Writing Skills 1
Writing Skills 1
• Dear User, this course is prepared on the
reguest of the University Senate and may or may not reflect what I do in the actual
classroom. Classroom dynamics and online
course dynamics have nothing to do with each other.
• Hereby you will see learn some practical hints on writing.
Writing Skills 1
• The smallest unit of writing is sentence but we will skip it and continue with paragraph.
Please try to define what a paragraph is. Write your definition in a notebook or whatever
medium you use. Then check the dictionaries.
Writing Skills 1
• A paragraph is a group of sentences.
• It is minimum 4 sentences and max 8-10.
• It is easy to define the minimum but difficult to define the maximum number.
• The minimum number: One for topic
sentence, one for major idea, one for minor idea and one for the conclusive statement.
Writing Skills 1
• Topic Sentence is the sentence that states your purpose in writing this paragraph. That sentence is the ultimate reason of existence of the paragraph. If you do not state your purpose in a sentence, then the audience will have difficulty understanding the paragraph.
• It is generally the first or the second sentence of the paragraph.
• The first sentence might be sentence that leads to your purpose. In this case, topic sentence ,is the second in the paragraph.
Writing Skills 1
• Major Idea is an idea that directly explains the topic sentence. In that respect, sentences that explain the topic sentence are of secondary
importance in the paragraph.
• It is rarely difficult to explain an idea in a sentence so major idea might be of two or
three sentences depending on the complexity of the topic sentence.
Writing Skills 1
• Sentences that further explain, exemplify or illustrate the major idea is called Minor idea. This is the third component of the paragraph.
• Minor idea can exemplify or further explain. Because the minor ideas may change (you can pick one or the other), they are less important than major ideas.
• You can spare one or more sentences for the minor idea.
• They indirectly support the topic sentence.
Writing Skills 1
• The last component of the paragraph is the
Concusive Statement. It is the sentence at the end of the paragraph which summarizes the paragraph or makes a deduction about the topic of the paragraph.
• If the last sentence does not carry out one of those functions, its only a sentence, not a conclusive
statement.
• Conclusive statement should be just one sentence in a reasonable paragraph.
Writing Skills 1
• Structurally Topic sentence, major idea, minor idea and conclusive statement are the
components of the paragraph. They are
indispensable to a good paragraph. It is very, very, very difficult to write a good paragraph when one of them is missing.
Writing Skills 1
• So the magic of “minimum four sentences”
rule is made clear. How about max limit?
• It is next week’s topic. Now find paragraphs from the media available to you and try to distinguish between the elements of the paragraph.
Writing Skills 1
