Unified Paragraphs and Contradictory Evidence

A disconnected draft can be revised to create a unified, coherent paragraph by ensuring that ideas flow logically and that the topic sentence is supported by the evidence that follows. Disconnected paragraphs often include tangential thoughts that divert the reader from the main idea of the paragraph. These thoughts disrupt the flow of the writing and subtract from the central point. Revision allows one to remove or correct such writing by extracting extraneous words, sentences or ideas that do not belong because they lack relevance or supporting power.

Paragraphs should follow one upon the other so that the writing represents a unified whole. If a new idea needs to be introduced, the writer should use transition words or phrases to prepare the reader for the new idea. It should not be suddenly introduced out of nowhere.

A paragraph, like a larger article as a whole, should be constructed with a main idea in mind, so that it has an introductory or topic sentence, body sentences that support the topic, and a concluding sentence that summarizes the main idea and prepares the reader for the next paragraph. A good way to flesh out arguments is to be aware of counter arguments, and...

The point is to keep the...…I would define the term contradictory evidence as evidence that points to two opposite conclusions. For instance, if one set of evidence appears to support a claim but another piece of evidence appears to refute a claim, I would call that contradictory evidence. Contradictory evidence can actually be very helpful in judging the merits of a claim, in accepting or rejecting a hypothesis. One has to consider how the evidence was obtained, what the methodologies used suggest about the nature of the studies that produced the evidence (Choy, 2014); in other words, some critical thinking is required. But contradictory evidence can help one to limit the drawing of definitive…