Writers use paragraphs to present and develop a central idea. Depending on the complexity of your thesis statement and the type of document you are writing, a single paragraph might be all you need to present a supporting point and its associated reasoning and evidence — or it might play only a small role in conveying your thinking about your subject. You can enhance the effectiveness of your document by creating paragraphs that are focused, organized, and well-developed and by using transitions that clearly convey the relationships among paragraphs.

Each of your paragraphs should focus on a single idea. Paragraphs often have a topic sentence in which the writer makes an assertion, offers an observation, or asks a question. The rest of the sentences in the paragraph elaborate on the topic. Consider the following paragraph, drawn from Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein’s problem-solving essay.

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