Writing a Body Paragraph

In essay assignments, every body paragraph should have three parts:

• Beginning: The paragraph starts with a topic sentence (TS). The TS states the one claim (= die Behauptung) of the paragraph clearly.

  A TS is (part of) the answer to the question that you try to answer with your essay.

  Keep your TS concise. Do not include supporting information such as examples or statistics.

• Middle: The supporting sentences should support the TS with explanation and one or more examples. Every supporting sentence should clearly relate to the TS and should not introduce a new idea.

• End: The paragraph ends with a concluding sentence (CS). The CS summarizes the main idea of the paragraph or links to the next paragraph.

After every paragraph, skip two more lines!

Further reading

For level B1 and above, I recommend the following podcast episode from the Grammar Girl podcast: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/articles/how-to-write-a-strong-topic-sentence-for-clear-organized-writing/