Using Support

 

Using Support

A clearly developed paragraph uses general and specific support to develop a topic sentence.  The topic sentence should have a clear topic and attitude (controlling idea) that your support can focus on.  There are some possible pitfalls and outcomes you should be aware of when writing your supporting details.

General Support Outcomes:  Your general support has two purposes:

help the reader generally understand your controlling idea

lead to a specific example

General Support Pitfalls:  General support can improperly develop your paragraph if:

your explanation does not clearly relate to your controlling idea

your development is too general and doesn’t specifically lead to your example

The explanations are not logically related from general to specific

Specific Support Outcomes:  Your specific support will succeed if you:

give real case examples. Use statistics and real experiences. Mention as many specific details as possible

connect the meaning of your example to your explanation and your topic sentence.

Specific Support Pitfalls:  Your specific support will not function correctly if:

your example is not clearly related to your topic sentence or general support

your example is not developed enough to convince the reader

Read the following topic sentences that lead to general and specific support.  Evaluate each point and decide what the positive and negative results are:

Example 1:  I think general education is not fair to most students.  For example, I believe different students have different study levels.  It’s not fair to students who may be smarter to place in the same education program. Also, not every family has enough money for their children to finish four years of college. If they don’t need to attend two years of general education, they may have less trouble.  

Topic sentence:

General support:

Specific support:

Example 2:  I encourage students to take general education based on the values of education.  Even though some people regard it as unnecessary, you can get much common sense in order to live well in your life.  Let us say one man majored in economics and he has worked hard on his major.  Even if he is not about to use some facts from general education, some of them would be greatly useful to maintain his life as nice, such as politics or IT information.

Topic sentence:

General support:

Specific support:

Example 3:  While learning things from other majors, students can think again about which major they really want to enjoy through their whole lives. I have an experience from my uncle who worked more than twenty years in a job he doesn’t love.  Just because he didn’t have a chance to know which one is really most enjoyable for him.  So, knowing a little knowledge in general classes, people can find which major is correct for them. Living a life with a boring job is so terrible and stressful.

Topic sentence:

General support:

Specific support:

Example 4:  General education is a way of testing if we are able to get a degree.  If we do not even learn or pass the basic knowledge that we need to learn, there will be less chance for us to get a degree.  However it is important to get two years of general education.

Topic sentence:

General support:

Specific support: