welcome back to learn academic English I'm Jenna and I teach English at the intermediate and
advanced levels and one of the things that I do is I help people learn how to write well in English
so in today's video I'm going to teach you how to write clear topic sentences topic sentences are an
essential part of writing clearly in English and they're not difficult if you learn how to do them
so in today's video I'll show you some examples I'll explain exactly how to write topic sentences
and then we'll do a little practice at the end and before we get into that I'd like to remind you to
please give this video a like leave a comment and subscribe if you find it helpful also note that I
offer memberships on my Channel with two different levels if you want more feedback and lessons from
me and I have a whole playlist of videos about writing if you would like to learn more and you
can see the links for that in the description box below so let's get started with topic sentences
first of all what is a topic sentence a topic sentence is one sentence that comes usually at the
very beginning of your paragraph So It's usually the first sentence of your paragraph and it
tells the main idea of your paragraph that means that it tells the topic and the controlling idea
the topic of your paragraph is the big idea that you're going to discuss but the controlling idea
is what are you going to say about that topic for example if the topic of our paragraph is
smoking what are you going to say about smoking are you going to say that smoking causes different
diseases are you going to say that there are some reasons that people should stop smoking
are you going to say that smoking is becoming more common in some places what exactly are you going
to explain about that topic so the controlling idea helps to narrow down what you're going to
discuss in the paragraph and remember that you need to make sure that every sentence
in the paragraph is directly related to the topic sentence that it helps explain that topic sentence
if not you need to take it out today I'm going to talk about topic sentences in two different
kinds of paragraphs we're going to talk about a topic sentence when you're writing only one
paragraph and topic sentences when you are writing paragraphs as part of an essay sometimes you will
be asked to write just one paragraph about a topic so your topic sentence is going to tell the reader
exactly what you're going to explain in that one paragraph however as part of an essay the topic
sentence is going to show how that paragraph is related to the rest of the essay in An Essay with
multiple paragraphs the topic sentence of that paragraph shows the reader exactly what you're
going to talk about in that paragraph and it helps to show the organization of your essay
it's important because the reader needs to be able to see what's going to be coming in this
paragraph and how is this paragraph different from the paragraph that came before in other words when
the reader Begins the paragraph the topic sentence shows the reader exactly what that paragraph is
going to discuss and how that paragraph is related to the overall organization of your whole essay
but one thing that's really important to know is that the topic sentence is connected to
the thesis statement remember that the thesis statement is the sentence that comes at the end
of your introduction and it tells the reader what the main idea of your whole essay is and
then the topic sentences of each body paragraph need to connect back to that thesis statement
when the topic sentences are not connected to the thesis statement or they are not clear that makes
the reader feel confused and frustrated so it's really important to know how to write clear topic
sentences okay so let's look at some examples people choose to become vegetarians for the
following reasons okay what's my topic vegetarians what is my controlling idea what do I want to
say about vegetarians I want to show the reasons that people choose to become vegetarians how many
reasons am I going to discuss in the paragraph I didn't say and it's not necessary to say exactly
how many reasons you're going to discuss following a Mediterranean diet has three important benefits
topic Mediterranean diet what's my controlling idea that it has benefits how many am I going
to discuss in this paragraph three but it's not necessary to say the
number there are two main similarities between slavery in the U.S and in Brazil
so in this paragraph I'm going to talk about slavery in both countries and I'm going to
focus on the similarities now if I say there are two main similarities that means that there might
be other similarities too but I'm going to be focusing on the two main ones or the two most
important ones the process of buying a house in the United States includes the following steps
so in this paragraph I'm going to be talking about a process what happens step by step so
those are all topic sentences that you could use for a writing assignment in which you have to
write only one paragraph or it might be part of a larger essay in which you're discussing
the topic and that paragraph is going to focus just on that controlling idea now as I mentioned
before if you're writing paragraphs in a whole essay your topic sentence needs to be connected
to your thesis statement and this is true for most body paragraphs to make this clear we're
going to see some examples first we're going to look at the basic five paragraph essay this is an
essay that has an introduction paragraph three body paragraphs and a conclusion paragraph and
this is usually the most common type of essay that you will begin writing for example if our
thesis statement which is the main idea of the whole essay is people choose to become
