Chapter 9: Writing Analytical Paragraphs

What You Will Make

Write a body paragraph that develops one step of your argument. Keep the relevant sources open and record citations as you draft. Your discipline may expect a particular pattern; use the example as a reasoning demonstration rather than a sentence template.

Give Evidence an Analytical Role

Select the detail that matters to the paragraph’s claim, explain its scope, and state why it bears on the question. Several accurate citations cannot compensate for an inference that those sources do not support.

Fictional teaching case: This lesson uses the invented campus-transit records in Chapter 1. Record labels and numbers are practice material, not real research to cite or submit.

Examine a Model Paragraph

Higher weekday boardings do not establish that the timetable served late classes. Record A’s count table rises from 1,000 to 1,200 trips, but Record B’s timetable keeps the last departure at 20:10. Record C’s item 3 reports eight volunteers with classes ending at 20:30. These records measure different things: overall use and a reported time-specific obstacle. Their combination supports a qualified judgement that increased use coexists with an unresolved late-class gap, without showing how many students campus-wide were affected.

The first sentence states the point. The next two supply located evidence. The last two distinguish the measures and draw a limited inference. Record labels are practice locators; use full, verified citations for real sources.

An unsuccessful version might end “This proves the policy failed.” That introduces a wider verdict without explaining a criterion of failure or the evidence needed to establish it.

Try It Yourself

Take one paragraph from your draft. Underline its claim and mark its source details. Then identify the sentences explaining why the evidence supports the claim. If there are none, write that reasoning in ordinary language before polishing it.

Check the transition into the next paragraph. “However” needs an actual contrast; repeating a keyword can help continuity, but it cannot create a logical relationship that is missing.

Check Your Work

• Does the paragraph have a clear, limited job?
• Are sources introduced accurately and locators usable?
• Does the interpretation match the measures and population?
• Does the ending develop understanding rather than announce an unsupported verdict?

Revise the claim if the source cannot do the work your topic sentence promises.

Source Guidance

A paragraph can connect its main point, evidence, and analysis without following a fixed formula. (Harvard College Writing Center)