By: Phillip Mattie
Welcome back to my Essay Series – learn how to write essay with english tutoring online! Part three has officially arrived, so please, sit back, get a cup of hot coffee, and read on. Again, please read the first two entries of my Essay Series before reading this one; it will make much more sense. Trust me.
This third (and most spectacular) entry is on a very simple, albeit thought provoking, subject. This subject, the supporting details of body paragraphs, is something that many students initially struggle with. Because it is difficult to distinguish a topic sentence from supporting details.
Hopefully, the question you are asking right now is this: What makes supporting details any different from a topic sentence? You see, supporting details for a GED or diploma exam is the ideas behind the topic sentence. Exactly what ideas do you use to exemplify or explain your topic sentence–that is what constitutes a supporting detail.
Right now, if you have followed my series, you will have completed the brainstorming process and finished three stunning, mind-blowing topic sentences with english tutoring online. You will also have carved out an introduction, complete with a razor-sharp hook, background information on the essay topic, and a slick, strongly worded thesis statement that supports an opinion.
Check those off of your list. Your next job is to fill out those topic sentences you made in the brainstorming stage with ideas that support them.
Fill Out the Topics
First thing’s first. Just like real estate, supporting details are all about location, location, location. Take your first topic statement–the least important one. Here’s mine (from part one): “A good parent participates in their son or daughter’s life.” Settle that first topic sentence directly after your introduction.
Of course, please create a new paragraph in doing so. Note, remember to use the least important to most important topic sentence formula to create a strong flow to your body paragraphs. You can take help of English tutoring clasess to know how to write essay and how to make sentences as well.
Once you have placed your first topic sentence after the introduction, you are now ready to support that topic sentence with examples. The examples you use in your essay will in large part depend on your own personal experience, thoughts, and opinions.
The supporting details for my first topic sentence, for example, would have examples of how my parents were active participators in my upbringing. And most importantly, of why I think it is an important thing for parents to do, how it makes them successful.
It sounds like a lot to do in a short space, but it is entirely possible. Here’s a tip to help clean up your supporting details: Focus on one single personal experience. Squeeze that experience as if it were a wet rag, getting as much out of it as possible.
For example, I had a student who always had trouble writing supporting details. He had no trouble with brainstorming or topic sentences, but when it came to writing supporting details. He would always draw a blank. I told him again and again, “Think personally.
What have you experienced in your life that relates to your topic sentence? Use it!” He would ponder for a moment, then write a quick sentence about his own life as a supporting detail. Then, he would write about how that event was important to him and how it made him feel. See what I did there?
Use your Experience to Write an Essay : English Tutoring Online
My next and most obvious point, though it must be said, is this: Don’t be afraid to use your own experiences. It adds to the feeling and flow of your argument, as you can clearly see in my previous paragraph. It gives validity to your opinions while making your reader and audience believe in your opinion and thesis statement. I once told a student that you can absolutely make up a personal experience.
The test marker and your audience will never know that you lied. But, to me, I would rather write an essay honestly and feel no regret that I made up some sentimental story in order to get in my audience’s good books. What you read here is the real deal, and I sincerely hope you take my advice on this. You will always have a valid, valuable personal example which means more to you than one you could have made up.
Focus on Topic
Next, stay on topic. This point is integral, and marks will be deducted if you do not fulfil this requirement. However, fulfilling this requirement is rather simple. All I mean in saying “stay on topic,” is this: If your topic sentence is about parents being active participators in a son or daughter’s life, do not write supporting details . All you have to do is relate your supporting details to your topic somehow and you will fulfil the requirement when you write an essay.
Do these steps for each topic sentence. Begin a new paragraph for each topic sentence from least to most important. After you have created a new paragraph with a new topic sentence, use a personal experience or observation to detail and give meaning to the topic and you are all set.
Edit each paragraph to make sure that each paragraph’s supporting details are on topic and relate to the topic sentence. Congratulations! All that is left is to write a conclusion, which I will discuss in my next segment.
And now for the moment you have been waiting for! My example body paragraph, complete with a topic sentence and supporting details when I write an essay.
A good parent participates in their son or daughter’s life. My own parents put me in Karate class when I was a young boy. My father joined the class or english tutoring online.
He could have put me in the class to get me out of his hair, but instead he was an active participant in my activities, and I love him the more for it. Memories like this one are the reason I think good parents should be active participators in their son or daughter’s lives as this will help them with studies.