Outlines and Topic Sentences Why are they important? Help you explicitly organize your information. Force you to think about main points. Provide “road signs” for your audience.

Purpose of topic sentences To provide “what’s ahead” information: Ex.: “In this section I will…” To introduce the main idea of the paragraph: Ex.: Person-first language was initially proposed as a way of…. To state how this paragraph relates to the overall topic or an earlier section of the paper: Ex.: Much like person-first language, identify-first language seeks to…

You can write topic sentences AFTER you figure out your main points. Important! You can write topic sentences AFTER you figure out your main points.

Also important! Topic sentences are NOT general “blanket statements” (overgeneralizations): Ex.: “People decide to be teachers because they love children”) If it is a “thesis” statement (an argument), you must be able to provide evidence for it (e.g., a citation). Topic sentences must be related to the information you provide earlier or later.

Whole group activity Consider the outline from Prof. Griffin’s presentation. Select one section/paragraph Together, let’s write possible topic sentences: Provide “what’s ahead” information, Introduce the main idea of the paragraph, or State how this paragraph relates to the overall topic or an earlier section of the paper.

Small group/pair activity Consider the outline from Prof. Griffin’s presentation. Select one section/paragraph Together, write several possible topic sentences: Provide “what’s ahead” information, Introduce the main idea of the paragraph, or State how this paragraph relates to the overall topic or an earlier section of the paper.