By Staff Writer | Last Updated August 4, 2015
Writers use functional paragraphs in essays to achieve a specific purpose, such as transition from one point to the next, arouse or sustain a reader’s interest or to indicate dialogue. Functional and topical paragraphs form the basis of an essay.
In most pieces of writing, writers will use an indented (five spaces from the left-hand margin) block of sentences known as a paragraph. Paragraphs can serve many purposes, but are typically used to:
- Introduce a subject or set the context for a longer piece of writing
- Shift focus or introduce a new idea supportive of the main point in the essay
- Draw attention to points the writer would like to emphasize
- Break up a long paragraph to enhance readability
- Summarize or conclude text
Topic sentence paragraphs and functional paragraphs are the two basic paragraph categories. Topic sentence paragraphs contain a sentence that describes the main idea of the paragraph, or the topic sentence. The remaining sentences in a topic sentence paragraph are the support sentences, which further develop, discuss or explain the main idea. Paragraphs that do not function as a topic sentence paragraph fall into the functional category. When used strategically, functional paragraphs are helpful tools to add drama or variation to writing.
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