Topic Sentence
Primary Support Sentences
Secondary Support Sentences
1

Topic Sentence (Topic + CI)
◦ Primary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
◦ Primary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
◦ Primary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
 Secondary Support Sentence
◦ Concluding Sentence
(Transitions)

Topic Sentence =
◦ Topic + Controlling Idea
 Topic = what being discussed
 Controlling Idea = what specifically are you going to
say about the topic
Samples:
a. For
most people, the boredom of day-today living is broken only by a vacation.
b. Road rage is a dangerous expression of the
frustrations of driving.
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

Defined: A sentence that states one of the
key (primary) points of the Controlling Idea in
the paragraph
How do you come up with Primary Support
points?
◦ Read your topic sentence and ask “how?” and “why?”
◦ Answers to those questions then become your 3-5
PS points
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a.
b.
c.
For most people, the monotony of day-today living is broken only by a vacation.
Road rage is a dangerous expression of the
frustrations of driving.
Working for good grades can interfere with
learning.
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

Defined: A sentence that has explanations,
examples, statistics, description, etc. about
the Primary Support sentence it follows.
How do you come up with Secondary Support
Sentences?
◦ Read each Primary Support Sentence and ask
◦ “What type of support does this sentence need to
make its point clearer? Does it need a definition?
An example? A story? Some data?”
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At times football can get grueling which makes the
game even more exciting. The first time you make
contact with another player even with all that
equipment you get very sore. That is true for
everyone, but in time you get used to the aches
and pains. After awhile, you develop mental
discipline which allows you to ignore some of the
pain. The mental discipline then allows you to go
all out, to unload everything you have in every play.
Another way the game is grueling is having to learn
all of the plays and signals. That can be very hard
to remember in the game because there is so much
going on. All in all, football is a grueling game.
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