The body - checklist

The major points concerning the physical presentation of the body:

1. It should be clear, from indenting alone, where the body begins and ends and where the paragraphs it contains begin and end;
2. Paragraphs should be well-balanced in length to achieve eye-appeal;
3. ‘Subparagraphs' and one-sentence paragraphs are taboo.

The major ideas concerning the structuring of the body:

1. The body must have forward dynamics;
2. It must have some identifiable structure, based on chronology, opposition of viewpoints, or the relative strength of individual arguments;
3. The writer's personal commitment to the subject can help decide on how to order the points to be made in the body.

The major points concerning the make-up of the body paragraph:

1. Each body paragraph should display internal coherence and linkage with the preceding and following text;
2. Each body paragraph has a tripartite structure, consisting of topic sentence, elaboration and climax sentence;
3. There are seven different types of elaboration of the topic sentence.