A topic sentence is the sentence that tells the reader what a paragraph is about. A connected topic sentence does more: it shows how the paragraph answers the task you were given. In argument, directed and discursive writing, this link is what makes separate paragraphs add up to one response.
This is the third lesson in paragraph cohesion. If you want the planning side of it, the argument structure module covers how to choose the points in the first place.
How do you connect a topic sentence to the task?
Start from the task, not from the paragraph. Write the task’s key words in the margin: who the audience is, what the question asks, and which side you take. Then check each topic sentence against them.
- Underline the key words in the task, such as “school day”, “later start”, “students”.
- State your overall answer in a few words, for example “a later start helps students”.
- Write each topic sentence as a reason or step towards that answer, reusing one or two of the key ideas.
- Test the set. Read only the first sentence of each paragraph, in order. They should sound like a short version of your answer.
The fourth step is the most useful habit. If the openings alone read like a list of unrelated facts, the reader will feel the same thing.
Worked example
Task: Write an article for your school magazine arguing that the school day should start later in the morning.
Here is a draft second paragraph:
Teenagers have busy lives. They have homework, hobbies and family tasks. Many of them do not get into bed until after eleven o’clock.
Step 1, key words: school day, later start, students’ needs.
Step 2, check the opening sentence. “Teenagers have busy lives” is true, but it does not say what this has to do with a later start. The paragraph does contain useful evidence, which is why the fault is only in the opening.
Step 3, rewrite the topic sentence as a reason for the answer:
A later start would help students, because teenagers tend to go to bed late and arrive at school tired.
Step 4, adjust the next sentence to continue the link:
Between homework, hobbies and family tasks, many do not get into bed until after eleven o’clock.
The paragraph now opens with its job, and the evidence supports that job.
The mistake to watch for
The usual fault is drift: a topic sentence that is true and interesting but about something nearby.
School uniforms can be expensive.
In an essay about a later start, this sentence leads the reader away from the task. The correction is either to cut the paragraph or to find a real connection. If you cannot link it to your answer in a sentence, it probably does not belong.
The opposite fault is repeating the task word for word in every opening. “Schools should start later. Schools should start later because…” adds nothing.
Reuse the key idea, but move the argument on each time.
Check yourself
1. The task asks whether mobile phones should be banned in school. Which topic sentence is connected to it? (a) Mobile phones were first sold to the public in the last century. (b) A ban would protect lesson time, because notifications pull attention away from the teacher.
Show answer
(b). It gives a reason for one side of the question and uses the task’s key idea. Sentence (a) is a fact about phones and does not answer the question.
2. Rewrite this topic sentence to link it with an essay arguing for a later school start: “Some students walk to school.”
Show answer
There is more than one good answer. One example: “A later start would also make the walk to school safer, since students who walk would no longer travel in the early half-light.” The key change is that the sentence now gives a reason connected to the argument.
3. These are the opening sentences of three paragraphs in an essay for a later start. Which one drifts? (1) Later starts let teenagers sleep longer. (2) School uniforms are expensive. (3) Better rested students make fewer mistakes in the first lesson.
Show answer
Sentence 2. Sentences 1 and 3 form a chain: sleep leads to better performance. The uniform sentence has no link to the start time.
Where this leads next
When every paragraph has a connected opening, the next risk is that two neighbouring paragraphs say the same thing in different words. That is covered in remove repetition across adjacent paragraphs. You can also use the writing revision compare view to set an old opening sentence beside a new one.
Many students find it hard to judge their own topic sentences, because they already know what the paragraph contains. In online one-to-one English First Language tuition, a teacher can read only your openings and tell you what they add up to.