This is the fourth of a number of posts on Essay Writing. For more in depth help on writing successful essays, enrol in our holiday program essay writing classes for Year 7-10 or Year 11-12.
Tip 4: Write a topic sentence that indicates how you are going to answer the question.
This is basically the exercise of constructing a thesis/topic sentence. Your topic sentence is important for constructing the rest of the essay, as it clarifies the position that you are going to argue. Once you have developed the topic sentence, you can ensure that each paragraph of the essay directly supports and demonstrates this thesis. Otherwise, you will most likely waste time and words discussing evidence that is not related or only loosely related to the question, because you are not clear what position you are arguing.
A clear topic sentence will also clarify for the marker what you will be arguing, so they can give you marks for every piece of information that addresses that argument.
The questions we have been considering in these tips is:
Discuss how text 1 positions readers to respond to ideas.
So, we need to develop a sentence that address how the relevant text positions the reader to respond to the ideas that are present in the text. As an example, a topic sentence related to Craig Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones, which was discussed in Tip #3, might be:
Craig Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones explores the issue of racism. Through narrative conventions such as first person point of view the reader is positioned to feel outrage at the racist and discriminatory attitudes that existed in rural towns in Western Australia in the mid twentieth century.
Make sure you are clear on your thesis, as it is the basis on which you construct the rest of your essay!