IELTS / TOEFL Essay Writing: The Topic Sentence

hi welcome to write to the top I'm Adam in today's video we're gonna talk about IELTS TOEFL essay writing and more specifically we're going to look at the topic sentence this is a very very important part of your writing toolkit and this is where also a lot of people lose points especially in terms of cohesion and coherence the topic sentence is what you use to basically organize your ideas to organize your essay and to help the reader follow your train of thought so we're going to look at that we're going to look at some good examples and some bad examples and I'll give you some tips on how to write a good topic sentence so first thing to understand every body paragraph in your essay must begin with a topic sentence now this video is especially targeting IELTS and TOEFL test takers who are going to write short essays to 300 like 3 400 word essays if you're writing a long academic essay or if you're writing in a different style of writing like not an essay or not an academic essay you have a lot more flexibility with your topic sentence but for the test when you have a short essay the topic sentence is very important and generally pretty standard ok so make sure that every body paragraph has one now the introduction paragraph you're just getting into your topic that's your there's no really there's no topic sentence because you're not or you're not developing an idea in your introduction you're presenting a thesis in your conclusion you're presenting a summary so when you say in conclusion comma that is essentially your topic sentence but in the body paragraph very important to have one now what is the function of the topic sentence to guide the reader as to what to expect in the paragraph and this is very important to remember your topics tense your topic sentence is telling the reader what is the focus what is the focal point of this paragraph and if you tell the reader that this is the focal point but then you don't focus on that particular item you can making the reader confused and it is in terms of the IELTS or TOEFL you're actually losing points now I'm gonna go through a bunch of do's and don'ts but the main thing the most important thing I want you to remember about writing and about paragraphs one paragraph has one central topic one main focus and that main focus should be made very clear in your topic sentence think of it as an umbrella sentence essentially you have your topic sentence which looks like this it covers basically everything that comes underneath it it is connected to the thesis itself of the whole essay but it has its own ideas and everything everything that you're right in that paragraph is following flowing from the topic sentence and focusing on the main idea supporting it elaborating on it giving examples and then it all ties together and then reconnect back to the overall thesis of the essay so it looks like a bit of an umbrella it covers everything very focused everything is very narrowed approach that's the main thing you want to remember now some do's and don'ts don't make the sentence too long I've seen I've seen some essays where basically they almost the whole paragraph is the first sentence and then maybe there's one more sentence that is not a good topic sentence it should be short now you can have different lengths and I'm going to show you a few a couple of different examples but try to keep it more general and the more general it is the shorter it can be get to the point quickly I've seen a lot of people that in their topic sentence they reintroduce the debate that was given in the introduction don't tell me that some people think this you already told me that in the introduction don't tell me that some people think that you already told me that and do not give me your opinion again you're in your introduction you said in my opinion or I believe or I agree that's it that's all you need to do don't tell me again don't give me another opinion statement especially in the topic sentence because then as the reader I think that you're giving me a new opinion and you're going to support that opinion but I already know your opinion from the introduction one essay one opinion statement that's it and don't get into the details there are situations where you can do that but I'll show you those separately another thing if you're going to have subtopics then put those in the topic sentence but don't put any subtopic now when I say subtopic you're going to talk about like the main reason for something is so the main reason that's your focus is a and B or the main reasons are a and B so a and B are your subtopics but I've seen many people what they do is they give me a topic sentence and they give me one or two or even three subtopics and then they never go back to the laptop because they never talk about them at all in the paragraph as the reader when I read that topic sentence everything that you include in that topic sentence I expect to see expanded on elaborated on in the body if you don't do that then I just keep looking back well where is that why did you mention it in the topic sentence if you're not going to talk about it in the body paragraph don't put it into your topic sentence in fact don't put it anywhere unless it comes up later follow with an elaboration not an example I see many times as well topic sentence but kind of long and then the next sentence begins with for example but example of what you haven't elaborated on anything you haven't explained anything you've only introduced the focus of the paragraph there's nothing to give an example of yet give you a topic expand elaborate support it then give me an example to put it all together okay I'm going to look at an example here regarding some people's belief that prohibiting cars from entering the city's main commercial area is a good idea I believe the main reason for this is to keep the air clean thereby attracting more pedestrian traffic and helping local shop owners attract more customers and then the next sentence for example so a whole bunch of problems in this sentence one way too long you already halfway through your body paragraphs so yes shorten it next some people's belief that well URI should have told me this in the introduction if you didn't then you didn't set up the introduction properly if you did then there's no need to repeat it here what the graders might think is that you're just trying to get the word count up just trying to fill up words without actually saying much get rid of that the from the city's main commercial area is a good idea etc I believe we already told me what you believe in your thesis statement you don't need to tell me something else you believe just get to the point now here this is what the sentence is about the main reason for something so that's it okay next you have clean air yeah pedestrian traffic traffic you have local shop on it you have way too much information there's no way that you can cover all three points in a short paragraph take one of them out take the local shop owners put them in the next paragraph if you want you don't try to say too much have one or two central ideas and develop them fully and you'll get much much better score than if you try to save so many different ideas and none of them are working to support your thesis then finally for example again example of what you haven't actually told me anything yet you just told me what are some reasons you told me how these reasons effect whatever prohibiting cars you didn't tell me how they're effective why you think these are good reasons etc there's nothing to give an example up here you need to elaborate you need to explain to me the topics you mentioned in the topic sentence let's look at this that's all quite busy now okay here's a better sentence the main reason for prohibiting cars from entering the city's main commercial area is having cleaner air and thereby increased foot traffic I'm getting right to the point I'm telling you I'm going to talk about the main reason and I'm gonna tell you those two main reasons only two and then in the next sentence I'm gonna