Readers expect to learn a paragraph’s main point in a topic sentence early in the paragraph. Then, as they move into the body of the paragraph, they expect to encounter specific facts, details, or examples that support the topic sentence—either directly or indirectly.
The topic sentence is the first sentence in the paragraph, and all the other sentences directly support it.
A passenger list of the early years [of the Orient Express] would read like a Who’s Who of the World, from art to politics. Sarah Bernhardt and her Italian counterpart Eleonora Duse used the train to thrill the stages of Europe. For musicians there were Toscanini and Mahler. Dancers Nijinsky and Pavlova were there, while lesser performers like Harry Houdini and the girls of the Ziegfeld Follies also rode the rails. Violinists were allowed to practice on the train, and occasionally one might see trapeze artists hanging like bats from the baggage racks.
—Barnaby Conrad III, “Train of Kings”
If a sentence does not support the topic sentence directly, readers expect it to support another sentence in the paragraph. The following paragraph begins with the topic sentence. The sentences highlighted in color are direct supports, and the rest of the sentences are indirect supports.
Though the open-space classroom works for many children, it is not practical for my son, David. First, David is hyperactive. When he was placed in an open-space classroom, he became distracted and confused. He was tempted to watch the movement going on around him instead of concentrating on his own work. Second, David has a tendency to transpose letters and numbers, a tendency that can be overcome only by individual attention from the instructor. In the open classroom he was moved from teacher to teacher, with each one responsible for a different subject. No single teacher worked with David long enough to diagnose the problem, let alone help him with it. Finally, David is not a highly motivated learner. In the open classroom, he was graded “at his own level,” not by criteria for a certain grade. He could receive a B in reading and still be a grade level behind, because he was doing satisfactory work “at his own level.”
—Margaret Smith, student