The Paragraph
General to specific development:
In academic writing, you begin with a topic sentence which has a controlling idea about your topic. You then use general details to explain how the opinion in your topic sentence is true. They often answer questions a reader may have about your topic sentence. After two or three general explanations of your topic sentence, your reader is ready for specific detail. A specific detail can be an example, a real personal experience, a proven fact or statistic, or a cited paraphrase from an article. Usually a general explanation is also used to explain the connection of the specific detail to the topic sentence.
Sample student paragraphs:
1. In Taiwan, there is still gender discrimination in the working environment because of unfair treatment to women. Many companies won’t hire women because their leaders believe that women are nothing but a burden to the company’s operations. Even when women are hired for the same position as a male co-worker, they are treated as though they cannot contribute anything meaningful to the work environment. Because they arenot respected, they are made to do meaningless work. For example, my friend Melody, who got hired by a big company in Taiwan, always complains about how she is treated differently than the male employees. All she has to do is to deliver messages. Sometimes, when there are no messages that need to be delivered, she rests, but after a couple of minutes, her boss, who is a male, will show up and start scolding her about how terrible her working attitude is and how disappointed he feels. She never sees this happening to her male colleagues. All and all, since there is a bias against women in the workplace, gender inequality still exists in Taiwan.
(184 words)
Let’s answer these questions about the paragraph:
1. What is the topic sentence? What is the controlling idea?
2. What is an example of general support?
3. What is an example of specific support?
4. What does the concluding sentence do?
5. What are some examples of transition words that make the paragraph cohesive?
6. Is there enough support in the paragraph to explain the topic sentence?
2. The stereotype of women is one of the biggest challenges for gender inequality occurring in Hong Kong. The mass media and the Chinese culture system have constructed women’s stereotypes in people’s minds, by books’ content and TV scenes to promote women’s mother image. This is responsible for building the theory that women need to focus on family instead of career. These ideas have made fewer companies willing to hire women as they underestimate their abilities and believe that all women can do is take care of their kids. Besides, women are likely to be imagined as emotional, not as clear-minded and strong in leadership as men. The government legislative council is a strong example of this. There are only eleven members who are female, out of sixty total members. In addition, someworkplaces expect their female employees to look feminine and pretty, so they require outdated dress codes for their female workers. For example, some schools force female teachers to wear skirts or dresses. To conclude, this belief about women is a large problem having to do with gender discrimination in Hong Kong. (183 words)
With a classmate: answer these questions for this paragraph.
1. What is the topic sentence? What is the controlling idea?
2. What is an example of general support?
3. What is an example of specific support?
4. Does the concluding sentence rephrase the topic sentence?
5. What are some examples of transition words that make the paragraph cohesive?
6. Is there enough support in the paragraph to explain the topic sentence?
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