How to Write a PETAL Paragraph

PETAL Paragraph: What is it and how to write it

Paragraph writing is the most basic and at the same time the most important foundational skill for every student. Every type of academic writing requires the students to make a grammatically well-structured and well-defined paragraph.

As such, various techniques can help students to write a good paragraph. PEEL, TEEL and PETAL are some of the techniques used for paragraph writing. Even amongst all of these techniques, the PETAL paragraph technique is the most important one. So what is the PETAL technique?

In this article, new assignment help australia show you how to write a paragraph that is well-organised, well-argued and well-written using the PETAL structure. But first, let's understand what is a PETAL technique and how to write a paragraph using it.

What is a PETAL Paragraph?

A PETAL paragraph is a structured way of organizing information in a paragraph. PETAL is an acronym that stands for:

P stands for - Point

E stands for - Evidence/Example

T stands for - Technique

A stands for - Analysis

L stands for - Link

PETAL is a technique of writing a grammatically correct paragraph. If you write a sentence based on each of these acronyms, you will have created a well-defined PETAL paragraph.

The paragraphs make up the major part of every academic work that students can do. The students must have been asked by their professors to keep the paragraphs flowing. But most students don't even understand what they mean or how they are supposed to do so. Similarly, the writers can easily influence their audience with their narratives. How?

The answer to them both is the PETAL paragraphs. This PETAL structure allows the students to explain their points clearly while keeping the flow. This allows their text to have a precise meaning and each paragraph to have its importance. Remember that no matter what text it is, or what academic work it is everything will require you to make paragraphs and the PETAL technique helps to make the paragraphs even better. This alone should showcase its importance, so let us look at the technique itself now.

How to Write a PETAL Paragraph

The structure of a PETAL paragraph is easy to understand. Just write a line for Point, then give evidence from the text, mention the techniques the author used, and analyse them. After all, this just summarises and links it to the starting point by restating it.

Now let's look at an example and then look at each of the PETAL structure's terms individually and understand how they can be combined to form a PETAL paragraph.

“The schools should use computers for the student's daily classes to make learning more effective. Computers would make learning 200% efficient as they allow the students to do their calculations faster. Even the use of video lectures would make way for way better comprehension.”

 

Point

For those who are confused about how to start a PETAL paragraph will have to look no further. The very first step of writing a PETAL paragraph begins with writing the Point. So what is the point? Every paragraph has a topic or subject that answers questions like ’What is this about? Why should I read it?”. Similarly, every paragraph has a point that the writer wishes to explain.

Let's say you are writing a paragraph about the advantages of using a computer for students. How will you start this paragraph? Well, the first step would be to write a point like, ‘The schools should use computers for the student's daily classes to make learning more effective.’ This would signify the start of the paragraph and give the reader who in most cases would be the teacher, to have an idea about the motive of the paragraph.

Evidence

The start of the paragraph has mentioned the point but would that be sufficient to make others believe you? So now that the point of the paragraph has been mentioned the next step would be to look for evidence that would prove that point itself. Here the students should mention some lines from their books to try to prove it.

Continuing on the topic of the use of computers in students' daily classes. The very first thought of the readers after looking at that would be ‘Why’. In this case, you would want to quote some text from an article or book or even write one like “Computers would make learning 200% efficient as they allow the students to do their calculations faster. Even the use of video lectures would make way for way better comprehension.” Something like this would serve as a piece of evidence in your PETAL paragraph.

Technique

Now comes the technique part. This along with analysis makes the most difficult aspects of the PETAL paragraphs. Would the point and evidence alone be enough for the people to believe you? No, so after the evidence portion comes the part about the technique that along with the analysis part would make the point believable.

Confused? Well in simple terms, in the technique section just quote some of the text. Choose the lines that mention the author's tone of voice and his language techniques like the terms ‘‘faster’ and ‘way better’. Then the words “200%” also are used by the author to specify the effects so it's also part of the technique.

Analysis

Now as mentioned this is the part that along with the technique section makes the PETAL paragraph a difficult topic. In the Analysis, the students have to explain the language techniques that they figured out earlier and further explain why the author used them there.

As mentioned already the terms that were used as their writing technique were “200%”, “faster”, and then “way better”. The author first used the term 200% as an adjective to put more emphasis on their point. Then the term faster is a comparative adjective that the author used to tell the calculation speed difference between humans and computers. And lastly the expression “way better” was used to exaggerate even overly so the advantages of using a computer in the classroom.

Link

Now, this is the last step in PETAL structure. Link, as the name says is about linking your initial point and writing it in a newer elaborated way to mention how you have proved the point. In short, Link is the summary of the point you have written.

For the given example, Link can go as “ So with computers, the video lecture can be used to explain the topics to kids better and more efficiently. This along with the various processing abilities of the computer would make it a great addition for the student's classrooms.”

PETAL Paragraph Example

FAQ's Related with Petal Paragraph

How to write a link in a PETAL paragraph?

The link could be clearer for many students. The students should just think of the link as a summary. So write a summary of what you have explained in the PETAL paragraph and then restate the point that you had mentioned at the start but in a different and more in-depth. Then end it by showing how you proved it.

What is analysis in a PETAL paragraph?

The analysis is the second last but the most important point in the PETAL structure. With the techniques portion, the students will mention the literary terms that the authors used. and then the analysis would explain the author's feelings, or the point of view that they portrayed.

How do you write a Grade 9 PETAL paragraph?

It is easy to write a PETAL paragraph whether it's for grade 9 or grade 7 if you just follow the following steps.

Step 1 - Give the Point you are trying to prove through the paragraph writing.

Step 2 - Then use a text as Evidence from the book that you are using for the writing.

Step 3 - The next step is to identify the language Techniques such as adjectives, phrases etc. that the author used in the text.

Step 4 - Now Analyse these language techniques and use them for the final step.

Step 5 - Finally, just Link the data to the initial point and explain how you proved it.