A successful paragraph will have a strong, clear topic sentence (based ultimately on an undivided heading in the outline). It will also have unity and coherence, which is to say that everything that is there should be and nothing is omitted and that the movement from sentence to sentence, from idea to idea, is smooth and clear. When a paragraph is part of a divided roman numeral section in the outline, then a "section sentence" is often helpful to alert the reader to the move to a new main topic. Consider a paper about the use of the Internet in college composition courses, with the following as the second main topic to be discussed:

II. The use of the Internet for research

A. Internet sites as sources of information

B. Internet sites as guides to documentation

The section sentence, at the beginning of the first paragraph (II. A.) might read something like this:

The Internet can also be used to facilitate research in the composition class.

After that transition statement ("also") that announces a new section of the paper, the actual topic sentence of the paragraph might then follow:

For example, many Internet sites--when chosen with care--can provide easy access to valuable information.

The topic sentence of the next paragraph (II. B.) could say something like the following:

The Internet also provides sites with up-to-date advice on how to document a great variety of electronic sources that were not even available when many of the more well-known research manuals were written or last revised.

The goal throughout the paper is to offer the reader clear signs of the structure of your explanation or argument.

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