Writing Academic English 4th Edition

16 Part 1 IWritingaParagraph

Paragraph 2

Moderncommunicationtechnologyis drivingworkersinthecorporateworld

crazy.Theyfeelburiedunderthelargenumberofmessagestheyreceivedaily.

Inadditiontotelephonecalls,officeworkersreceivedozensofe-mailandvoice

mailmessagesdaily.Inonecompany,infact,managersreceiveanaverageof

100 messagesaday.Becausetheydonothaveenoughtimetorespondtothese

messagesduringofficehours,it is commonforthemtodosointheeveningsor

onweekendsathome.

Review

Thesearetheimportantpointscoveredinthischapter:

1.Agoodtopicsentence

• isa completesentencewitha subject,a verb,anda controllingidea.


• is neithertoogeneralnortoospecific.It clearlystatesthemainideaof
  theparagraphbutdoesnotincludespecificdetails.


• is usuallythefirstsentenceintheparagraph.
  2.Goodsupportingsentences


• explainorprovethetopicsentence.


• arespecificandfactual.


• canbeexamples,statistics,orquotations.
  3.Agoodconcludingsentence


• signalstheendoftheparagraph.


• summarizestheimportantpointsbrieflyorrestatesthetopicsentence
  indifferentwords.

WritingPractice..

Inthebackofthebookisanappendixoutliningthe stepsinthewritingprocess

(AppendixA,pages265-279).Followingthewritingprocessstepswillhelpyou

writesuccessfully.Yourinstructormaydirectyoutofollowsomeorallofthem.

I ••

Writinga

Paragraph

Chooseoneofthetopicsfrom Practice3B orPractice3C(page 11)andwritea

paragrapheighttotensentencesinlength.

Step 1 Beginwitha topicsentencethatyouwroteinPractice3.Writeseveral

supportingsentences.Includeatleastonespecificexample.Endwith

a concludingsentence.