Writing English Paragraphs | Tips for TOEFL & IELTS Writing

A lot of our students at PrepScholar are focused on the TOEFL, but we know a lot of you are preparing for other tests, like the IELTS, and some of you just need to improve your English for school or work.

Whatever your English level, this video is meant for you. We're going to talk about how to write a paragraph.

For any writing task you might have in English – writing an essay on the TOEFL, writing a job application letter, or whatever it is – a good paragraph is a building block for good writing.

That's an idiom, by the way. "Building block." A "building block" is an important part of a larger project. So writing a good paragraph is a building block for good English writing. That's why we're going to focus on how to write a paragraph.

First of all, what is a paragraph? A paragraph is just a group of sentences that are about a common theme. It might be a description of a place, or an argument for a conclusion, or an example of a point. Whatever it is, the paragraph will be unified.

A paragraph is a group of sentences. How many sentences? It varies, but normally a paragraph should have at least 3 sentences, and no more than 7 sentences. So aim for a paragraph that has around 5 sentences.

So a paragraph should be around 5 sentences on a common topic. But they shouldn't just be a random bunch of sentences. A paragraph should have some structure. Like an essay, it should have a beginning, a middle, and end. Otherwise, the paragraph is hard to understand.