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The topic sentence acts as a kind of summary, and offers the reader an insightful view of the paragraph's main ideas. [3] More than being a mere summary of a paragraph, however, a topic sentence often provides a claim or an insight directly or indirectly related to the thesis. It adds cohesion to an academic text and helps organize ideas not ...
A lead should not serve to be a perfect definition of the subject of the article; a lead should be an introduction to that subject. A great lead would ignite a reader's curiosity and tempt them to read the body of paragraphs below. Therefore, it is not useful to be pedantic and add minor or overly technical aspects of a definition to the lead.
A good example of this is the List of Benet Academy alumni. (See also Format of the first sentence below.) When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including plural forms (particularly if they are unusual or confusing) or synonyms. [E] [F]
Often, summarizing highly technical details can improve the readability of the text for general readers and experts alike. For example, a long-winded mathematical proof is unlikely to be read by either a general reader or an expert, but a short summary of the proof can inform a general reader without reducing the usefulness to an expert reader.
All the sentences within a paragraph should revolve around the same topic. When the topic changes, a new paragraph should be started. Overly long paragraphs should be split up, as long as the cousin paragraphs keep the idea in focus. One-sentence paragraphs can be emphatic, and should be used sparingly.
In a book of technical writing, the introduction may include one or more standard subsections: abstract or summary, preface, acknowledgments, and foreword.Alternatively, the section labeled introduction itself may be a brief section found along with abstract, foreword, etc. (rather than containing them).
An article's content should begin with an introductory lead section – a concise summary of the article – which is never divided into sections (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section). The remainder of the article is typically divided into sections. Infoboxes, images, and related content in the lead section must be right-aligned.
Below this summary is a detailed example, showing the text before and after, and explaining the steps. Organize the section by thematic element. Group reviewer sentiment by theme to improve its flow and avoid haphazardly juxtaposed ideas. For example, video game articles will have separate paragraphs on gameplay and technical audiovisuals.