From Paragraph to Essay: Review

    

Hudson, H. & Imhoof, M.(1975). From Paragraph to Essay. Developing composition writing. London,UK, Longman.

     In the book “From paragraph to Essay” by Maurice Imhoof and Hernan Hudson, a variety of paragraph styles are presented and analysed with the aim  of  providing  advanced students the necessary training to write clear and well organised essays in English.

     Each section of the book develops one type of paragraph together with the information, examples and exercises required to fully comprehend it and be able to reproduce it in an appropriate way. Furthermore, several questions are suggested in order to facilitate a deeper explanation of each of them. Besides, these sections are alternated, with other ones concerned about essay development. It is also worth mentioning that the types of paragraphs explained through the book, coincide with the different types of essays developed, which can be summarised into the following ones: contrast, definition, comparison, definition or listing. 

      To begin with the critical analysis of the book, it can be considered that the authors develop in a clear way the thesis statement they formulated. The readers do not need extra information or background knowledge to make sense of the content of the book, since it is explained down to the last detail. Moreover, within its hundred pages, this book provides lots of useful examples which guide the readers to write their own paragraphs and essays. Nevertheless, the book does not provide its readers the correct feedback to all of the questions and exercises it suggests. Consequently, students have to discuss their answers with the teacher or look for them in other sources, such as the internet or different books.  

     To conclude, “From paragraph to Essay” proves to be an effective book for students of English who want to reinforce and improve their composition writing, since it presents a detailed account of different paragraph styles which can be taken into consideration  at the moment of writing a successful essay.