1. The Paragraph ¶

A paragraph is a group of sentences where every sentence is about the same topic. There are usually 4 parts to a paragraph: 1. Topic sentence, 2. Support Sentences, 3. Detail or examples, and 4. A concluding sentence. To ensure that a paragraph is consistently about one topic, all writers use a topic sentence to tell the reader what the paragraph is about.

1. Topic sentence

A topic sentence consists of two parts: 1. The topic 2. A controlling idea

The topic tells the reader the subject of the paragraph and the controlling idea informs the reader of the main idea of a paragraph.

Note: Writers use the term controlling idea in their topic sentence, but for readers, this is the main idea of the paragraph. For many of the tasks on the IELTS exam, test takers need to locate the topic sentence first, so the main idea of a paragraph is immediately known (e.g. Matching Headings).

For example, here is a paragraph.

PARAGRAPH 1

Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways. First, their trunk is convenient at watering holes. Elephants can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Second, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs with their trunk, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. In these ways, an elephant’s trunk helps them survive.

 

The underlined sentence in the box above is the topic sentence. It contains the topic (elephants) and the controlling idea (use their trunk in many useful ways). This topic sentence tells the reader that this paragraph will only be about the useful ways that an elephant uses it trunk.

DO NOT BE FOOLED: The topic sentence is usually found, 99% of the time, with the first sentence of a paragraph! However, it can be the last sentence or it can be found in the middle of the paragraph. You have to be able to locate both the topic and the controlling idea in the same sentence.

Here is the paragraph again where the topic sentence is found in the last sentence.

PARAGRAPH 2

Have you ever seen an elephant use its trunk? Their trunk is convenient at watering holes because they can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Also, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs with their trunk, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways.

 

Although the narrator asks you, the reader, a question, ‘have you ever seen an elephant use its trunk?’, this is not the topic sentence! Rather, the writer has chosen to replace the concluding sentence with a topic sentence and begin with ‘an interest generating question’ followed with Detail and Support Sentences before informing you of the topic sentence at the very end.

Note: always read the first and last sentence of a paragraph (sometimes the topic sentence is found with the last sentence of a paragraph).

1. Support Sentences

Support sentences are called support sentences because they ‘support’ the controlling idea found in the topic sentence. Academic paragraphs usually have at least 3 support sentences because a writer’s work can be deemed ‘weak’ if it is not convincing enough, but 3 properly written support sentences are the typical number used to prove to readers that their controlling idea in the topic sentence has merit.

In PARAGRAPH 1 below there are 3 support sentences (underlined herein)

Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways. First, their trunk is convenient at watering holes. Elephants can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Second, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. In these ways, an elephant’s trunk helps them survive.

 

Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways. First, their trunk is convenient at watering holes. Elephants can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Second, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. In these ways, an elephant’s trunk helps them survive.

Notice, too, that each support sentence reflects ‘a useful way’ or the controlling idea found in the topic sentence. Likewise, detail or examples are used to complete the support sentences.

• Detail

Each support sentence is also ‘supported’ by detail. Detail or examples are used to complete the elaboration on the subject which helps ‘round out’ the overall expression of the controlling idea. For example, below, the details that back up the support sentences are underlined.

Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways. First, their trunk is convenient at watering holes. Elephants can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Second, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs with their trunk, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. In these ways, an elephant’s trunk helps them survive.

 

You can now see how a proper paragraph is written – Detail backs up the Support Sentences, and the Support Sentences support the Controlling Idea.

Topic sentence = (Topic + controlling idea)

↓

Support Sentence = supports ↑ the controlling idea

↓

Detail supports = ↑ the Support Sentence

 

It is important that test takers are able to separate ‘fact’ from ‘opinion’. Below are the typical ways in which ‘fact’ is used to support Supporting Sentences. Opinions have to be sustained by ‘Fact’ or the opinion/argument loses its credibility. In other words, facts are the evidence needed to make an opinion valid, so ‘facts’ remain as ‘truth’ by themselves.

FACT as:

1. Empirical Evidence is usually used in the form of statistics (i.e. 33% of the population, 1/3 of the people, etc.). Statistics are easily found when scanning.
2. Quotations are usually reported in the first person from the perspective of an expert in the field of the given subject/topic. “Quotation marks are easily found when scanning as well.”

• Examples are used as either: (1) anecdotal evidence or from personal experience – ‘the man that I saw was wearing a mask’ (2) from a common ‘accepted or universal truth’ – ‘nobody is perfect’; ‘people cannot fly’; ‘car drivers have accidents’. These types of examples are not easy to find unless you have highlighted certain words and are aware of their synonyms.

 

1. Concluding Sentence

The concluding sentence of a paragraph can (1) summarise the main points of the paragraph, or (2) it can be a rewrite of the topic sentence, or (3) it can contain a future-leaning sentence that offers a warning or continued fulfillment.

IELTS, or their governing body at Cambridge, IDP, or the British Council, uses the term ‘cohesive devices’; found in their descriptors for essay writing, when discussing how a writer ‘hangs’ their sentences of a paragraph together. Another common term for this is ‘signal words’ or words used to ‘inform or signal to the reader’ the intention of the next statement.

In the paragraph below, the ‘signal words’ or ‘cohesive devises’ are underlined. In the concluding sentence ‘In these ways’ is a prepositional phrase that signals to the reader a ‘summary’ of the ‘usefulness of an elephants trunk’,  and is followed by a future-leaning statement that this ‘usefulness’ helps the elephant to survive (as we assume it lives in the wildness). So, ‘In these ways’ refers to the 3 ways in which an elephant can use its trunk, which in turn illustrates to the reader how the elephant ‘survives’. Likewise, ‘First’, ‘Second’, and ‘Finally’ all allow for consistent, easy to follow, organized reading.

Elephants use their trunk in many useful ways. First, their trunk is convenient at watering holes. Elephants can draw water up their trunk and then release it into their mouths to have a drink. Second, an elephant can use its trunk to eat. Elephants usually break away branches from trees and shrubs with their trunks, and then they feed themselves by directing the food to their mouths. Finally, elephants use their trunks to smell. Elephants raise their trunks high in the air above their heads to smell for water, food, or predators. In these ways, an elephant’s trunk helps them survive.

 

Note: PARAGRAPH 1 and 2 above are basic paragraphs that use all the typical parts of a paragraph. We will delve into more difficult paragraphs in the 14 different tasks found in Section 2. However, readers have to be able to read paragraphs and recognize the 4 parts of a paragraph on the Reading exam; these parts do not change as writers have to use topic sentences, support, detail and conclusionary sentences to write effectively. So, it is essential for test-takers to find the topic sentence of a paragraph. For example, if a test taker is able to differentiate between the Support and Detail sentences while reading, is a huge organizational advantage for all tasks on the Reading exam. A reading skill like this one is the groundwork for passing the Reading part of the IELTS exam with a high score.

To help build your skills to identify meaning in a paragraph, test takers have to know how to use other, different, reading skills as well.