4 Steps to Writing a Great Topic Sentence

If you're going to be a successful writer, mastering the art of a great topic sentence is essential. Often confused with a thesis statement, a topic sentence is a sentence that should be included in each paragraph of an essay and will often be the first one, since it clues your reader in on what the rest of the paragraph will be about. Since these sentences can serve to help your writing stay organized, failing to include them—or writing them incorrectly—could lead to a poorly written paper that's all over the place and lacking logic.

So, let's look over the steps to writing a great topic sentence. If you follow these five steps, you should end up with a paper that flows well and stays on topic.

Step 1: Outline

You may be thinking, but wait, how can creating an outline be a step in writing a sentence? The answer is because your topic sentence needs to be crafted by looking at several ideas put together, namely, the ideas you will be covering within your paragraph. It's impossible to know this information until you create a solid outline and are able to plug in the details of each paragraph to create a coherent argument and essay.

Here's a good outline you can use for an assignment like this.

1. Introduction
   1. Sentence to hook reader
   2. Background information
   3. Thesis statement
2. Body
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Detail 1
   3. Detail 2
3. Body
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Detail 1
   3. Detail 2
4. Body
   1. Topic sentence
   2. Detail 1
   3. Detail 2
5. Conclusion

Let's start with this practice outline for a five-paragraph essay about Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Masque of the Red Death".

1. Introduction
   1. Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" is one of his earliest and most famous works containing important themes of humanity'sstruggle with acceptance of its own limitations.
   2. It was first published in 1842
   3. In Poe's "Masque of the Red Death," we're shown that no man (or woman) can escape death.
2. Body
   1. Topic Sentence
   2. It was heavily influenced by Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel
   3. Gothic novels were fascinated with themes of death, human frailty, incest, family secrets, and decaying wealth.
3. Body
   1. When the main character holds a party to escape the Red Death plague, he decorates each room a different color, symbolizing the stages of life.
   2. The plot centers on Prince Prospero, a wealthy man who attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death.
   3. He holds a masquerade ball and decorates the seven rooms of his abbey with each as a different color, each symbolizing a particular stage in life (from birth through death, blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black with a scarlet light).
4. Body
   1. A mysterious figure then makes his way through the party, as death follows his steps.
   2. When his friends arrive and begin their revelry, a figure dressed as a Red Death victim begins to make his way through each room.
   3. Prospero and his guests die when confronting the figure, who is revealed to be nothing but a phantom inside.
5. Conclusion

Step 2: Look at the scope of information presented in each paragraph

The next step, after completing your outline, is to look at the scope of information that is presented in each paragraph. You might find it helpful to go through your outline with a highlighter and highlight the words you've included beneath each paragraph heading that stand out as part of the primary idea of each.

For example, in my second (body) paragraph, the main idea is that Poe's work was heavily influenced by the first gothic novel, and gothic novels had certain traits. Therefore, a good topic sentence that combines all of this information might be:

Topic sentence (para 2)

As an example of gothic sensibilities and influenced by the first gothic novel ever written, Poe's story offers readers a visual masterpiece about death, human frailty, and the impermanence of wealth.

In the same sense, when looking at paragraph 3, we see that the main idea of that paragraph will be a recap of the plot of the short story. Paragraphs such as this one (that summarize plot points) can be especially difficult to write a topic sentence for, which brings us to Step 3.

Step 3: Hook your reader without too many details

The important thing to keep in mind when writing a topic sentence—especially one for a paragraph that contains a lot of information—is to hook your reader without too many details. In other words, your topic sentence should be a broad overview of the information contained in the paragraph but it should avoid offering too many details. Remember, the point of the topic sentence is to encourage your reader to read the rest of the paragraph, not to tell them exactly what details the paragraph contains.

So, returning to the details of paragraph 3, we know the following:

1. The plot centers on Prince Prospero, a wealthy man who attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death.
2. He holds a masquerade ball and decorates the seven rooms of his abbey with each as a different color, each symbolizing a particular stage in life (from birth through death, blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black with a scarlet light).

Therefore, a good topic sentence might read something like this:

Topic sentence (para 3)

When the main character holds a party to escape the Red Death plague, he thinks that he can keep his friends safe, although he had no idea the horror that would await him and his guests.

Step 4: Apply all topic sentences together to create an abstract

This step is to test the strength of all of your topic sentences together once you've written them. Once applied, it is an excellent way to make sure the topic sentences you've created are well-written, don't reveal too much detail, and successfully summarize the main points of each paragraph within your essay without going overboard on word count or description.

When you combine all topic sentences together, the result should be a well-composed abstract of your essay. If supplying an abstract is part of the assignment, consider this a plus!

When we combine the topic sentences we've composed in these steps, along with the topic sentence/hook composed for paragraph one, the result is:

Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" is one of his earliest and most famous works containing important themes of humanity's struggle with acceptance of its own limitations. As an example of gothic sensibilities and influenced by the first gothic novel ever written, Poe's story offers readers a visual masterpiece about death, human frailty, and the impermanence of wealth. When the main character holds a party to escape the Red Death plague, he thinks that he can keep his friends safe, although he had no idea the horror that would await him and his guests.