Composition exam

Topic Sentence

A topic sentece has a subject or topic and a ontrolling idea, the topic is what you intend to write about. The controlling idea is what you intend to do with your topic,

Guidelines:

  • It should Identify the main idea and point of the paragraph

  • the supporting details will develop or explain the topic sentence

  • the topic sentence should not be too general ot too specific. General idea of the paragraph

Example: Driving on freeways requires skill and alertness.

Driving on free ways is the subject and requires skill and alertness is the supportive sentence.

Supporting Sentence

The second and third sentences are called supportive sentences. They are called supportive because they support or explain the idea expressed in the topic sentence.

The topic sentences is the question and the supportive sentence is the anwser.

Goals of the supporting sentence:

  • explain, the family moved from the village to the capital for economic reasons.

  • descrive, she lived in a lovely three-story castle surronded by a forest.

  • guive facts, more tha 10% of the university’s student population is international.

  • exemplify, different types of fruit grow in California, such as oranges and grapefruit.

  • define, many tourist visit Bangkok, which is the capital and largest city in Thailand.

Concluding Sentence

Is the last sentence of the paragraph. It concludes or wraps up a paragraph.

A concluding sentence often has one of those four important purpose.

  • It restates the main idea.

  • It offers a suggestion.

  • It gives an opinion.

  • It makes a prediction.

Examples: surely, in brief, thus, overall, as a result, therefore, for this reason.

An effective concluding sentence draws together all the ideas raised in your paragraph.

Elements to take into account when writting:

Audience, tone and purpose

Purpose and audience

Consider purpose and audience, understanding how you can relate that. These two elements affect writting significatly, and decisions about one affect the other.

When we talk about purpose, we are talking about the reasons that a writer has.

Example:

  • a book review: to advice, analyze, to inform

  • an autobiography: description, inform, entertrain

  • a letter asking for a charity donation: persuade

  • a news article: to inform, persuade

  • a self-help book, advice

Audience

Audience can be divided into two categories: academic and non academic.

Types of audience

Primary: planned reader

Secondary: those who hear the information from the primary

Tone

Tone usually refers to how a write uses certains words in a specific way to convey non-verbal observation about specific subjects.

Tone is conveyed through:

  • diction, choise and use of words and phrase, imagery

  • viewpoint, opinion about a topic

  • syntax, grammar, how you put words and phrases together

  • level of formality, it is the way you express yorself

Find a tone

  • why I am writing this?

  • who is my intented audience?+

  • what do i want the reader to learn, understand, think about?

Basic types of tones in writing

Any emotion, any attitude, and any perspective can lay the foundation for a specific tone in writing. Use adjectives.

Tone can be: joyful, serius, humorous, sad, formal, informal, optimistic, pesimistic, horror

Tone, mood, technique, and purpose of the author

The tone: author’s attitude towards the topic express what the author wants. The tone can be objective, impartial, no feelings and mostly facts. Or subjective, feelings and thoughts, personal, biased and emotion.

Mood: the feelings the reader gets

Technique: refers to the manner the author writes

Purpose: to inform, to entertain, to persuade.