CONSTRUCTING THE PARAGRAPH

Topic Sentences 2

The hand-written paragraph generally has this basic outline. The first sentence is usually indented 5 spaces, or about 1 inch.

In electronic or single-spaced documents, the paragraph might have no indentation, with a double space between them.

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A good-sized paragraph, the kind you will write most often,
is about 4 to 10 sentences long.

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Usually, the topic sentence comes at or near the beginning of the paragraph. It tells what the whole paragraph will be about.

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Topic Sentences 5

But sometimes, for special effect, the topic sentence is placed near
the end of a paragraph.

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Topic Sentences 6

Every sentence in the paragraph refers to and supports the main idea of
the topic sentence in some way.

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It's worth repeating:

Every sentence in the paragraph refers to and supports the main idea of the
topic sentence in some way.

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Topic Sentences 8

To conclude, the topic sentence is
the best summary of the whole paragraph.