A paragraph consists of a paragraph-name followed by a separator period, optionally followed by one or more sentences.
A paragraph-name is a user-defined word that identifies a paragraph. A paragraph-name, because it can be qualified, need not be unique. The paragraph-name must begin in Area A. A paragraph ends immediately before the next paragraph-name or section header, or at the end of the Procedure Division. In the declaratives portion, a paragraph ends immediately before the next paragraph, the next USE statement, or at the keywords END DECLARATIVES. If one paragraph in a program is contained within a section, all paragraphs of the program must be contained in sections.