TOPIC SENTENCES
A topic sentence, the main idea of a paragraph,
is key to
organizing any paper. Topic
sentences
should inform a reader what the paragraph is about and why that
topic is an
important step in understanding the entire argument. Useful ways
to think of
topic sentences are as mini-theses for each paragraph or as a main
point in an
outline.
In fact, a helpful rule of thumb is to
determine the
effectiveness of topic sentences is to read only the thesis and
topic sentences
aloud. If the topic sentences effectively connect to other main
ideas and build
upon the thesis statement, then they should flow together and
convey the entire
argument. If not, then perhaps the argument has too many gaps that
need extra
paragraphs to bridge two ideas, or the topic sentences are just
saying the same
point multiple times and need to be consolidated.