Topic sentence

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“ By the grammar of a language is meant either the relations born by the words of a sentence and by sentences themselves one to another, or the systematized exposition of these. ”

—Topic sentence of the Grammar article, Encyclopædia Britannica 1911 Edition

The topic sentence is a prescriptive grammatical term to describe the sentence in an expository paragraph which summarizes the main idea of that paragraph.[1][2] It is usually the first sentence in a paragraph.

Also known as a focus sentence, it encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the beginning.[2]

The topic sentence acts as a kind of summary, and offers the reader an insightful view of the writer’s main ideas for the following paragraph.[3] More than just being a mere summary, however, a topic sentence often provides a claim or an insight directly or indirectly related to the thesis. It adds cohesion to a paper and helps organize ideas both within the paragraph and the whole body of work at large.[4][5][6]

Its use is considered standard in the American educational system and most venues of writing mainly because it increases reading accessibility.


See also

References

  1. ↑ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/01/
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/partopic.html
  3. ↑ http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html
  4. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/paragraphs.shtml
  5. ↑ http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/15419.aspx
  6. ↑ http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/part3/sixteen/techniques_topic.html


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