A Study of Topic Sentence Use in Academic Writing

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Abstract
This study examines topic sentences in the academic article context—specifically in articles by professors in biochemistry, civil engineering, history, literature, physics, psychology, and sociology. By using propositional analysis and adapting procedures originally devised by Braddock, the investigation centers on (1) percentage of minor topic sentences, (2) combined percentage of minor and major topic sentences, and (3) percentage of topic sentence “influence.” These three indices show how heavily writers in the corpus rely on topic sentences, although there are variations across disciplines. These variations may be attributed to paragraph length, whole-text structure, or even conventional preferences. However, even when they do not use topic sentences, writers in some disciplines use topic sentence-like features (headings) for the same purposes. Conjecture is that special content and coherence demands make topic sentences a standard feature in academic articles.

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