start explaining as no cars means no emissions no cars no emissions like no fumes coming out of the car means clean I'm explaining how you get the cleaner air and why this is good next and I see this very commonly as well do not begin the second paragraph as though the first one is irrelevant I've seen a lot of people begin their second paragraph completely forgetting the first one there's absolutely no connection make sure that when you begin your second paragraph there is a transition and the graders are very specifically looking for that it doesn't have to be a transition phase but it has to be some link to the previous sentence you have to guide the reader you have to tell them okay look now I'm shifting focus to a new subtopic or a new point or a new argument or whatever you're doing there right so if you begin locate the same essay about prohibiting carts second body paragraph prohibiting vehicles in a downtown court will not only negatively affect tourism it will also impact the local economy where did tourism come into it where did the local economy come you were just talking about the positive aspects of prohibiting cars you can't suddenly switch without preparing the reader for that shift in in focus so a better way conversely an argument can be made that forbidding cars from entering dot conversely you have a transition automatically from that first word I know that now you're going to be looking at the other side of the argument okay so do that this sentence the prohibiting the one I just showed you before this would be an excellent topic sentence for the first body paragraph you're just diving right into your argument not for the second body paragraphs next a lot of people begin their essay their body paragraphs in a very similar way to begin with firstly in regard to these are all fine nothing wrong with them just understand that the person next to you it's probably using it also and the person on the other side of you probably using this expression as well if you can avoid it avoid it if you're panicking if you're running out of time then yeah I just use it but just understand that the graders are seeing this ten twenty times a day when they're marking if you can avoid it avoid it just get to the point the main reason essential argument or like I said with the other one prohibiting car just get to the actual idea itself in transitions secondly another reason on the other hand that being said just make sure you put something to link the second body to the first let's look at some examples so this is from an essay sent to me the principal reason for giving diet information at home is that children are likely to mimic the habits of their parents perfect topic sentence I know you're talking about the main reason you're talking about the topic itself giving and Diet information at home children mimic parents that's what your gonna argue it and then the rest of the essay talking about parents as role models they have meals together they take the lead healthy habits and then the children can pass it on perfect body paragraphs let's look at the next one so it's a bit long I don't want you to read all of it I want you to focus on the talk on the other hand a disadvantage of a global language is that all other languages would eventually disappear very good topic sentence except for one problem nowhere in the rest of the paragraph does the writer mentioned the word languages even again except writed to be at the bottom there but he doesn't talk about the disappearance of him he's just talking about the universal language so good topic sentence but then doesn't follow through it doesn't mention the disappearance of languages anywhere in the body paragraph in that case it's either a bad body or a bad topic sentence how would you fix it this extinction of languages will soon be followed by the loss of cultural diversity and from the loss of cultural diversity I can go on to talk about that but first make sure that you whatever's in your topic sentence is developed in your body another thing I want to also to point out if you can see it here there's one sentence here this certainly okay let me say this certainly will result in a collapse of the tourism industry and it will affect some nations economically this sentence has no business in this paragraph take it out you didn't mention tourism you didn't mention economy in your topic sentence you didn't mention it anywhere else this sentence sticks out to the grader very much you're losing point because cohesion coherence you've lost the connection now a very good way to make sure you get the right topic sentence and all that is in your introduction say my reasons for this so I believe a or B my reasons for this are practical and social you have a very general statement of reasons and then it's very easy to go back to that in your topic sentence from the practical standpoint there's your topic sentence this is what this paragraph is looking about talking about the construction and then you get into your points everything is good everything is practical in the second one on the social from the social perspective and I'm going to give the social and then easy very straightforward topic sentences here's another example first of all this is one sentence to begin with we only live once and young people would probably never have such an opportunity again in their lives to have so long a vacation dadada this person just gets into the details he's explaining too many things vacation education and university time graduation hard work too much information first set me up to what you're going to talk about then develop your answer a better way to begin with an opportunity like this comes just once in a lifetime comes once in a lifetime that's fine and then you get into the explanation of whatever you want so basically what I did is I cut that long one in two different parts just once in a lifetime a little bit cliche an even better one for most people the gap here is a rare opportunity I'm going to talk about the gap here I'm going to talk about the opportunity that's my general topic sentence and then I get into the details on the one hand fixed punishments would be very beneficial but only for some small crimes such as and then too many details here we want to keep it simple you want to get your details in your elaboration okay and then the rest of this sentence because it's a long sentence the rest of the paragraph only had one more sentence you don't want to be doing that you should be having three four five sentences in a paragraph now better on the one hand establishing set fines or public do minor crimes may have several benefits I'm going to be talking about benefits on the other hand if you have on the one make sure you have on the other determining fixed punishments for all crimes is unrealistic and then I'm going to explain why it's unrealistic keep them general keep the details to the elaboration and that's it very straightforward I know it's not easy but the more complicated or the more sophisticated you try to make your topic sentence the more you're confusing your reader make it simple make it straightforward leave the details leave the examples leave the everything else to the support second third fourth fifth sentence now if you have any questions please ask me in the youtube comment section if you like the video please give me a like please subscribe to my channel I'll be giving you more tips on IELTS and TOEFL writing and come back for my next video and I'll see you then bye bye

Channel: Write to the Top

Views: 101,056

Keywords: topic sentence, IELTS, English writing, English, writing, language test, English test, how to write, test tips, study tips, pass the IELTS, synonyms, IELTS high score, language skills, better writing, writing skills, how to write in English, IELTS high band, IELTS writing, IELTS strategies, IELTS band 7+, high band score, task 2, IELTS academic essay, independent task, independent essay, essay writing, cohesion & coherence, how to write an essay, band 9 essay

Id: 9E45U_gBN-A

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 14 2018