Cindy Del Rio, Negosentro.com | Sentences are primary tools for expressing your ideas and presenting your readers with what you need them to learn. At https://yourwriters.net/blog/how-to-write-a-biology-lab-report, we believe that if you fail to order the flow and coherence of your sentences, you are setting the stage ready to have a rambling and incoherent piece of writing. One of the ways of making your paragraphs more effective and clearer is using topic sentences to introduce them.
But before we proceed, what is a topic sentence in the first place? A topic sentence is a sentence that introduces a paragraph and acts as its primary guidepost that signals the reader to what the paragraph is going to discuss. In our discussion, we are going to look at the benefits of these introductory sentences to your reader, and how they make your writing more forceful.
- Creation of unity
The first benefit of using a topic sentence is that it acts as a unifying tool for your paragraphs. By creating a unifying beginning, the sentence points your readers to the remaining sentences that go on to build on what the topic introduced. In addition, it gives the remaining sentences of the paragraph a sense of direction as the paragraph progresses.
- A pointer to the content and intent of the paragraph
The second benefit of using a topic sentence is that it helps your readers to get a clear glimpse of the idea you will be discussing in the paragraph you are introducing. In addition, it helps your audience to understand how you will discuss that idea as the paragraph continues. The reason is that a keen and busy reader may decide to read the first sentences to get the gist and perspective of the paragraph. If you do not introduce it well, you may as well lose their attention and interest in your papers. By taking this approach, you stand on a higher pedestal of managing the expectations of your readers because they know what exactly they need to look forward to.
Just look at this statement as an example:
In our investigation, we discovered that over 75% of the city’s residents had been victimized by violent crime that had rocked the city in the past five years.
This kind of introduction sets the expectations of your audience on the right path.
- It supports your paper’s thesis statement
Another benefit of using a topic sentence is that it helps in the defense of your thesis statement. The reason is that it opens the readers to new paragraphs that are intended to help them to understand the validity of your thesis statement. However, you need to ensure that the sentence does not restate your hypothesis, but rather, it should support it.
- Smooth transition
The other reason why these sentences are important to your writing assignments is that they create a smooth transition between paragraphs. They help to shift the attention and focus of your readers to a new idea without creating gaps in between them.
- Maintain order in your document
Another benefit that topic sentences will bring to your paper is that they help it to remain organized. By infusing your writings with order, you are in a better position to remove all the irrelevant and weak sentences that do not add value to your paragraphs.
- Exemption of opening paragraphs using topic sentences
So far, we have looked at the benefits of using these sentences in fortifying your paragraphs. However, several occasions exist when you may not need to introduce your paragraphs using topic sentences. The first reason you need to place the topic sentence after the first one of the paragraph is where you introduce the paragraph using a sentence that links your paragraph to its predecessor or that provides the reader with background information. The second reason you may need to exclude a topic sentence from your paragraphs’ beginnings is where they have are continuations of ideas you had introduced in previous paragraphs.
The third exemption is where you may not need to use these sentences in your paragraphs is where the paragraphs are narrating a series of events. The fourth reason for not including a topic sentence in your paragraphs is in cases where all the sentences in a paragraph are indirectly referring to the main point of your paper.
In closing, topic sentences are vital tools for helping your reader to navigate your paragraphs and paper as a whole. It offers your audience many benefits such as creating a smooth transition between your paragraphs while giving you an opportunity to defend the validity of your thesis statement. When you understand these benefits and use these sentences well, you will create writings that will keep your readers engaged and looking forward to read hear more from you.
