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| How to Write TOEFL Essay Topic Sentences | Topic sentences are considered to be one of the most important parts of the TOEFL essay. The main reason of it is that they provide support to the thesis statement.
It has already been mentioned that thesis statement is the last sentence of the introduction of the essay. In addition, thesis statement is the sentence, in which the opinion of a writer is expressed. Here is the example of thesis statement, used in the article:
No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.
It can be considered quite a good thesis statement, as it provides the reader with the information of what the essay is about, in addition, it also gives the opinion of the author. But look, the readers will neither be aware of the author’s opinion, nor will they know why it is so. And here topic sentence comes out: it explains the reader why the author has this opinion.
And below is the minimum, which it is necessary to know about what a topic sentence is:
• Topic sentence is called the first sentence of each paragraph of the body;
• Topic sentence gives at least one reason hwy the thesis statement is true;
• Topic sentence tells the reader what will be written further in the paragraph.
It should be pointed out that if an author chooses to begin with a list of reasons, which support his / her thesis statement, it will be considered to be a good way of writing a topic sentence. And, finally, when you have your list in front of you, you can simply choose a couple of best reasons.
So, taking the thesis statement into consideration, it is possible to make a list of all the reasons why we think it may be true. Here is the list of several of them:
1. There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already;
2. Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection;
3. As a rule guns cause much more harm than good;
4. Some police officers even like to shoot people;
5. Guns make people frightened;
6. In the great majority of cases police officers do not need any guns;
7. Any kind of violence is a bad thing.
After we have the list of reasons, supporting our thesis statement written in front of us, it is possible to choose several best of them. For example, we can choose numbers 1, 2 and 7. After we have chosen the best reasons, which to our point of view support our thesis statement, we are almost finished. There is only one task left – it is putting the finishing touches on.
So, the reasons, chosen to support the thesis statement, are the following ones:
There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already;
Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection;
Any kind of violence is a bad thing.
All these reasons look perfect already, therefore, it is possible to make them even better. And there is one way to improve them – it is with the help of transitional phrases, used at the beginning of each of them. A transitional phrase will help the reader to understand your essay better; in addition, it will also make your essay sound more realistic and natural.
Thus, for our first topic sentence, it is possible to use the following transitional phrases: to begin with, first, first of all, for one thing, in the first place, etc. And, finally, our topic sentences will look like:
First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already.
Now, as for our second topic sentence, it can be begun with such transitional phrases, as: next, second, in addition to the previous point, moreover, etc. And now we have a sentence like this:
In addition to the previous point, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection.
For our third and last topic sentence, we can use such transitional phrases as: finally, at last, to cut a long story short, to finish up with, and so on.
To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing.
And, here we go, our topic sentences are ready, and the only thing we are to do with our TOEFL essay body – is to write supporting ideas.
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