Which would be a better topic sentence?

Question

1. Students of color may face employment issues after being faced with exclusionary discipline at school.
2. Students of color may face employment issues after being exclusionary disciplined at school.
3. Students of color may face employment issues after experiencing exclusionary discipline at school.

Answer 1

Hello Folo,

The third sentence, "Students of color may face employment issues after experiencing exclusionary discipline at school." would make a better topic sentence not only because of its alliteration (with "employment", "experiencing", and "exclusionary" all beginning with the same letter of the alphabet and being located near each other in the sentence's wording), but also because this sentence's grammar is 100% correct (unlike that in the second sentence option above). Also, in the case of the subject of this topic sentence (students of color), the implication that this particular demographic of people may experience discipline in an unjust manner at school and elsewhere is also implied in the given topic sentence and ultimately your paragraph/essay to follow (I presume?).

Answer 2

Hi Folo,

#3 is the best topic sentence because:

1. is using an indirect passing voice. Passive voice tends to weigh down your writing.
2. is grammatically faulty because it is using an adjective to describe the verb instead of an adverb.
3. is using active voice and is using the adjective correctly since it describes the noun.

Hope this helps!

Nadia Greasley (College Writing Tutor)

Answer 3

The third sentence is the right choice. In the first sentence the use of "face" and "faced" in such close proximity is not pleasing to the ear or eye, and the second sentence is clumsy and poorly constructed. Incidentally, "have a hard time in the job market" would be a good replacement for "face employment issues."