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Paragraphs
A paragraph develops an idea through several sentences. By creating paragraphs, you show a reader your train of thought. Think of how a train is designed: it has an engine up front with several compartments linked together, one behind the other. In a paragraph, the engine is the main idea of your paragraph, and the compartments are the follow-up sentences that explain or expand the main idea.
Topic Sentences
When creating your own paragraphs, you probably want to put your main idea up front, making it the first sentence of your paragraph or shortly afterwards. This main idea sentence is called the topic sentence.
The topic sentence consists of two things: the topic and a controlling idea about that topic. For this reason, the topic sentence often contains the writer's opinion or point of view.
Example 1: Mexico is a wonderful place to visit.
Here, the topic is Mexico, and the controlling idea is that it is a wonderful place to visit. Supporting details in the rest of the paragraph should tell us why Mexico is such a great place to visit.
Example 2: Of the two sentences below, which one is a better topic sentence?
a) Toyota makes the most efficient and dependable cars.
b) My mother drives a Toyota.
a) The first sentence works as a topic sentence because it leaves the reader with questions: why is Toyota so good? What's so special about their cars? Why does the reader feel this way?
b) The second sentence is not as effective as a topic sentence. My mother drives a Toyota is a fact, not an opinion. Either she does drive a Toyota, or she doesn't. There is nowhere else to go with this idea.
The supporting details surround the topic sentence in every paragraph: they should support the main idea of the paragraph, and they should contain details (facts, quotes, description, scenarios, observations, etc.).
How many supporting details does a paragraph need?
There is no set answer to this question; however, you need enough details to provide adequate support, but not so many that you lose the central idea. Generally, a paragraph will contain between four and ten supporting sentences. Test whether this is true by examining the paragraphs you read on an everyday basis.
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