In high school, you’ll learn how to write a five-paragraph essay. This skill comes in handy as you learn to develop a thesis statement and organize an essay. Writing a five-paragraph essay is a part of standardized testing, which means it is a useful skill to learn. However, it is different from an MLA 8 format research paper or essay. Show
Organizing a Five-Paragraph EssayWhen you write a five-paragraph essay, you follow these steps:
You will follow basic rules for writing the essay. For example, each body statement contains a separate topic that supports your thesis statement. Then, the concluding paragraph will tie your thesis statement and the three body paragraphs together. Writing College PapersHowever, one problem with writing five-paragraph essays is that when you start college, you are faced with writing five to ten-page papers. Doing research, developing bibliographic sources and organizing an MLA works cited page is harder than writing a short essay. Maybe you were lucky and had teachers who assigned you longer MLA format research papers. It may have not seemed lucky at the time! However, the amount of research writing goes up considerably once you enter college. If you have written short essays during high school, you may not feel prepared to write long academic papers with a works cited page at the end. Learning SkillsWhat is the best way to transition from the five-paragraph essay to an MLA ten-page academic paper? The first thing you should do is put forth a big effort to learn this skill when you first start college or even before, if possible. This means a change in the way you think about research papers. Thinking About ResearchFirst of all, research papers are not meant to be written to please your instructors but rather a way that you contribute to scholarly research. As you develop and read existing research papers, you may come up with a way to see the topic in a new light. In that case, you are presenting new ideas to other researchers. Reading CriticallyReading and writing critically gives you a big step ahead of your peers as you go through college. Once you gain this skill, you won’t spend your nights frantically trying to prepare your works cited list and format your paper. Your life will be easier and your grades will improve. Understanding the changes from the writing high school English essays to academic papers is the first step to college success. Secondly, put effort into learning citation styles such as MLA, Chicago and APA. Reading articles, practicing creating citations and organizing sources brings you up to speed. Conventional wisdom says that a well-developed paragraph should ideally be 100-200 words long, and 5-6 sentences maximum. But … well, that’s not really true. In fact, the best answer to “how many sentences are in a paragraph” is it depends … Why? Well, the ideal paragraph length varies wildly depending on what you’re writing: academic papers, news articles, blog posts, a novel, a business report … More importantly, following paragraph length recommendations closely is just not a good strategy for effective writing: you’ll only end up twisting your narrative to fit the recommended number of sentences or words. In fact, an effective, well-written paragraph should really be measured in ideas, not sentences. So what’s a writer to do? Why, keep reading! We’re going to have a look at paragraphs of all shapes and sizes for writing of all genres and mediums. Plus run a little experiment in creating visual variety and flow! So whether you’re a student, academic, blogger, freelance writer, businessperson, or journalist (basically, anyone who writes): we’ve done the research on paragraph length recommendations, and we’ve got you covered. In fact, we’ve boiled down the accepted wisdom of assorted writing genres into one handy summary on how many sentences (and words) should be in a paragraph, by genre: Is it always that simple? Of course not! Do you want to learn more about why these recommendations are the case, how much flexibility you have, and when you can break the guidelines? If you want to find the perfect variety of paragraph lengths for your writing, follow me! There’s so much more to find out … Table Of Contents
Paragraphs: a brief overviewLet’s start off with a quick overview on the wonderful world of paragraphs: If you’re confident in your paragraph knowledge (or you’ve already read our excellent guide on what is a paragraph), feel free to skip ahead!
