Classic Approach

• Writing a paragraph correctly takes skill and understanding some important rules. The first sentence must introduce the topic under discussion and ideally offer an opinion on it. This sentence shouldn't contain any supporting ideas, as these will follow in the next sentences. There should a number of factual sentences that support your ideas or opinions and these should include statistics, examples and comparisons, as necessary. Relevant anecdotes can also be introduced at this point in the paragraph. Finally, there should be a concluding sentence, which reasserts the opinions introduced in the first sentence.
  
  

Narration and Description

• In the narrative approach, the author develops a paragraph by describing a happening from beginning to end. This type of approach works well when the writer is relaying historical events or when describing background information. When writing a paragraph in the descriptive approach, the author supplies details about his topic and writes about any distinguishing characteristics. The information in these paragraphs is arranged by group or appearance.
  
  

Process and Classification

• When writing a paragraph using the process approach, the author explains the workings of a product in a step-by-step fashion. The process approach to paragraph construction works well when recreating a certain result. Each sentence typically explains a step in the process that's required to make the product work. The last sentence in a paragraph of this nature indicates that the instructions are complete and normally offers a concluding comment relevant to the process. Paragraphs constructed using the classification approach separate the different sections of a topic into various groups and arrange them according to a logical classification.
  
  

Illustration

• In the illustration approach, paragraphs discuss cases and contain examples. The purpose of this type of paragraph is to explain how these examples and facts back up the point that's being made. An illustration paragraph is different from other types of paragraphs in that the evidence presented is from one source about the same topic.