Academc writing is a very broad term that include a great number of different genres, such as research articles, essays, abstracts, papers among many others. Academic genres imply the use of formal English: words of Latin or French origin, no contractions, compound or complex sentences that begins with a TOPIC SENTENCE that is enlarged with examples, explanations, quotes, paraphrasing, statistics, and other instances of SUPPORTING MATERIAL. These sentences are placed IN GENERAL at the beginning of a paragraph, although INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION paragraph are exceptions to this rule.
I invite you to watch the following video where you will find some more information about PARAGRAPH ORGANIZATION.
Summary:
TOPIC SENTENCE: It is the main theme or subject of the paragraph. It should be an interesting topic that catch the reader's attention.
You have to take into account the following characteristics:
- What is the subject?
- It should have an interesting topic.
- Giving an opinion on it.
- Not overly detailed.
BODY: It is the core of your writing. Here, you should place all of your supporting sentences, details and arguments. You can order them into two different ways: order of importance or chronology. The first concept implies to stand out the arguments. The second one refers to the ordering events.
CLOSING SENTENCE: This sentence reminds the audience what you are writing about and keep them thinking.
Source: Learn English with Alex (engVid). Published May 19th 2009. Parts of a paragraph- English Academic Writing Introduction. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=129&v=cCuExRE6N-4
Now I will share with you some examples of topic sentence:
Review: Topic Sentence
1) I saw around Velva a release from what was like slavery to the tyrannical soil, release from the ignorance that darkens the soul and from the loneliness that corrodes it. In this generation my Velva friends have rejoined the general American society that their pioneering fathers left behind whrn they first made the barren trek in the days of the wheal rush. As I sit here in Washington writing this. I can feel their nearness. ( from Eric Sevareid, "Velva, North Dakota")
Topic Sentence: Many politicians deplore the passing of the old family-sized farm, but I'm not so sure.
Explanation: Sevareid argues that farming is destructive as a way of life, no matter what romantic notions are attached to it. He is not writing about the productivity of farms, about his own life story ( "I grew up on a family-sixed farm..."), and his main point is not that people moved away from the cities in the late nineteenth century.
2) The first is the wear-and-tear hypothesis that suggest the body eventually succumbs to the environmental insults of life. The second is the notion that we have an internal clock which is genetically programmed to ru down. Supporters of the wear-and-tear theory maintain that the very practice of breathing causes us to age because inhaled oxygen produces toxic by-products. A dvocates of the internal clock theory believe that individual cells are told to stop dividing and thus eventually to die by, for example, hormones produced by the brain or by their own genes. (from Debra Blank, "The Eternal Quest" [edited]).
Topic Sentence: There are two broad theories concerning what triggers a human's inevitable decline to death.
Explanation: This paragraph is a straighforward description of two possibilities, neither of which is preferred over the other. In this case, it would be wrong to mention only one of the possibilities (the "internal time clock") in the topic sentence, or to treat it as a philosophical discussion of death itself ("we all must die..."). As for the biology professor, he or she might very well have given an interesting lecture, but that was nothing to do with the content of the paragraph.
3) The strictest military discipline imaginable is still looser than that prevailing in the average assembly-line. The soldier, at worst, is still able to exercise the highest conceivable functions of freedom--that is, he or she is permitted to steal and to kill. No discipline prevailing in peace gives him or her anything remotely resembling this. The soldier is, in war, in the position of a free adult; in space he or she is almost always in the position of a child. In war all things are excused by success, even violations of discipline. In space, speakin generally, success is inconceivable except as a function of discipline. (from H.L. Mencken, "Reflections on War" [edited]).
Topic Sentence: We commonly look on the discipline of war as vastly more rigid than any discipline necessary in time of peace, but this is an error.
Explanation: The topic sentence must emphasise the comparative nature of the paragraph. Mencken does argue that soldiers need discipline, but this is not all he argues in this paragraph. Likewise, while soldiers may well serve an important function in wartime, and while they may well be able to compete well in peacetime, neither of these points is discussed int he paragraph.
Explanation: Sevareid argues that farming is destructive as a way of life, no matter what romantic notions are attached to it. He is not writing about the productivity of farms, about his own life story ( "I grew up on a family-sixed farm..."), and his main point is not that people moved away from the cities in the late nineteenth century.
2) The first is the wear-and-tear hypothesis that suggest the body eventually succumbs to the environmental insults of life. The second is the notion that we have an internal clock which is genetically programmed to ru down. Supporters of the wear-and-tear theory maintain that the very practice of breathing causes us to age because inhaled oxygen produces toxic by-products. A dvocates of the internal clock theory believe that individual cells are told to stop dividing and thus eventually to die by, for example, hormones produced by the brain or by their own genes. (from Debra Blank, "The Eternal Quest" [edited]).
Topic Sentence: There are two broad theories concerning what triggers a human's inevitable decline to death.
Explanation: This paragraph is a straighforward description of two possibilities, neither of which is preferred over the other. In this case, it would be wrong to mention only one of the possibilities (the "internal time clock") in the topic sentence, or to treat it as a philosophical discussion of death itself ("we all must die..."). As for the biology professor, he or she might very well have given an interesting lecture, but that was nothing to do with the content of the paragraph.
3) The strictest military discipline imaginable is still looser than that prevailing in the average assembly-line. The soldier, at worst, is still able to exercise the highest conceivable functions of freedom--that is, he or she is permitted to steal and to kill. No discipline prevailing in peace gives him or her anything remotely resembling this. The soldier is, in war, in the position of a free adult; in space he or she is almost always in the position of a child. In war all things are excused by success, even violations of discipline. In space, speakin generally, success is inconceivable except as a function of discipline. (from H.L. Mencken, "Reflections on War" [edited]).
Topic Sentence: We commonly look on the discipline of war as vastly more rigid than any discipline necessary in time of peace, but this is an error.
Explanation: The topic sentence must emphasise the comparative nature of the paragraph. Mencken does argue that soldiers need discipline, but this is not all he argues in this paragraph. Likewise, while soldiers may well serve an important function in wartime, and while they may well be able to compete well in peacetime, neither of these points is discussed int he paragraph.
This entry helps me to learn and improve little by little my writings process. I have to take into account many things at the moment of writing a text. Nowaday every time I read someting, I pay carefully attention on the topic sentence and the structure itself.
