PARTS OF A PARAGRAPH
1) TOPIC SENTENCE
- Conceive an interesting topic and say something relevant about it.
- Do not make it overly detailed.
- Back up your topic sentence with concrete details/ supporting arguments.
- Order them according to order of importance or chronology.
- Restate your topic sentence.
- Keep your adience thinking.
SOURCE:
Engvid (19 May, 2009) Introduction to academic writing - Parts of a paragraph. Retrieved from: http://www.engvid.com/introduction-to-english-academic-writing-parts-of-a-paragraph/
REVIEW: TOPIC SENTENCES
1) Many politicians deplore the passing of the old family-sized farm, but I'm not so sure. I saw around Velva a release from what was like slavery to the
tyrannical soil, release from the ignorance that darkens the soul and
from the loneliness that corrodes it. In this generation my Velva
friends have rejoined the general American society that their pioneering
fathers left behind when they first made the barren trek in the days of
the wheat rush. As I sit here in Washington writing this, I can feel
their nearness. (from Eric Sevareid, "Velva, North Dakota")
2) There are two broad theories concerning what triggers a human's inevitable decline to death. The first is the wear-and-tear hypothesis that suggests the body
eventually succumbs to the environmental insults of life. The second is
the notion that we have an internal clock which is genetically
programmed to run down. Supporters of the wear-and-tear theory maintain
that the very practice of breathing causes us to age because inhaled
oxygen produces toxic by-products. Advocates of the internal clock
theory believe that individual cells are told to stop dividing and thus
eventually to die by, for example, hormones produced by the brain or by
their own genes. (from Debra Blank, "The Eternal Quest" [edited]).
3) We commonly look on the discipline of war as vastly more rigid than any
discipline necessary in time of peace, but this is an error. The strictest military discipline imaginable is still looser than that
prevailing in the average assembly-line. The soldier, at worst, is still
able to exercise the highest conceivable functions of freedom -- that
is, he or she is permitted to steal and to kill. No discipline
prevailing in peace gives him or her anything remotely resembling this.
The soldier is, in war, in the position of a free adult; in peace he or
she is almost always in the position of a child. In war all things are
excused by success, even violations of discipline. In peace, speaking
generally, success is inconceivable except as a function of discipline.
(from H.L. Mencken, "Reflections on War" [edited]).
4) Although the interpretation of traffic signals may seem highly
standardized, close observation reveals regional variations across this
country, distinguishing the East Coast from Central Canada and the West
as surely as dominant dialects or political inclinations. In Montreal, a flashing red traffic light instructs drivers to careen
even more wildly through intersections heavily populated with
pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. In startling contrast, an amber light
in Calgary warns drivers to scream to a halt on the off chance that
there might be a pedestrian within 500 meters who might consider
crossing at some unspecified time within the current day. In my home
town in New Brunswick, finally, traffic lights (along with painted lines
and posted speed limits) do not apply to tractors, all terrain
vehicles, or pickup trucks, which together account for most vehicles on
the road. In fact, were any observant Canadian dropped from an alien
space vessel at an unspecified intersection anywhere in this vast land,
he or she could almost certainly orient him-or-herself according to the
surrounding traffic patterns.
SOURCE:
Retrieved from: http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/writing-paragraphs/review-topic-sentences
Retrieved from: http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/writing-paragraphs/review-topic-sentences
