Style - Write a Paragraph Topic Sentence

First year essay? Stop! Just copy the examples.

• This page is for later and more advanced essays
• You’re looking for something like this:
• Problems for endangered animals:
  • “This paragraph looks at three problems that are causing the ANIMAL NAME to become extinct - 1, 2, and 3.”
  • “This paragraph looks at three problems that are causing ANIMAL NAMEs to become extinct - 1, 2, and 3.”
• Problems for ethical consumption:
  • “This paragraph looks at three problems that PRODUCT production is causing - 1, 2, and 3. “
  • “This paragraph looks at three problems that PRODUCT causes - 1, 2, and 3. “
  • “This paragraph looks at three problems that PRODUCT recycling is causing - 1, 2, and 3. “
• Solutions:
  • “This paragraph looks at three possible solutions to the issues outlined above - 1, 2, and 3.”
• Conclusion:
  • Repeat your thesis statement in past tense and different words.
  • See write a conclusion paragraph
• Tips
  • use keywords properly
  • Be careful with commas
    • 1, 2, and 3
    • 1, 2 and 3
    • 1 and 2 and 3
  • be careful with spaces around the dash
    • extinct - 1, 2, and 3
    • extinct -1, 2, and 3
    • extinct-1, 2, and 3

What is a topic sentence?

• It must be the first sentence
• Names topic of paragraph
• It links the paragraph to the thesis
  • e.g. thesis says “compares in three ways”, topic says “second way is cost”
  • e.g. thesis says “ three problems”, topic says “Another problem is pollution”
• Sometimes links to previous paragraphs e.g. “A second reason” or “Whereas above”

Simplest version

• A simple, boring, academic style of topic sentence is to just name the topic/keyword
  • e.g. “The third problem is pollution”
  • e..g. “This paragraph looks at cost”
• All the essay Examples use this pattern
• You can just copy and use the examples

Longer version for longer academic paragraphs/sections

• Use a thesis statement pattern as a topic sentence.
• See Style - Write A Thesis Statement
• Just use “paragraph” instead of “Essay” * e.g. “This essay paragraph describes the link between a and b” * e.g. “This essay paragraph outlines three main reason for lack of z”
• This is better if you don’t have a sequence of similar paragraphs and you can’t use simple

Other

• I won’t teach more complicated topic sentences or those outside academic writing.
• They vary too much between majors, styles.
• Learn them yourself - READ a LOT in the style you need, and learn the different patterns.
• There are some below to get you started on how to learn and extract academic patterns you can use.

Examples

• Here are real academic examples with major and a quick analysis of each to get you started
  • What is the topic of each?
  • What kind of paragraph is each? Argument? Comparison? Definition? Start of conclusion? End of conclusion? Summary of source?
  • Where is it in essay/paper? Intro? Literature review? Methods? Results? Conclusion?
  • Where is it inside the section? First paragraph? Last paragraph?
• Education
  • A further key Japanese cultural belief is that learners need to be persistent in their efforts to master a language, or indeed any skill.
• Engineering
  • Green roofs have a potential for providing an attractive green space in downtown areas where the green space on the ground is limited or simply non-existing.
  • This review paper addressed the role of vegetated roofs in urban drainage considering both management of water quantity and quality with related aspects.
  • The review indicates clearly that there is a need of more research into green roof performance in urban environment.
• Software Engineering
  • Information visualization (Spence, 2001) is a branch of computer graphics and user interface which is concerned with the presentation of interactive or animated digital images so that users can understand data.
  • We can see in Figure 6 that there are three clusters of students.
• Other
  • We have already highlighted that the sites we used for advertising the survey may have led us to a biased sample