Essentially, your paragraphs should work alongside your sentences to create maximum readability and accessibility for your readers. Lean more about the science of reading and literacy over in our paragraphs 101 article! When should you start a new paragraph?Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as simple as “when your current paragraph gets too long”! Instead, it’s all about effectively dividing up your ideas and points. In order to guide your reader effectively, accepted wisdom states that you should start a new paragraph for every change in topic, perspective, speaker, or time. So make sure you create a break before every new section, piece of evidence, counter-argument, different viewpoint, step in a sequence, tangent, new character, or conclusion! If you’re not sure how to start all these new paragraphs you’re forming, we’ve got you covered: our article on how to start a paragraph is full of vocab and helpful phrases to get you started! Top tip: The best way to handle your paragraphing effectively is to wait until after you’ve written your first draft (when you’ve worked and collected your thoughts and ideas). Then, with the help of an outline, you can avoid waffle and divide up your work effectively along the seams between each new point! And hey presto: Goldilocks paragraphs that are never too long or too short, but just right for this specific idea! (N.B. If your paragraphs are looking a little lengthy, your paragraphs breaks may not be the only culprit! If you’re an incurably waffly writer take a look at your sentence lengths too.) When are shorter paragraphs better?Before you get started, you should always be sure of 5 things: the type of writing you’re doing, it’s purpose, audience, and final format and medium. Because these 5 factors have a significant impact on the ideal lengths of your paragraphs. (In fact, the next section is a great demonstration of this impact: we’re going to do an experiment in paragraph lengths and visual effect!) When we read, our eyes don’t focus on every word. Instead, they move in leaps called “saccades”. Research is now exploring the relationship between eye movement and cognitive processing when reading. Breaking up text with smaller paragraphs helps to guide your eyes as they leap and scan. This increases readability and accessibility. That makes the format and medium of your work especially important for determining the length of your paragraphs! Unless you know your work will be read in print, you audience will probably be online – and on their mobiles! And that means small screen sizes. As with traditional multi-columned print media, small screens stretch short paragraphs to fill a far greater space. Suddenly all that white space you’d created for visual flow has disappeared again. So know your five factors – they’re a crucial part of the recommendations below! Paragraphs: the takeawayNow you know what a paragraph should do and where to divide yours, here’s our most important recommendation: For the most effective paragraphs – those that guide your reader well and keep them captivated – your paragraph lengths should be measured by ideas. Not (just) by number of sentences or words, or even by physical length on the page. Imposing artificial constraints on your paragraph lengths can make your writing feel unnatural and twist the purpose of your paragraphs. However … Writing conventions exist for a reason and knowing the recommended lengths for your genre of writing can be very helpful for avoiding an embarrassing faux pas and creating ideal readability. Free: Exam Success Cheat SheetMy Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams Privacy protected because life’s too short for spam. Unsubcribe anytime. What do different lengths of paragraphs really look like?Before we get into genre-specific recommendations, let’s do an experiment in the art of measuring how long your paragraphs should be 😊 First up, how are you measuring your paragraph lengths? By sentences? Word count? Length on the page? Each of these methods has its pros and cons.
The big question is: Do you actually know what “5-6 sentences” or “200-300 words” of your writing actually looks like? (I have to say, before writing this article, I’m not sure I did. I checked out the word length of paragraphs from a variety of writing, including my PhD thesis, articles I’ve referenced here, and this article … and it was quite illuminating!) An experiment in paragraph lengthsFor our experiment, I’ve picked a topic (cute baby animals), and written a paragraph adapted from BBC Earth’s article “Code for Cuteness”. It’s 207 words and 9(!) sentences long. Those sentences vary from 9-29 words in length. Let’s explore how those 207 words look in different contexts: That’s a pretty hefty chunk of text, and looks fairly out of place in this article! Yet, a solid 200-word paragraph like this would be more than appropriate in an academic work, or a report or informative paper. Even within creative writing longer descriptive paragraphs can be a great tool for guiding the reader through your world. Breaking down longer paragraphsSo how might you approach this text for more informal contexts – like this blog, or the original article? For a digital context, dividing it up at each new point (topic, original research, behavior, triggers, conclusion) into short paragraphs creates a much visually easier read: I’ve highlighted the longest (3 sentences) and shortest (single-sentence) paragraphs. Sure, they’re short, but for the right audience (the general internet public) these paragraphs are far more approprite and increase readability and accessibility. In fact, this division fairly accurately reflects the original article. Another big consideration is the final medium of your writing: print media and other documents often use a multi-columned format that stretch even 28-word, one-sentence paragraphs onto several lines: Changing the formatting has completely altered the way we perceive the lengths of these paragraphs, and it’s exactly the same division