blend elements. Understand how you can inform, entertain, or persuade with overlapping techniques.
Many Bonus videos with new ones added occasionally!
If you want to improve the quality of your writing and do better on written assignments, then this is the course for you.
Paragraphs are the foundation of all academic writing. Writing stand-alone paragraphs such as persuasive or argument paragraphs are standard assignments for many students at any level.
Quality paragraphs are essential for essays, book reports, speeches, and other longer writing assignments.
This course takes you step-by-step through techniques that teach you to write with confidence.
Learn these building blocks and then put them into practice to see all the difference.
Your grades will automatically improve as your writing skills become stronger. In fact, knowing how to write well will increase your ability to reason and fully comprehend other authors' texts and material as well!
Each short lesson in this course will take you one step closer to being a better writer.
Before you know it, you will be using excellent skills automatically.
There are quizzes and assignments to help you build yours skills more effectively. The video lessons take about 90 minutes to complete, but you should allow time to complete the quizzes and assignments. The paragraph writing assignment which is done in stages will add another couple of hours for most students to do properly.
There is even the option of personal feedback while writing your own paragraph throughout the course.