Topic Sentence: A Plan for Writing
October 24, 2016| Category: Writing Tips
Writing essays is a difficult and lengthy procedure. The Internet is full of post about essay writing in general. Essay structure is also a popular topic, which you can find online. However, many students still make many mistakes in writing a topic sentence. Obviously, many students do not even know what a topic sentence is and what role it plays in an essay. Still, it is a very important part of essay writing, which can also be a helpful tool in developing an essay.
What Is a Topic Sentence?
A topic sentence is a statement, which depicts the main idea of a paragraph. It should be some part of a thesis statement, which needs detailed discussion. Being related to the thesis statement, a topic sentence should describe it in detail, it should take smaller parts of the thesis and elaborate on it. Each paragraph in the main body should contain a topic sentence. The very idea of a topic sentence is to highlight the main points, which are going to be discussed in the paragraph.
Where a Topic Sentence Should Be Placed?
A topic sentence should be placed at the beginning of each paragraph in the main body. Do not confuse it with the thesis statement, which should depict the main idea of the whole essay and should be placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.
How to Plan Writing
Starting your writing, you should create a plan. Any essay requires a detailed plan. You can start with the identification of the main points you want to discuss. Further, these points can be united into statements, which reflect your main ideas. Smart writers use these statements as the points in the plan for writing. Then, these statements can be a part of the sentences. Therefore, having created a plan for writing your essay, you may have the topic sentences you may use for writing.
How to Write a Topic Sentence
The process of writing a topic sentence is not an easy one. However, if you have created the additional plan, topic sentence writing can be a piece of cake for you. Here are the stages for writing perfect topic sentences.
- Define the topic you want to discuss. It can be a broad topic if you do not know for sure what you are going to write about or it can be some specific topic if you have a definite idea for writing.
- State the main aspects you want to discuss. These can be just the words or phrases. You are free to write anything related to the topic.
- The next stage is formatting the idea of what you are going to write in particular. Select the statements which you want to include is your essay for sure. Delete unnecessary phrases or unite similar ideas. This is a cleaning stage for your paper.
- Compose sentences. These will be the parts of your plan for essay writing. Each sentence will reflect some part of your writing, it will highlight the main idea of a particular paragraph and will be a point in a plan.
- Elaborate on each topic sentence and create the paragraphs.
Overall, writing a topic sentence can be considered as a tough process, but such opinion is wrong. If you follow the steps mentioned above, you will be able to develop your topic sentences very fast. It is important to remember that a topic sentence is a part of the thesis statement, which should reflect the main ideas discussed there. These are not the only possible recommendations, but if you have issues with topic sentence writing, I am sure they will help you.