Page 16 - English Grammar and Composition-Student Textbook short

C. When your readers need a pause: Breaks between paragraphs function as a short "break" for your
readers—adding these in will help your writing be more readable. You would create a break if the
paragraph becomes too long or the material is complex.

D. When you are ending your introduction or starting your conclusion: Your introductory and concluding
material should always be in a new paragraph. Many introductions and conclusions have multiple
paragraphs depending on their content, length, and the writer's purpose.

Taken From: owl.english.purdue.edu

Practice 4a: Defining Paragraphs

Read the following biography. The paragraph breaks have been left out purposely. Try to group the sentences
that are dealing with one subject. Below the biography, there is a place to show how you broke the reading
selection up into paragraphs.

David Livingstone Biography
Explorer, Missionary (1813–1873)

David Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, Scotland, and grew up with several siblings in a single
tenement room. He started working at a cotton mill company as a child and would follow his long work schedule
with schooling during evenings and weekends. He eventually studied medicine in Glasgow before going on to train
with the London Missionary Society for a year. He completed his medical studies at various institutions in 1840 in
London, England. In the official role of a "medical missionary," he set forth to Africa, arriving in Cape Town, South
Africa in March of 1841. A few years later, he married Mary Moffat; the couple would have several children.
Livingstone eventually made his way north and set out to trek across the Kalahari Desert. In 1849, he came upon
Lake Ngami and, in 1851, the Zambezi River. Over the years, Livingstone continued his explorations, reaching the
western coastal region of Luanda in 1853. In 1855, he came across another famous body of water, the Zambezi falls,
called by native populations "Smoke That Thunders" and which Livingstone dubbed Victoria Falls, after Queen
Victoria. By 1856, Livingstone had gone across the continent from west to east, arriving at the coastal region of
Quelimane in what is present-day Mozambique. Upon his return to England, Livingstone received accolades and, in
1857, published Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. The following year, Livingstone was appointed
by British authorities to lead an expedition that would navigate the Zambezi. The expedition did not fare well, with
squabbling among the crew and the original boat having to be abandoned. Other bodies of water were discovered,
though Livingstone's wife, Mary, would perish from fever upon returning to Africa in 1862. Livingstone returned to
England again in 1864, speaking out against slavery, and the following year, published Narrative of an Expedition to
the Zambesi and Its Tributaries. In this book, Livingstone also wrote about his use of quinine as a malarial remedy
and theorized about the connection between malaria and mosquitoes. Livingstone undertook another expedition to
Africa, landing at Zanzibar in early 1866 and going on to find more bodies of water, with the hope of locating the
source of the Nile River. He eventually ended up in the village of Nyangwe, where he witnessed a devastating
massacre where Arabic slave traders killed hundreds of people. With the explorer thought to be lost, a transatlantic
venture was developed by the London Daily Telegraph and New York Herald, and journalist Henry Stanley was sent
to Africa to find Livingstone. Stanley located the physician in Ujiji in late 1871, and upon seeing him, uttered the
now-well-known words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Livingstone chose to stay, and he and Stanley parted ways in
1872. Livingstone died from dysentery and malaria on May 1, 1873, at the age of 60, in Chief Chitambo's Village,
near Lake Bangweulu, North Rhodesia (now Zambia). His body was eventually transported to and buried at
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