Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 3, Issue 3)

Received: 25 March 2015 Accepted: 25 April 2015 Published: 12 May 2015

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Abstract

Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. A sound knowledge of paragraph structuring leads to well-written and readable essays. On the contrary, a lack of paragraph writing skills culminates into a farrago of ideas scattered haphazardly in the essay, thereby affecting paragraph unity and coherence, which in turn impacts negatively on the packaging of ideas in the essay. This study has been prompted by my observation over the years of paragraph construction difficulties polytechnic students face in their academic writing, and also the paucity of research in polytechnic writing. As a result, this paper set to investigate how students structure their paragraphs in terms of topic sentence use and support sentences. A corpus of 120 essays was collected from four departments in Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana and using Bain’s paragraph principles as a benchmark to analyse them, the results revealed that 66% of the essays employed definite paragraph format. The study also found numerous one-sentence paragraphs leading to the creation of indentations, with reckless abandon. The results of the study have implications for the teaching of writing skills in polytechnics.

Published in	International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 3, Issue 3)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
Page(s)	145-153
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Paragraph, Topic Sentence, Support Sentence, Indentation, Controlling Idea

References

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Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. (2015). Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 3(3), 145-153. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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ACS Style

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2015, 3(3), 145-153. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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AMA Style

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. Int J Lang Linguist. 2015;3(3):145-153. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16,
  author = {Kwasi Sarfo-Adu},
  title = {Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {3},
  number = {3},
  pages = {145-153},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20150303.16},
  abstract = {Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. A sound knowledge of paragraph structuring leads to well-written and readable essays. On the contrary, a lack of paragraph writing skills culminates into a farrago of ideas scattered haphazardly in the essay, thereby affecting paragraph unity and coherence, which in turn impacts negatively on the packaging of ideas in the essay. This study has been prompted by my observation over the years of paragraph construction difficulties polytechnic students face in their academic writing, and also the paucity of research in polytechnic writing. As a result, this paper set to investigate how students structure their paragraphs in terms of topic sentence use and support sentences. A corpus of 120 essays was collected from four departments in Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana and using Bain’s paragraph principles as a benchmark to analyse them, the results revealed that 66% of the essays employed definite paragraph format. The study also found numerous one-sentence paragraphs leading to the creation of indentations, with reckless abandon. The results of the study have implications for the teaching of writing skills in polytechnics.},
 year = {2015}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic
AU  - Kwasi Sarfo-Adu
Y1  - 2015/05/12
PY  - 2015
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 145
EP  - 153
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
AB  - Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. A sound knowledge of paragraph structuring leads to well-written and readable essays. On the contrary, a lack of paragraph writing skills culminates into a farrago of ideas scattered haphazardly in the essay, thereby affecting paragraph unity and coherence, which in turn impacts negatively on the packaging of ideas in the essay. This study has been prompted by my observation over the years of paragraph construction difficulties polytechnic students face in their academic writing, and also the paucity of research in polytechnic writing. As a result, this paper set to investigate how students structure their paragraphs in terms of topic sentence use and support sentences. A corpus of 120 essays was collected from four departments in Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana and using Bain’s paragraph principles as a benchmark to analyse them, the results revealed that 66% of the essays employed definite paragraph format. The study also found numerous one-sentence paragraphs leading to the creation of indentations, with reckless abandon. The results of the study have implications for the teaching of writing skills in polytechnics.
VL  - 3
IS  - 3
ER  -

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Author Information

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu

Department of Liberal Studies, Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana

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APA Style

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. (2015). Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 3(3), 145-153. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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ACS Style

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2015, 3(3), 145-153. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

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AMA Style

Kwasi Sarfo-Adu. Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic. Int J Lang Linguist. 2015;3(3):145-153. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16,
  author = {Kwasi Sarfo-Adu},
  title = {Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {3},
  number = {3},
  pages = {145-153},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20150303.16},
  abstract = {Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. A sound knowledge of paragraph structuring leads to well-written and readable essays. On the contrary, a lack of paragraph writing skills culminates into a farrago of ideas scattered haphazardly in the essay, thereby affecting paragraph unity and coherence, which in turn impacts negatively on the packaging of ideas in the essay. This study has been prompted by my observation over the years of paragraph construction difficulties polytechnic students face in their academic writing, and also the paucity of research in polytechnic writing. As a result, this paper set to investigate how students structure their paragraphs in terms of topic sentence use and support sentences. A corpus of 120 essays was collected from four departments in Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana and using Bain’s paragraph principles as a benchmark to analyse them, the results revealed that 66% of the essays employed definite paragraph format. The study also found numerous one-sentence paragraphs leading to the creation of indentations, with reckless abandon. The results of the study have implications for the teaching of writing skills in polytechnics.},
 year = {2015}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Investigating Paragraph Writing Skills among Polytechnic Students: The Case of Kumasi Polytechnic
AU  - Kwasi Sarfo-Adu
Y1  - 2015/05/12
PY  - 2015
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 145
EP  - 153
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20150303.16
AB  - Paragraphs are the building blocks of essays. A sound knowledge of paragraph structuring leads to well-written and readable essays. On the contrary, a lack of paragraph writing skills culminates into a farrago of ideas scattered haphazardly in the essay, thereby affecting paragraph unity and coherence, which in turn impacts negatively on the packaging of ideas in the essay. This study has been prompted by my observation over the years of paragraph construction difficulties polytechnic students face in their academic writing, and also the paucity of research in polytechnic writing. As a result, this paper set to investigate how students structure their paragraphs in terms of topic sentence use and support sentences. A corpus of 120 essays was collected from four departments in Kumasi Polytechnic, Kumasi, Ghana and using Bain’s paragraph principles as a benchmark to analyse them, the results revealed that 66% of the essays employed definite paragraph format. The study also found numerous one-sentence paragraphs leading to the creation of indentations, with reckless abandon. The results of the study have implications for the teaching of writing skills in polytechnics.
VL  - 3
IS  - 3
ER  -

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