Or they can bring happenings of long ago and far away as colored motion pictures, by arranging silver atoms and color-absorbing molecules to force light waves into the patterns of original reality. Or, if we want to see distant happenings on earth, they use some of the previously wasted electromagnetic waves to carry television images which they re-create as light by whipping tiny crystals on a screen with electrons in a vacuum. Or they look through a small pair of lenses arranged as a microscope into a drop of water or blood, and magnify by as much as 2000 diameters the living creatures there, many of which are among man’s most dangerous enemies. In front of the tiny pupil of the eye they put, on Mount Palomar, a great monocle 200 inches in diameter, and with it see 2000 times farther into the depths of space. SCIENTISTS HAVE LEARNED TO SUPPLEMENT THE SENSE OF SIGHT IN NUMEROUS WAYS. In this paragraph the topic sentence and concluding sentence (CAPITALIZED) both help the reader keep the paragraph’s main point in mind. The following paragraph illustrates this pattern of organization. Introduction: the first section of a paragraph should include the topic sentence and any other sentences at the beginning of the paragraph that give background information or provide a transition.īody: follows the introduction discusses the controlling idea, using facts, arguments, analysis, examples, and other information.Ĭonclusion: the final section summarizes the connections between the information discussed in the body of the paragraph and the paragraph’s controlling idea. Each part of the paragraph plays an important role in communicating your meaning to your reader. You can see this structure in paragraphs whether they are narrating, describing, comparing, contrasting, or analyzing information. Most paragraphs in an essay have a three-part structure-introduction, body, and conclusion. The vast majority of your paragraphs, however, should have a topic sentence. For example, you might be able to omit a topic sentence in a paragraph that narrates a series of events, if a paragraph continues developing an idea that you introduced (with a topic sentence) in the previous paragraph, or if all the sentences and details in a paragraph clearly refer-perhaps indirectly-to a main point. In some cases, however, it’s more effective to place another sentence before the topic sentence-for example, a sentence linking the current paragraph to the previous one, or one providing background information.Īlthough most paragraphs should have a topic sentence, there are a few situations when a paragraph might not need a topic sentence. That’s why it’s often best to put the topic sentence at the very beginning of the paragraph. Readers generally look to the first few sentences in a paragraph to determine the subject and perspective of the paragraph. A topic sentence has several important functions: it substantiates or supports an essay’s thesis statement it unifies the content of a paragraph and directs the order of the sentences and it advises the reader of the subject to be discussed and how the paragraph will discuss it. TOPIC SENTENCESĪ well-organized paragraph supports or develops a single controlling idea, which is expressed in a sentence called the topic sentence. One of the most important of these is a topic sentence. Regardless of the kind of information they contain, all paragraphs share certain characteristics. It might describe a place, character, or process narrate a series of events compare or contrast two or more things classify items into categories or describe causes and effects. A paragraph could contain a series of brief examples or a single long illustration of a general point. Paragraphs can contain many different kinds of information. This is because paragraphs show a reader where the subdivisions of an essay begin and end, and thus help the reader see the organization of the essay and grasp its main points. Almost every piece of writing you do that is longer than a few sentences should be organized into paragraphs. A paragraph is a series of sentences that are organized and coherent, and are all related to a single topic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |