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In expository writing, a topic sentence is a sentence that summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. [1] [2] It is usually the first sentence in a paragraph. Also known as a focus sentence, a topic sentence encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often ...
The topic of a sentence is distinct from the grammatical subject. The topic is defined by pragmatic considerations, that is, the context that provides meaning. The grammatical subject is defined by syntax. In any given sentence the topic and grammatical subject may be the same, but they need not be.
A thesis statement is a statement of one's core argument, the main idea(s), and/or a concise summary of an essay, research paper, etc. [1] It is usually expressed in one or two sentences near the beginning of a paper, and may be reiterated elsewhere, such as in the conclusion.
Specialized applications of outlines also exist. A reverse outline is a list of sentences or topics that is created from an existing work, as a revision tool; it may show the gaps in the document's coverage so that they may be filled, and may help in rearranging sentences or topics to improve the structure and flow of the work.
It is difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject. [4] He notes that "the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything", and adds that "by tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece".
Syntax refers to the linguistic structure above the word level (for example, how sentences are formed) – though without taking into account intonation, which is the domain of phonology. Morphology, by contrast, refers to the structure at and below the word level (for example, how compound words are formed), but above the level of individual ...
That is, a "topic outline" is an outline composed of topics only, so as soon as an editor comes along and adds an annotation or sentence or descriptive lead or section lead, it ceases to be a topic outline and then has an erroneous title.
The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the center of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it. In most sentences, English marks grammatical relations only through word order. The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it.