What is the difference between a Topic Sentence and a "Point"? Different than a Thesis? How do these work together or against one another?

Answer 1

Great question! Writing terms can be very confusing!

A thesis statement typically comes earlier in an essay or article, and it clearly states the main purpose or argument of the essay. As a silly example, let's say I'm writing a paper about great sandwich shops. A simple thesis would be, "Subway is the best sandwich shop because it is healthy and cheap." Notice that I've made an argument for Subway here, and therefore the rest of my paper will explain why Subway is the best.

A point is an idea that supports your thesis statement, which you will write about in the rest of the essay. I actually included two points in my example thesis above: "Subway is the best sandwich shop because it is healthy and cheap." You can think of these like talking points in a speech--I will dedicate some time in my essay to write about how Subway is the best because it has healthy options, and why it's the best because it is affordable.

Finally, a topic sentence is the very first sentence at the beginning of a paragraph. A good topic sentence explains what the paragraph will be about. A good way to test if you're writing effective topic sentences is to read them by themselves, and see if you can understand the gist of the essay. Topic sentences are super important because they help the reader follow the flow of your essay, and keep them interested in what you're saying.

I hope this makes sense, and feel free to reach out with any more questions!

Answer 2

A topic sentence is usually meant to be an opener for your individual paragraphs. A point is different than a topic sentence such that it may not be a complete idea if you are writing it in draft format, or it is just additional information to the main topic at hand (which would be the topic sentence). In other words, the topic sentence is the main idea of the paragraph, and the point is the additional supporting evidence of the topic sentence.

It is much different than a thesis since a thesis or thesis statement is the main idea for potentially your entire written work. If you think of it like a bunch of connecting branches it would flow as thesis statement, topic sentence, point (with paragraph included).

For example, I will create a scenario of a written topic on why dogs are cute. The thesis statement would be 3-5 sentences almost summarizing this point, but not giving so much away that the paper would not be interesting to read. Then, a topic sentence such as “Dogs are proven to be loved by most people due to them resembling the cuteness of babies.” That would be followed by a paragraph, and within that paragraph would be your point that dogs although compared to babies are still very cute.

Answer 3

The "point" of something is not necessarily meant to be a sentence. If you were going to write a paper about the lives of lions then the point of the paper is "the lives of lions." That is not a thesis statement nor a topic sentence. It isn't a full sentence. The point of a paper can be pretty general.

A thesis statement tells what specifically you are going to discuss in the whole paper. For example, if we're talking about lions but specifically going to discuss the eating habits of lions, the structure of a pride of lions and the kinds of environments that lions live in, your thesis would state those. It is more specific that the "point" of a paper.

A topic sentence is meant to introduce what the point of a paragraph is. For example, if I want to discuss the eating habits of lions your topic sentence could be "Lions are fierce predators." The point of the sentence is the eating habits of lions.