CONSTRUCTING THE PARAGRAPH1. TOPIC SENTENCESTutorialDr. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith, Computers for EducationProfessor Emeritus, CSU, Sacramentoall content is copyrighted |
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.
|
<< Previous Slide |
A good-sized paragraph, the kind you will write most often,
is about 4 to 10 sentences long. |
<< Previous Slide |
Usually, the topic
sentence comes at or near the beginning of the paragraph. It tells what
the whole paragraph will be about.
|
<< Previous Slide |
But sometimes, for
special effect, the topic sentence is placed near
the end of a paragraph. |
<< Previous Slide |
Every sentence in the
paragraph refers to and supports the main idea of
the topic sentence in some way. |
<< Previous Slide |
It's worth repeating:
Every sentence in the
paragraph refers to and supports the main idea of the
topic sentence in some way. |
<< Previous
Slide |
To conclude, the topic
sentence is
the best summary of the whole paragraph. |
<< Previous Slide |
|