English 1A

Holper

The Arguable Topic Sentence

Like the thesis, topic sentences also play a crucial role in your essay’s argument structure. A topic sentence has two main functions:

• It asserts an arguable judgment that directly supports the thesis.

Example of a thesis and a topic sentence that directly supports it:

Thesis: Unless Eureka changes its long-standing laissez-faire attitude about its roughest neighborhoods, any efforts the residents make to improve their safety and quality of life will be limited and ineffectual.

Topic Sentence: First of all, the city must make highly visible community policing a priority for Eureka’s “ghettos,” instead of shifting the responsibility for crime prevention to neighborhood watch groups and citizen patrols.

• It asserts the main point of the paragraph, establishing the focus for everything else in the paragraph (the specific evidence). In many ways, the topic sentence serves as a thesis for the paragraph. Another way to think of it is that the topic sentence serves as an umbrella covering every piece of information that follows it in the paragraph.

A strong topic sentence shares some other characteristics of a strong thesis:

• It asserts an arguable judgment rather than a self-evident one, avoiding common knowledge or statements of fact.

• It makes a point that is relevant to a general audience and does not apply to the writer’s experience alone.

• Every paragraph except for the introduction and the conclusion should have a topic sentence—and these should be underlined for the purposes of this class.

• The topic sentence should appear within the first three sentences of the paragraph so that it guides the paragraph. It's awkward to lead a reader along wondering what the main point of the paragraph is.

• Do not frame your topic sentence as a question–it should be a declarative statement. However, it is fine to start a paragraph with a question and then use your topic sentence to answer that question.

• Avoid using quotes for topic sentences; rather, use quotes as evidence to support your original claim, i.e., your topic sentence.