Main Ideas in Paragraphs
Determining the Topic of a Paragraph
The topic of a paragraph—what that paragraph is about—can usually be determined within the first or second sentence. Even if a paragraph includes several specific points, it most likely focuses on a single general topic. For example, the topic of the paragraph below is communication in living creatures:
Nearly all living creatures manage some form of communication. The dance pattern of bees in their hive help to point the way to distant flower fields or announce successful foraging. Male stickleback fish regularly swim upside-down to indicate outrage in a courtship contest. Male deer and lemurs mark territorial ownership by rubbing their own body secretions on boundary stones or trees. Everyone has seen a frightened dog put his tail between his legs and run in panic. We, too, use gestures, expressions, postures, and movement to give our words point.
(Olivia Vlahos, Human Beginnings)
Practice Determining the Topic of a Paragraph
Identifying the Topic Sentence
In much of the reading you do for school, especially in textbooks, you will find a paragraph’s main idea spelled out in a sentence. This stated main idea expresses the author’s key point about the topic; it is usually called the topic sentence but is sometimes referred to as the main idea statement because an author may use more than one sentence to express the main idea. In either case, the topic sentence or main idea statement best answers the question “What is the most important thing being said about the topic in this passage?”
One way to identify the main idea in a paragraph is to look for the most general opinion or point of view being expressed. The most general opinion is the broadest one, the viewpoint that covers or includes all the narrower or more specific ideas. Very often, the topic sentence is the first sentence in the paragraph, as in the following example:
Nearly all living creatures manage some form of communication. The dance pattern of bees in their hive help to point the way to distant flower fields or announce successful foraging. Male stickleback fish regularly swim upside-down to indicate outrage in a courtship contest. Male deer and lemurs mark territorial ownership by rubbing their own body secretions on boundary stones or trees. Everyone has seen a frightened dog put his tail between his legs and run in panic. We, too, use gestures, expressions, postures, and movement to give our words point.
(Olivia Vlahos, Human Beginnings)
In this paragraph, the most general statement is: "Nearly all living creatures manage some form of communication." The sentences that follow it offer examples that support this main idea. Notice that the topic sentence is the only one that can be connected to every other statement in the paragraph.
Practice Identifying the Topic Sentences in Paragraphs
Topic Sentences do not always come first in a paragraph. Sometimes a paragraph opens with one or more transitional sentences to connect to the previous paragraph in the reading:
The television campaign includes political advertising. Televised commercials are by far the most expensive part of presidential campaigns. Since 1976, political commercials on television have accounted for about half of the candidates’ expenditures in the general election campaign. In 1992 George Bush and Bill Clinton each spent more than $30 million on advertising in the general election, and Ross Perot spent even more. Perot relied heavily on “infomercials”— 30-minute and hour-long commercials that emphasized substance over slogans.
(Thomas E. Patterson, American Democracy)
Other times, a writer may choose the build up to the topic sentence, placing it at or near the very end of the paragraph:
Journalists have historically viewed themselves as independent professionals providing a public service: gathering and delivering the facts about current events to the public. Some have accused PR professionals of distorting the facts to serve their clients’ interests. Yet journalists rely heavily on public relations practitioners to provide the information used in creating news reports. Many editors, for instance, admit that more than half of their story ideas each day originate from PR work such as press releases. In the face of newspaper staff cutbacks and television’s growing need to cover local news events, professionals in the news media need PR story ideas more than ever. This doesn’t sit comfortably with some journalists.
(Richard Campbell, Christopher R. Martin, and Bettina Fabos, Media Essentials: A Brief Introduction)
When you are uncertain about the main idea of a paragraph, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does the sentence contain the topic of the paragraph?
- Does the sentence state the most important point about the topic?
- Is the sentence more general than other sentences in the paragraph?
- Do the other sentences in the paragraph provide more information about the main idea sentence?
Be aware that not every paragraph contains a topic sentence. Some paragraphs in a reading may simply develop the idea of a previous paragraph. Other paragraphs may serve as bridges or transitions between different parts of the selection.
Recognizing Implied Main Ideas in Paragraphs
Sometimes a writer will not state the main idea directly. In this case, the main idea is implied, or suggested, rather than directly stated. When no single sentence in a paragraph or passage states the main idea directly, you can usually infer it, or figure it out, by looking carefully at the facts and details that are provided.
Just as you did when reading paragraphs and passages with stated main ideas, ask yourself a few questions to determine an implied main idea:
- What is the topic of the paragraph or passage?
- How are the details related to one another?
- What idea do the details tell you about the topic?
Once you can answer these questions, you are ready to write out the main idea in a sentence of your own. Consider the following paragraph from the 1994 essay “Sexism in English: A 1990s Update” by Alleen Pace Nilsen:
Etiquette books used to teach that if a woman had Mrs. in front of her name then the husband’s name should follow because Mrs. is an abbreviated form of Mistress and a woman couldn’t be a mistress of herself. As with many arguments about “correct” language usage, this isn’t very logical because Miss is also an abbreviation of Mistress. Feminists hoped to simplify matters by introducing Ms. as an alternative to both Mrs. and Miss, but what happened is that Ms. largely replaced Miss to become a catch-all business title for women. Many married women still prefer the title Mrs., and some resent being addressed with the term Ms. As one frustrated newspaper reporter complained, “Before I can write about a woman, I have to know not only her marital status but also her political philosophy.” The result of such complications may contribute to the demise of titles which are already being ignored by many computer programmers who find it more efficient to simply use names; for example in a business letter: “Dear Joan Garcia,” instead of “Dear Mrs. Joan Garcia,” “Dear Ms. Garcia,” or “Dear Mrs. Louis Garcia.”
What is missing from this paragraph, and what readers therefore need to infer, is a sentence like the following: “There is much confusion today about an acceptable way to address women.” A logical place to put this sentence, were it included, would be at the beginning of the paragraph. The middle of the paragraph includes numerous examples, and the end of it carries Nilsen’s argument a bit further by suggesting that the confusion she describes might lead to the abandonment of titles for women.