as the example above! You can see why shorter paragraphs (and sentences) are a prominent feature of some printed media (think news articles). A visual comparisonLet’s round off this experiment with one last example: a visual comparison of these paragraphs side by side. I’ve added an extra double-spaced version to demonstrate how much of a (imagined A4) page 200 words can quickly consume – roughly half! There’s a significant difference in the visual guide and variety offered to our imagined readers here. And that’s a great reminder of why your audience, format, medium are such important considerations when making paragraphing decisions for maximum readability and engagement. Having explored these examples, have you got a better idea of what the recommendations below really mean and look like in practice? I hope so! How many sentences (and words) should be in your paragraphs – by genreHere we are: the accumulated wisdom of paragraph length advice you’ve been waiting for. And whilst I definitely do not recommend shoehorning all your paragraphs into a formulaic length, there are many times when the conventions of your genre are useful. Especially when it comes to recommendations for maximum paragraph length to create ideal readability for your audience and medium. Tip: if you’re ever unsure what you can get away with, grab a copy of a similar document and do a quick comparison with their paragraph lengths! Academic writingAs your academic career develop, so too should the complexity of your paragraphs as you write longer papers and dissertations! So let’s consider two stages of academic paragraphing: Paragraphs in schoolThe traditional paragraph formula learnt in school teaches you to craft effective, focused arguments. For younger students, it’s an efficient way to present ideas and evidence in basic persuasive writing. It goes like this:
And bingo: the perfect recipe for that 100-200 word paragraph composed of 5-6 sentences! However, this model won’t always help you create effective paragraphs, or easily-readable longer essays! Instead, make sure you focus on conveying your ideas concisely, fully exploring one idea in your paragraph, and using paragraph breaks and transitions to the best effect. Paragraph length recommendation: a traditional 5-sentence model, with 100-200 words per paragraph can work well for school essays. Higher academia: Dissertations, theses and papersOnce you reach university and higher academia, you’ll be creating far more complex documents – from college essays, to 10,000 word dissertations and papers, to 100,000 word PhD theses! Most academic papers contain a variety of paragraph lengths as appropriate for their context. At this level of writing short paragraphs are rare, as fully developing your argument within each paragraph takes time. Digression is frowned upon, so make sure you create a new paragraph for each new topic, counter-argument and tangent. Traditional paragraph models can still be found, especially when writing transitional paragraphs that provide summaries and signposting for the remainder of the paper. Additionally, signposting and well-placed headings become equally important features for guiding the reader through the argument. There’s plenty of advice about academic paragraph length available online. Suggested paragraph lengths vary from 100-200 words, 150 words, to 250 words in 5-6 sentences. A big consideration for paragraph length will be the final formatting. Paragraphs in a double spaced A4-sized PhD thesis will look vastly different to a two-columned academic journal. (In my own PhD thesis, 300-word paragraphs lasted two thirds of a page – that’s quite a chunk of text for the reader!) Paragraph length recommendation: short paragraphs are rare as sentence complexity is higher, and you should avoid single-sentence paragraphs! As a general guideline, a paragraph should be 2-3 sentences minimum, and 5-6 sentences maximum, and not longer than 300 words. Free: Exam Success Cheat SheetMy Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams Privacy protected because life’s too short for spam. Unsubcribe anytime. Journalistic writing in print mediaParagraphing is an important tool for journalistic writing because it provides a recognisable visual outline for the reader. Paragraph style forms an essential part of the appearance of print media, and formatting is a significant consideration with many types of multi-columned print mediums (newspaper, magazine, leaflet or brochure). Journalistic paragraphs are usually short, especially when compared to literary or academic paragraphs. Narrow margins, stretched columns, and lighter discussions make this an obvious choice. There is, however, conflicting advice on length: Some sources suggest that the average paragraph length is about 75 words (approx. 3-4 short sentences of less than 25 words). Others recommend a shorter goal, of 50-70 words (2-3 sentences). For single-columned writing, there’s space for slightly longer paragraphs (4-5 sentences). And single-sentence paragraphs are acceptable – and impactful! Nevertheless, the same principles apply for paragraph breaks: ideally, each paragraph should be self-sufficient and handle one topic. Careful outlining is a key skill for this genre of writing. Paragraph length recommendation: aim for less than 75 words (that’s about 3-4 sentences, 25 words per sentence maximum for ideal readability for the general public). Writing for digital media: blog posts and articlesParagraphing is a matter of tone, and when you move into online content, the rules of writing become far more informal. Short paragraphs are, once again, the name of the game. Why? There are several important reasons: audience, limited online attention-spans, and formatting for readability on small screens. The key goal is keeping readers engaged with your content. Digital media consumers want instant gratification, so it pays to make your information clear and obvious, break down large chunks of text, and make it easy for readers to scan the information.
