How to Analyse a Paragraph in 5 Quick Steps

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Regularly analyse a paragraph that you read

If you are a writer or a student Do you find it difficult to understand and retain the information that you read daily? Let me tell you, if you keep binge-reading your academic material or informational content, you are never going to make it. Listen to this carefully; it’s not a novel to binge-read. Usually, in a novel, you ask what’s next, but in this case, you’ve got to retain it and make notes out of it, right? So you need to analyse a paragraph you read.

Why do you need to analyse a paragraph?

If you are a writer specifically, you need to do a lot of research. While researching, you might come across facts that will surely add value to your content, but do you remember each one of them while writing? The obvious answer is no. Once you analyse each paragraph, you have a better chance of remembering it. Even though a single such blog may not help you improve your writing skills as much as a content writing course would. But reading this blog to the end will help you retain the maximum amount of information, you read next time. Secondly, if you are a student that keeps all their studies for the night before the exam, this is a life saver for you.

What tools are there to analyse a paragraph?

If you are using a computer, it is pretty simple. You just need to select the text you want to highlight and press Ctrl+Alt+H. But you have to be careful here that each time you highlight a particular category of the text, it has to be the same colour. Similarly, for different categories, there have to be different colours. You might be wondering what categories we are talking about. Well, as we go ahead in the blog, you will get it sorted. What if you are an old-school person who doesn’t like to read from the screen? Then you got to have a printed sheet of a paragraph, at least three different coloured highlighter pens, and, along with that, a notebook for scribbling important things.

Analyse a paragraph. It sounds heavy, doesn’t it?

Let us break it down because, literally, it is breaking it down. While analyzing the paragraph, you are breaking it down to find out what is important to you. Then read and reread each part to understand and extract the significant information. Sounds boring? No, it isn’t. By the end of the blog, this will become a cakewalk for you. As you know, there is nothing easier than following the five quick steps.

So let us walk through 5 quick steps to analyse a paragraph

Step No. 1 – Look for the topic sentence in each paragraph

To analyse a paragraph, you need to know the topic sentence first. Each paragraph starts with a topic sentence. The topic sentence is basically an introduction to each paragraph. Each time a paragraph starts, the topic sentence describes what it is about. The topic sentence of the paragraph should be relevant to the main context topic. If any paragraph does not start with a topic sentence, it is not structured well. A topic sentence also gives you an idea of whether to go ahead and read that paragraph further or not. Its relevance to the context topic shows the coherence of the article. This coherence will give the reader a meaningful central idea.

Topic sentences are at the start of each paragraph. It is quite easy to locate them.

So let us analyse a paragraph with the following example, in an article about Mumbai tourism there is one paragraph about Mumbai’s food.

The food in Mumbai is delectable. In Mumbai, you have street food and five-star hotel food, basically, all of them. However, the striking similarity between both types of food is that they will satisfy your taste buds. On the street foods, you will have tangy sevpuri and panipuri, as well as soft, scrumptious kebabs and rolls. On the contrary, when you go to a five-star hotel, the ambience will have you in the first place. Then the creamy, steamy, mouth-watering food will be brought to you with eye-loving plating. In Mumbai, you will love the food with your eyes first and then with your tongue, whether it is street food or five-star hotel food. Mumbai never lets her guests go with unsatisfied taste buds, whether they are with a big pocket or a smaller one.

(Mumbai tourism, posted on 29 Feb 2050 by Alien Jackson mumbailovers.com under blog post)

In this paragraph, the author is trying to portray the food of Mumbai to tourists. So the very first line of the paragraph becomes the topic sentence.

How to highlight the topic sentence?

The topic sentence gives you an idea of whether you require this information further or not. So make sure to use a highlighter that grabs your attention. However, the use of a yellow-coloured highlighter is appropriate for this purpose. Since our topic is about Mumbai’s tourism, this paragraph about Mumbai’s food goes well with it. So this is the way you can check the relevance of the topic sentence with the context title. Once found, highlight it in yellow.

Step no. 2: Identify the sentences related to the topic sentence

The second important step in analyzing a paragraph is to find out the related sentences. The topic sentence is the introduction of the paragraph. Further, we identify the sentences that describe the topic sentences. There may be many such sentences. They may be right after the topic sentences. You need to understand the relationship of each sentence to the topic sentence.

Why are related sentences important?

First, you have to understand that if the paragraph is descriptive in nature, then the whole paragraph will not come under related sentences. Secondly, you have to critically analyse a paragraph and its particular areas to identify related sentences. Related sentences must have relevance to the topic sentence.

Now let us take the same example

How to select the related sentences?

The second sentence in the paragraph talks about five-star hotels and street food. It is generally talking about where the food is available in Mumbai. So this sentence is a related sentence. The third sentence is not directly talking about food, rather it is comparing both types of food. So, you may skip this sentence, The fourth and sixth sentences entail what kind of food is available on the streets of Mumbai and in a five-star hotel in Mumbai. Depending on whether you require this kind of detail in your content, you may highlight it. Finally, the second last line of the paragraph talks about the presentation of food in Mumbai. This can be also included in the related sentences

How to highlight the related sentence?

While you do analyse a paragraph that is descriptive. Remember that a complete, detailed description is not necessary. You can highlight the descriptive lines with blue colour or just the descriptive words with a blue colour. You can also note down the important words with the topic sentence above it in your notebook.

Step no. 3: Here we analyse a paragraph for its cohesion.

