An effective paragraph generally focuses on one main idea. A good way to achieve paragraph unity is to state the main idea clearly in one sentence—the topic sentence—and relate all other sentences in the paragraph to that idea. Like the thesis for an essay, the topic sentence includes a topic and a comment on that topic.

Position of the topic sentence

A topic sentence often appears at the beginning of a paragraph, but it can come at the end—or it may be implied rather than stated directly.

Topic sentence at the beginning

If you want readers to see your point immediately, open with the topic sentence. This strategy can be particularly useful in letters of application or in argumentative writing. The following paragraph opens with a clear topic sentence (highlighted) on which subsequent sentences build:

Our friendship was the source of much happiness and many memories. We grooved to every new recording from Beyoncé. We sweated together in the sweltering summer sun, trying to win the championship for our softball team. I recall the taste of pepperoni pizza as we discussed the highlights of our team’s victory. Once we even became attracted to the same person, but luckily we were able to share his friendship.

Topic sentence at the end

When specific details lead up to a generalization, putting the topic sentence at the end of the paragraph makes sense, as in the following paragraph about Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use”:

During the visit, Dee takes the pictures, every one of them, including the one of the house that she used to live in and hate. She takes the churn top and dasher, both whittled out of a tree by one of Mama’s uncles. She tries to take Grandma Dee’s quilts. Mama and Maggie use these inherited items every day, not only appreciating their heritage but living it too. Dee, on the other hand, wants these items only for decorative use, thus forsaking and ignoring their real heritage.

Topic sentence at the beginning and end

Sometimes you will want to state a topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph and then refer to it in a slightly different form at the end. Such an echo of the topic sentence adds emphasis to the main idea. In the following paragraph, the writer begins with a topic sentence announcing a problem:

Many of the difficulties we experience in relationships are caused by the unrealistic expectations we have of each other. Think about it. Women are expected to feel comfortable doing most of the sacrificing. They are supposed to stay fine, firm, and forever twenty-two while doing double duty, in the home and in the workplace. The burden on men is no easier. They should be tall, handsome, and able to wine and dine the women. Many women go for the glitter and then expect these men to calm down once in a relationship and become faithful, sensitive, supportive, and loving. Let’s face it. Both women and men have been unrealistic. It’s time we develop a new sensitivity toward each other and ask ourselves what it is we need from each other that is realistic and fair.

The last sentence restates the topic sentence as a proposal for solving the problem. This approach is especially appropriate here, for the essay goes on to specify how the problem might be solved.

Topic sentence implied but not stated

Occasionally a paragraph’s main idea is so obvious that it does not need to be stated explicitly in a topic sentence. Here is such a paragraph, from an essay about working as an airport cargo handler:

In winter the warehouse is cold and damp. There is no heat. The large steel doors that line the warehouse walls stay open most of the day. In the cold months, wind, rain, and snow blow across the floor. In the summer the warehouse becomes an oven. Dust and sand from the runways mix with the toxic fumes of fork lifts, leaving a dry, stale taste in your mouth. The high windows above the doors are covered with a thick, black dirt that kills the sun. The men work in shadows with the constant roar of jet engines blowing dangerously in their ears.

—PATRICK FENTON, “Confessions of a Working Stiff”

Here the implied topic sentence might be stated as Working conditions in the warehouse are uncomfortable, dreary, and hazardous to one’s health. But the writer does not have to state this information explicitly because we can infer it easily from the specific details he provides.

Though implied topic sentences are common in descriptions, many instructors prefer explicit topic sentences in college writing.

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For Multilingual Writers: Being explicit

Relation of each sentence to the main idea

Whether the main idea of a paragraph is stated in a topic sentence or is implied, each sentence in the paragraph should contribute to the main idea. Look, for example, at the following paragraph, which opens an essay about African American music:

When I was a teenager, there were two distinct streams of popular music: one was black, and the other was white. The former could only be heard way at the end of the radio dial, while white music dominated everywhere else. This separation was a fact of life, the equivalent of blacks sitting in the back of the bus and “whites only” signs below the Mason-Dixon line. Satchmo might grin for days on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and certain historians hold forth ad nauseam on the black contribution to American music, but the truth was that our worlds rarely twined.

—MARCIA GILLESPIE, “They’re Playing My Music, but Burying My Dreams”

The first sentence announces the topic (there were two streams of popular music: black and white), and all of the other sentences back up this idea. The result is a unified paragraph.

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