Comments on: Paragraph Rules | Elementary and Middle School

By: Paul Barger

Paul Barger — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:19:05 +0000

Thanks for your input. You may be looking for the famous Richard Braddock article in which he disputed the frequency and placement of topic sentences in paragraphs. Braddock in short, disputed Bain’s rules.

For me, it’s always been pretty clear that “paragraph rules” are more like guidelines and a helpful way to explain paragraphs.

This does not detract from Bain’s contribution to our understanding of paragraphs. Knowledge is built on the shoulders of giants. I love Bain’s definition of a paragraph at the top of this page. It doesn’t consist of rules, it’s just a paragraph beautifully defined.

By: Roger

Roger — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:37:14 +0000

Educationists William West, Stephen Bailey, Berenice Wood criticize the
paragraphing established by Bain. They refer to a researcher (unsourced) who examined the paragraphs of professional writers in the real world.

According to West et al the researcher found that only a minority of
real-world paragraphs used the Bain pattern. This minority was 23 percent of “contemporary expository paragtaphs” (Developing Writing Skills, 1981, p.78).

West et al fail to cite their source for this information. Do you have URLs for it, or for sources making the same or similar claims?