Top Highlights

• To see what readers will stress in your paragraph, underline a few words before every colon, semicolon, and period.
• In a paragraph, the issue introduces the discussion; the point is the product or the cause of that discussion.
• No matter what you are writing, most of your energy, at any given moment, is devoted to the construction of a single sentence.
• For writers, the primary unit of discourse is the sentence; for readers, the primary unit of thought is the paragraph.
• In a sentence, save the best for last; in most paragraphs (other than opening ones and closing ones), put first things first.