Defining
your topics - First and foremost, a topic sentence is a piece of
analysis, NOT summary. Think of it in a similar manner to how
you thought of your thesis; in other words, an original interpretation based
upon the textual evidence of your source. The first of the following examples
illustrates a statement of fact, rather than an argumentative topic sentence.
Weak
Topic Sentence: "Book Five of
Paradise Lost concentrates on the
conversation between Adam and the archangel
Raphael.”
Strong
Topic Sentence:
"Throughout Book Five, Milton utilizes
images of gardening and nourishment to convey
man's maturing relationship to the divine."
Relationship
of topics to thesis -
Your topic statements should each provide a solid area of analysis by which
your thesis is true. They should, however, be more specific than a mere
restatement of part of it.
Thesis:
"In Journey Through the Twelve Forests,
David Haberman apprehends the Ban-Yatra pilgrimage
as a realization of the god Krishna's
omnipresence, through separate realizations of the
journey's cyclical nature, the externalization
of the divine, and the relationship between
asceticism and pleasure."
Topic
Sentence for Second Paragraph:
"Throughout the narrative, the physical
relationship of the pilgrim to the natural
landscape of Braj, as well as worshipped
images of Krishna and other deities, reflects
the presence of Krishna as an interactive
externality, rather than the occupant of
an inaccessible sphere."