In fact, one way to consider sections of online content is as deconstructed paragraphs – the full expression of the idea is there, but those 200 words are split into 5 paragraphs instead of one, contained within a subheading (as shown in the experiment above!). What are you writing?However, style guides suggest that the ideal length depends on the type of content you’re writing:
Looking for an interesting read on the literary implications of shrinking paragraphs in digital media? Try this fascinating analysis. Paragraph length recommendation: make the most of having a variety of paragraph lengths for visual impact, from single-sentence paragraphs to those with 2-3 sentences (50-75 words). If you’re writing a longer article or report, longer paragraphs may be more appropriate, with 100-150 words. Business writing: reports and white papersThere are notably fewer guides available for understanding paragraph length conventions in business writing than academic writing. Nevertheless, there are some guidelines you can follow. Style guides suggest that paragraphs with 3-6 sentences are an ideal length. Those longer than 100-125 words should be rare. Single-spaced paragraphs should not exceed one-third of a page, and for double-spaced paragraphs half a page. The final formatting and appearance of your writing should be an important consideration for paragraph lengths:
You should also examine any existing reports and style guides available in your company/for your specific field, as expectations may vary in different professional settings! N.B. Even in technical documents, the recommended sentence length is fewer than 25 words, using plain language where possible. Paragraph length recommendation: depending on your final formatting, aim for paragraphs around 50 words (2-3 sentences) for narrow columns, or up to 125 words (5-6 sentences) for full-page layouts. Creative writing: fiction and non-fictionWithin the realm of creative writing, there is far more room to find your own style: the guidelines are fairly fluid and you have a lot of creative licence. Paragraphs give your narrative a flow and rhythm for the reader to ride. (Having said that, there are still some conventions that should be followed, such as paragraph breaks for a change of speaker during dialogue, or to indicate a change of perspective, time or scene.) FictionIf you’re writing fiction, paragraph length conventions vary wildly by genre. A reader is usually more likely to find lengthy descriptive paragraphs in fantasy novels than in light romances. Single-sentence paragraphs are acceptable, with great dramatic impact for a narrative. Detailed descriptive and scene-setting paragraphs are more likely to be long, with at least 100-300 words. Variety is important (although shouldn’t be forced). Too many short paragraphs can be distracting and make your writing feel choppy. Take note of the mood and tone, and let your paragraphs feel natural for your story-telling. And remember your audience – the expected age of your readers should play an important role in the readability of your writing. For example, fiction for young children has a completely different set of expectations, from overall length to style!
Non-fictionLarge-scale non-fiction writing (i.e. biographies, histories etc) may more closely resemble the persuasive writing of academia or informative style of reports than fiction – however, you’re still creating a narrative, not an essay! So don’t be too constricted by 100-200 word guidelines. Instead, embrace a variety of 1+ sentence paragraphs for effective story-telling. Paragraph length recommendation: paragraph lengths in fiction vary wildly: explore some of your favourite books for genre-specific inspiration. If you’re writing non-fiction, variety in paragraph can create impact (i.e. 1+ sentences) Free: Exam Success Cheat SheetMy Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams YES! Send me the secrets…Privacy protected because life’s too short for spam. Unsubcribe anytime. Fun stats about paragraphs in famous fictionTo finish up, and for a little light relief (because it’s interesting!), here’s a brief look at the variety of paragraph lengths found in the works of famous authors across the ages. If you’re an aspiring novelist yourself, then this might be a helpful section for you 😊 I’ve collected the paragraph lengths found in some well-known stories, with thanks to some really interesting analyses by Jefferson Smith and Edwin Lewis’s The History of the English Paragraph (1894).
If you’re interested in exploring more literary eccentricities and debates, here’s some articles on exceptionally long opening sentences, Dickens’s rule-breaking and literary paragraph conventions. How long is a paragraph? The summaryThe true ideal length of your paragraphs should be: as long or as short as needed to contain and discuss one single idea. However, the paragraph length conventions of your writing genre are an important tool. They act as a guide for learning the maximum and minimum accepted length for ideal readability for your specific audience and final medium. Remember that the rules for formal documents are often stricter than informal, more creative ones! Here’s a recap of our recommendations based on the guidelines we researched:
Thanks for reading, a good luck with your next writing endeavour! Ready to get writing, but not sure how to start? Pop over to our excellent guides on how to start an essay and how to start a paragraph for lots of advice and helpful vocab! Higher grades, less sweatDownload my free exam success cheat sheet: all my #1 must-know strategies to supercharge your learning today. Is 12 sentences too much for a paragraph?There's often a lot of confusion, but if you're looking for a general answer to the question, “How many sentences in a paragraph?” the answer is there are 3 to 8 sentences in a paragraph. The important key to take away from this answer is that it's a rule-of-thumb.
How many paragraphs is an MLA essay?Introductory paragraph including your thesis statement. Three body paragraphs. Concluding paragraph.
Is a paragraph 4 or 5 sentences?Aim for three to five or more sentences per paragraph. Include on each page about two handwritten or three typed paragraphs. Make your paragraphs proportional to your paper. Since paragraphs do less work in short papers, have short paragraphs for short papers and longer paragraphs for longer papers.
Is a paragraph 3 or 4 sentences?In antiquity, a paragraph often was a single thought—and often a single sentence, usually a very long one. Writers today, however, tend not to go on the way classical authors did. In academic writing, most paragraphs include at least three sentences, though rarely more than ten.
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