Writing Tips

WRITING THE TOPIC SENTENCE

Just as every paper requires a thesis to assert and control its argument, so does every paragraph require a topic sentence to assert and control its main idea. Without a topic sentence, your paragraphs will seem jumbled, aimless. Your readers will be confused. Because the topic sentence plays an important role in your paragraph, it must be crafted with care. When you've written a topic sentence, ask yourself the following questions: Does the topic sentence declare a single point of my argument? Because the reader expects that a paragraph will explore ONE idea in your paper. If your topic sentence points to two or three ideas, perhaps you need to consider developing more paragraphs. Does the topic sentence further my argument? Give your topic sentences the same "so what?" test that you gave your thesis sentence. If your topic sentence isn't interesting, your paragraph probably won't serve to further the argument. Is the topic sentence relevant to my thesis? It might seem so to you, but the relevance may not be so clear to your reader. If you find that your topic sentence is taking you into new ground, stop writing and consider your options. Is there a clear relationship between this topic sentence and the paragraph that came before?

If you make a sudden turn in your reasoning, signify that turn to the reader by using the proper transitional phrase - on the other hand, however, etc. Where have I placed my topic sentence? Most of the time a topic sentence comes at the beginning of a paragraph. A reader expects to see it there, so if you are going to place it elsewhere, you'll need to have a good reason and a bit of skill. You might justify putting the topic sentence in the middle of the paragraph, for example, if you have information that needs to precede it. You might also justify putting the topic sentence at the end of the paragraph, if you want the reader to consider your line of reasoning before you declare your main point.

DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT: EVIDENCE

Students often ask how long a paragraph ought to be. Our response: "As long as it takes." It's possible to make a point quickly. Sometimes it's desirable to keep it short. Notice the above paragraph, for example. We might have hemmed and hawed, talked about short paragraphs and long paragraphs. We might have said that the average paragraph is one-half to two-thirds of a page in length. We might have spent time explaining why the too-short paragraph is too short, and the too-long paragraph too long. Instead, we cut to the chase. After huffing and puffing through this paragraph (which is getting longer and longer all the time) we'll give you the same advice: a good paragraph is as long as it needs to be in order to illustrate, explore, and/or prove its main idea. But length isn't all that matters in paragraph development. What's important is that a paragraph develops its idea fully, and in a manner that a reader can follow with ease. Let's consider these two issues carefully. First: how do we know when an idea is fully developed? If your topic sentence is well-written, it should tell you what your paragraph needs to do. If my topic sentence declares, for example, that there are two conflicting impulses at work in a particular fictional character, then my reader will expect that I will define and illustrate these two impulses. I might take two paragraphs to do this; I might take one. My decision will depend on how important this matter is to my discussion. If the point is an important one, I take my time. I also (more likely than not) use at least two paragraphs. In this case, a topic sentence might be understood as controlling not only a paragraph, but an entire section of text. When you've written a paragraph, ask yourself these questions: • Do I have enough evidence to support this paragraph's idea? • Do I have too much evidence? (In other words, will the reader be lost in a morass of details, unable to see the argument as a whole?) • Does this evidence clearly support the assertion I am making in this paragraph, or am I stretching it? • If I am stretching it, what can I do to persuade the reader that this stretch is worth making? • Am I repeating myself in this paragraph? • Have I defined all of the paragraph's important terms? • Can I say, in a nutshell, what the purpose of this paragraph is? • Has the paragraph fulfilled that purpose?

DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT: ARRANGEMENT Equally important to the idea of a paragraph's development is the matter of the paragraph's arrangement. Paragraphs are arranged differently for different purposes. For example, if you are writing a history paper and wish to summarize a sequence of events, you of course will arrange your information chronologically. If you are writing a paper for an art history course in which you want to describe a painting or a building, then you will perhaps choose to arrange your information spatially. If you are writing a paper for a sociology course in which you have been asked to observe the behaviors of shoppers at a supermarket, you might want to arrange your ideas by working from the specific to the general. And so on.

COHERENCE OK, so you've gotten this far: you have your thesis, your topic sentences, and truckloads of evidence to support the whole lot. You've spent three days writing your paragraphs, making sure that each paragraph argues one point and that this point is well supported with textual evidence. But when you read this essay back to yourself, you feel a profound sense of disappointment. Though you've followed your outline and everything is "in there," the essay just doesn't seem to hold together. It could be that you have a problem with coherence. A lack of coherence is easy to diagnose, but not so easy to cure. An incoherent essay doesn't seem to flow. Its arguments are hard to understand. The reader has to double back again and again in order to follow the gist of the argument. Something has gone wrong. What? Look for these problems in your paper:

1. Make sure that the grammatical subject of your sentences reflects the real subject of your paragraph. Go through your paragraph and underline the subjects of all your sentences. Do these subjects match your paragraph's subject in most cases? Or have you stuck the paragraph's subject into some other, less important part of the sentence? Remember: the reader understands an idea's importance according to where you place it. If your main idea is hidden as an object of a preposition in a subordinate clause, do you really think that your reader is going to follow what you are trying to say?

2. Make sure that your grammatical subjects are consistent. Again, look at the grammatical subjects of all your sentences. How many different subjects do you find? If you have too many different sentence subjects, your paragraph will be hard to follow. (Note: For the fun of it, underline the sentence subjects in paragraph one. You'll find three, more or less: you, the subject, and the reader. The relationship between the three is what this paragraph is all about. Accordingly, the paragraph is coherent.)

3. Make sure that your sentences look backward as well as forward. In order for a paragraph to be coherent, each sentence should begin by linking itself firmly to the sentence that came before. If the link between sentences does not seem firm, use an introductory clause or phrase to connect one idea to the other.

4. Use repetition to create a sense of unity. Repeating key words and phrases at appropriate moments will give your reader a sense of coherence in your work. Don't overdo it, however. You'll risk sounding redundant.

5. Use transition markers wisely. Sometimes you'll need to announce to your reader some turn in your argument. Or you'll want to emphasize one of your points. Or you'll want to make clear some relationship in time. In all these cases you'll want to use transition markers.

Conclusions

Conclusions are also difficult to write. How do you manage to make the reader feel persuaded by what you've said? Even if the points of your paper are strong, the overall effect of your argument might fall to pieces if the paper as a whole is badly concluded. Many students end their papers by simply summarizing what has come before. A summary of what the reader has just read is important to the conclusion - particularly if your argument has been complicated or has covered a lot of ground. But a good conclusion will do more. Just as the introduction sought to place the paper in the larger, ongoing conversation about the topic, so should the conclusion insist on returning the reader to that ongoing conversation, but with the feeling that they have learned something more. You don't want your reader to finish your paper and say, "So what?" Admittedly, writing a conclusion isn't easy to do. Many of the strategies we've listed for improving your introductions can help you to improve your conclusions as well. In your conclusion you might: Return to the ongoing conversation, emphasizing the importance of your own contribution to it. Consider again the background information with which you began, and illustrate how your argument has shed new light on that information. Return to the key terms and point out how your essay has added some new dimension to their meanings. Use an anecdote or quotation that summarizes or reflects your main idea. Acknowledge your opponents - if only to emphasize that you've beaten them. Most importantly -- if you're using another person's ideas, you must give credit to that person by using proper citation.

Written by Karen Gocsik www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/write.shtml