How To Write A Brilliant Topic Sentence For Your Research Paper
The main goal of the topic sentence is to state the main purpose of the paragraph. It is not necessary for this sentence to be the first sentence of the paragraph. There are times when it will only be implied or it will be in other parts of the paragraph but regardless of where it lies, the idea is to make it brilliant so that your reader knows the point that you are trying to make.
The main task of a research paper is to explore and identify issues. When you are developing your paper, you would want to make sure that you create an outline. The ideas that you write about in your outline will likely become the main topics that you will discuss in your topic sentences for each of the various paragraphs.
Here are some things to remember when you are writing topic sentences for your paper:
- Make sure that it identifies the point or main idea that you are trying to portray in the paragraph.
- It should be like a one sentence summary of the article. Not too specific or too general.
- It will likely be the first sentence of the paragraph or close to the first sentence because it will explain why you are writing the paragraph.
- It should not just simply state that you are going to talk about something. You should be clear without being explicit.
- You should get the attention of your reader and make them want to continue reading by making it exciting and intriguing.
- You may end up describing a character, using dialogue, portraying an emotion, or using detail to attract and describe what the paragraph is going to be about.
- Don’t use rhetorical questions when writing your topic sentence. You don’t want to formulate questions for your audience.
The main idea of writing the topic sentence is to give the reader an idea of what the paragraph is going to be about. Think of it as the introduction for your paragraph. You wouldn’t write a paper without an introduction so you wouldn’t write a paragraph without introducing your topic as well.
There are several ways to tackle the art of creating a topic sentence for your paragraphs. It should describe what your paragraph is going to be about. Be sure to make it interesting so that your reading wants to continue reading.