Topic sentences express the general ideas of a paragraph. Supporting details are sentences which provide further information about the general sentence. Topic sentence must have topic and controlling ideas. Example: One of the most important reason why people wake up late(topic) in the early morning is staying up late at night(controlling ideas).

*Controlling ideas- each topic for each paragraph

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_sentence

Topic sentence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“	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, Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition

The "topic sentence" is a primarily prescriptive grammatical term to describe the sentence in an expository paragraph which summarizes the main idea of that paragraph.^[1][2] It is usually, but not always, the first sentence in a paragraph. 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.

A topic sentence (also known as a focus sentence) encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph, and a writer should be careful to include one in most major paragraphs. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the beginning.^[7]

The sentence in bold in the first paragraph is an example of a topic sentence.

[edit]See also

• Thesis statement
• Lede (news)
• Paragraph

[edit]References

1. ^ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/01/
2. ^ 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
7. ^ http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/partopic.html