TECHNICAL WRITING

In writing a paragraph or an essay, your chief guides are the:

Thesis statement the central idea of a multiple-paragraph composition.

It is a one sentence summary that guides, controls and unifies ideas when
writing a paper.
All the other ideas in an essay revolve around the thesis statement
Accuracy in a thesis statement: One subject, at least two arguments.
How to Write an Effective Thesis Statement:
1. It should be written in a complete sentence with a clearly stated subject.
2. It should not be too narrow nor too broad, and it should contain at least two details
3. Avoid an awkward thesis statement which states the obvious. These statements
usually start with I will tell you or I will talk about
4. Enumerated details should have the same level of significance. If one of the details
can be classified under another detail you can omit it.
5. It should not state an absolute fact because it will not present any central idea that
can be developed further. It should have a point.

Topic Sentence guides, controls, and unifies ideas in a paragraph. It develops one argument
of the thesis statement.
Can either be explicitly or implicitly stated.
An explicitly stated topic sentence can be placed in three different location:
at the beginning, at the end, at the middle.
An implied topic sentence is not directly seen in a paragraph. It is up to the
readers to deduce what the topic sentence is.
The Topic Sentence in your paragraph is then reinforced by supporting details.
The thesis statement and the topic sentence re very much related to each other. Basically, the
topic sentence develops the details in the thesis statement.
If the thesis statement contains two details, then the paper will have two topic sentences.
A topic sentence has one subject (similar to the subject of the thesis statement) and one detail.
 TECHNICAL WRITING

TIPS IN WRITING AN EFFECTIVE TOPIC SENTENCE

1. It should follow the basics already discussed in the thesis statement
It must be written in a complete sentence and with a clear subject.
It should not be phrased awkwardly and it should not state the obvious. An
awkward topic sentence begins with I will tell you

2. It should contain one detail which is related to one of the details in the thesis statement.
3. It should vary in structure across paragraphs. If the topic sentences are uniform
throughout your essay, they might seem monotonous to read. Varying the structure will
also enable you to stress important parts.
4. If the composition is just one paragraph, the topic sentence should be straight-forward.

SUPPORTING DETAILS
A composition is incomplete without the supporting details. These details are pieces of
information necessary to better understand the main idea. They can be facts, reasons,
testimonies, statistics, and experiments that support the topic sentence.

Supporting Details are divided into two levels:

1. Major Details --- directly support the topic sentence
2. Minor Details --- directly support the major detail.