Your report ought to have a beginning, middle, and an end, and each part should do its job effectively. The beginning should make it clear what the communication is about. The middle should develop and support the main idea with specifics: details, figures, examples, quotations. The ending should summarize, reinforce the point, and perhaps make recommendations.

Check each paragraph for unity and coherence. Unity means that only one idea is developed in each paragraph. Coherence means that each sentence in the paragraph logically hooks onto the preceding sentence and leads into the following one. Look at your paragraphs: can you identify a topic sentence in each (a sentence that states the main idea which the rest of the paragraph develops)? If not, the paragraph may be a candidate for deletion or rewriting.

Your goal is to make clear that each paragraph relates to the main idea (your thesis), that each grows out of the preceding paragraph, and that each leads into the following one. A paragraph should begin with something that links it to the one before it. The linking word may be a key word repeated, a pronoun whose antecedent is in the previous paragraph, or a transitional word bridging a gap in thought.