Using the Q&A technique is a good way to help structure and edit paragraphs as well as whole essays.
- To check whether your paragraph makes a single point rather than mixing several points, you could try re-reading your paragraph and asking yourself: if this paragraph is the answer, what is the implied question that it is asking? If the question does not seem clear, is a very large, general question, or is composed of several questions, then your paragraph may be conflating more than one point. It may also be too long.
- To check whether you are signposting the structure well in your paragraphs, ask yourself whether the point you are making in that paragraph, that is, the sentence which most closely answers the implied question, is either the first (or last) sentence, or prominent in some way so that your reader can identify it clearly.
- To check whether your paragraphs are well developed, or to develop them further and more critically, read each sentence separately and ask yourself what question now arises from that sentence. Have you answered it in the next sentence?