vegetarians for the following three reasons ethical environmental and health concerns
okay now I know what my three body paragraphs are going to discuss they're going to discuss ethical
first environmental and then health next it's time to write our topic sentences there's a very easy
way to do it you're going to say the first reason that people choose to become vegetarians is for
ethical concerns so you're just going to use the same words that are in the thesis statement to
write a clear topic sentence we're not going to start the topic sentence with the word first comma
instead we're going to say the first reason then go to the next one the second reason that people
choose to become vegetarians is environmental concerns and finally the third reason
Etc now this is definitely not the most interesting way and if you are taking a
writing class your professor will definitely ask you to try to use some other ways to word those
topic sentences but if you're writing for the TOEFL or the IELTS or you are writing an essay
in class and you don't have a lot of time that formula will usually be sufficient okay then let's
take a look at how we can change things up we can take that same information and we can just try to
use some different words for example the first reason that some people become vegetarians is
because of ethical issues all right so notice that we're using some slightly different words
the next one another main reason that people may choose to stop eating meat is for environmental
concerns now notice that instead of using the word second I used the word another
and for the last one the final reason that people choose vegetarianism is for health benefits
so again you can see how I've used some different words just to make the topic sentences be a little
bit more interesting and not to repeat the same words over and over again but the formula is the
same it tells the order it repeats the topic and controlling idea and it tells what the key point
or what the focus of that paragraph is going to be and those are very important because it helps
the reader to stay on track for the reader to get your message clearly notice that if
you want to try something else for more variety you can also move the key point to the front of
the topic sentence for example health benefits are the final reason that people choose vegetarianism
okay so now that you know how to write topic sentences and you understand the
connection between the thesis statement and your topic sentences it's time for
us to practice let's imagine that we are writing an essay about learning English
and the controlling idea of this essay is that learning English has important benefits
so go ahead and pause the video and think for about a minute what benefits does learning
English have when you're ready you can come back and we will continue the benefits that I thought
of are four main ones number one learning English allows people to travel easily number two learning
English gives people access to a range of print material and other media number three learning
English helps people to find jobs with higher salaries or to earn a higher salary in some jobs
and the fourth main benefit is that it allows people to work for multinational companies so
maybe you thought of other benefits but these are the ones that we're going to use for my examples
so let's make the thesis statement first learning English has the following four important benefits
now we can also make this thesis statement more specific by adding those points in a short
way to the end of our thesis statement learning English has the following four important benefits
easier travel more access to information
more opportunities for higher salaries and job opportunities with multinational companies so next
let's go into the topic sentences and remember that we can do this in an easy way we can say
the first main benefit of learning English is that it allows people to travel more easily
or easier travel is the first main benefit of learning English
now you can decide which one you prefer probably the first one is easier to write
and also maybe seems better in an essay but both are possible let's go to the next
one the second important benefit of learning English is greater access to information now
then we would explain that that means access to print material and other media in English
next we can say another benefit of learning English is that it allows people to earn higher
salaries and the last one the final important benefit of learning English is job opportunities
with multinational companies okay so there are a variety of ways that you could write these topic
sentences but this is the easiest way you can do this in a timed essay or if you're writing
an essay at home remember that there are other things that you can do if you want to make them
more interesting you could try using different synonyms like Advantage instead of benefit but
you do need to remind the reader in every topic sentence what the topic is you're talking about
learning English the controlling idea which is benefits and what is the key point that you are
going to talk about in that paragraph so I hope that this lesson helps you to understand how to
write topic sentences easily be sure to check the description box below because I will leave
a practice question that you can use to practice with me in the comments also be sure to let me
know if you have questions I'm always happy to answer them and please note that I offer
memberships on my YouTube channel if you want more feedback lessons and other ways to connect with me
and please don't forget to give this video a like leave a comment and subscribe if
you want more lessons like this one I hope to see you back here again soon take care