To analyse a paragraph, it has to be readable. The readability of the content plays an important role because that is what makes readers keep coming back to you. Readability is basically the flow of reading. The flow of ideas in the mind of the reader should not break while reading the article. Therefore, the ideas must stick to one another. This is what we call cohesion in writing. Certain words help in increasing the cohesion of a paragraph. These words are transition words

What are transition words?

These are words that aid you in relating ideas, showing comparison, deriving analysis, explaining examples, and providing emphasis. There are various types of transition words. Let us have a look at each one of them with their example.

• add more ideas – coupled with, additionally, moreover

• show contradictory ideas- in contrast, as opposed to, unlike
• time- since ago, meanwhile
• The cause- since, due to, because of
• location- besides, under, opposite
• emphasize- uniquely, significantly, notably
• deliver examples- namely, markedly, in general
• demonstrate results- as a result, hence and therefore

Watch the following video to understand transition words

Let us analyse a paragraph and pick out the transition words

Let’s take the same example again

• However, on the contrary- shows the contradictory idea
• As well as- shows that there is an addition to the idea
• First- it shows sequential ideas

Remember this thumb rule to write an excellent readable article: “more the transition words, the more the readability.” However, understand that misuse of transition words and just stuffing them unnecessarily would not help.

Other ways of increasing cohesion in the paragraph

Reduce the use of technical jargons. Avoid difficult words. Use natural and simple language.

Step No. 4: Identify the concluding sentence.

The concluding sentence of the paragraph is the last and most important statement. This statement is what you have to remember and implement in your writing. The concluding sentence should give meaning to your topic sentence. The conclusion should be in relation to your topic sentence.

If the conclusion of a paragraph is not found, its structure is not good enough. Generally, it is easy to pick up the concluding sentence. However, one can find it difficult if the paragraph is not structured well. A Concluding sentence can be also a sentence summary of the whole paragraph

If the article continues after a paragraph, then the concluding sentence should also evoke excitement in the reader to go to the next paragraph. Certain times, the concluding sentence certain time includes a quirky message that leaves an impression on the readers, which may not be implemented if the reader is going to write an article further.

Let us pick out the concluding sentence from the same a paragraph

In this paragraph, the last sentence is, “Mumbai never lets her guests go with unsatisfied taste buds, whether they are with a big pocket or a smaller one.” This sentence is the conclusion to the Mumbai food topic sentence

How to highlight the concluding sentence?

Since this is the important part of the paragraph, This is a sentence that you may include in your writing as well. Highlight it in red colour and write it down in your notebook. Check out the video for finding concluding sentences in your paragraph.

Step no. 5: Identify the citation/reference in your paragraph

What is a citation?

Generally, when the blog contains academic information or it is developed by a field expert, it will have a citation. A citation primarily refers to the source that the author used for his research. It is either written at the end of the whole context or at the end of each paragraph.

Why is citation important?

Citations add credibility to your information. If you have to analyse a paragraph that contains academic or factual information, if the citation shows that it is coming from a renowned journal, it becomes more credible than that of the information that comes from a random blog. It is good practice to look for a citation while you analyse a paragraph to authenticate its source.

Nowadays, blogs are also written by subject matter experts. If you take your information from such blogs, then you must add the source of the information. This will add credibility to your write-up.

Various styles of citing a blog

There are different ways of citing a blog. The popular ones are namely, APA, Chicago, MLA, and Harvard. These are nothing but how we put the source. It is similar to writing our residential addresses. Some people will put the street name first, while others will put the colony name first in their addresses. However, the reference style stated above is defined by the standard guidelines. To better understand the style of writing, let us look at the same example again.

APA style

Last name, Initial. (Year, Month Date). Title of Blog Post [Blog post]. Retrieved from URL

So now we will write the citation in APA style for our paragraph.

Jackson, A ( 2050 Feb 29) Mumbai tourism [ Blog post] http://www.mumbailovers.com

Chicago

First name Last name, “Title of Blog Post,” Blog Name (blog), Publisher/Sponsor of Blog (if applicable), Month, Date, Year of the post, URL

Similarly, we will try to write the citation in the Chicago style

Alien Jackson,“ Mumbai tourism” Mumbai lovers (blog), Feb, 29, 2050 http://www.mumbailovers.com

MLA

Last name, First name. “Title of Blog Post.” Web blog post. Blog Name. Publisher/Sponsor of Blog (if applicable), Date Month Year Published. Web. Date Month Year Accessed.

For MLA our citation would look like this

Jackson, Alien.“ Mumbai tourism” Mumbai lovers, 29 Feb 2050

Havard

Last name, Initial. (Year). Title of Blog Post. [Blog] Blog Name. Available at: URL [Accessed Date of access]

For the Havard style, it will go like this

Jackson, Alien. (2050). Mumbai tourism.[Blog] Mumbai lovers; http://www.mumbailovers.com

Remember that when you analyse a paragraph to use its information in your writing, it is a must to identify the citation and authenticate the source. Also, another way around is when someone cites your writing in their work, your write-up becomes more credible. Therefore, the citation is very important.

Let us summarise the steps to analyse a paragraph

As we discussed before, paragraph analysis has many perks. But the important point to remember is that once you make these five steps your daily habit in any of your reading, it helps you critically analyse the information. It may be a little tedious when you begin with it, but once it becomes a habit, it will help you throughout. You will not have to go back and forth between your sources of information once you have started writing. It also helps in forming an outline of your write-up. Most importantly, the source of information is authenticated when you analyse the sources.

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