Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The opening sentence or opening line stands at the beginning of a written work. The opening line is part or all of the opening sentence that may start the lead paragraph . For older texts the Latin term incipit ('it begins') is in use for the very first words of the opening sentence.
The essay is to consist of an introduction three or more sentences long and containing a thesis statement, a conclusion incorporating all the writer's commentary and bringing the essay to a close, and two or three body paragraphs; Schaffer herself preferred to teach a four-paragraph essay rather than the traditional five-paragraph essay.
Do not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. Instead, spread the relevant information out over the entire lead. Avoid cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthetical containing items like alternative spellings and pronunciations: these can make the sentence difficult to read.
A lead paragraph (sometimes shortened to lead; in the United States sometimes spelled lede) is the opening paragraph of an article, book chapter, or other written work that summarizes its main ideas. [1] Styles vary widely among the different types and genres of publications, from journalistic news-style leads to a more encyclopaedic variety.
A paragraph (from Ancient Greek παράγραφος (parágraphos) 'to write beside') is a self-contained unit of discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea. Though not required by the orthographic conventions of any language with a writing system , paragraphs are a conventional means of organizing extended segments of prose .
In expository writing, a topic sentence is a sentence that summarizes the main idea of a paragraph. [1] [2] It is usually the first sentence in a paragraph. Also known as a focus sentence, it encapsulates or organizes an entire paragraph. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the ...
Finally, the last sentence of the first paragraph of such an essay would state the thesis the author is trying to prove. The thesis is often linked to a "road map" for the essay, which is basically an embedded outline stating precisely what the three body paragraphs will address and giving the items in the order of the presentation.
In writing and editorial practice, authors and editors use the pilcrow glyph to indicate the start of separate paragraphs, and to identify a new paragraph within a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill. [2]