English Skills with Readings 8th Edition by John Langan

Exercise 10

The following activity will give you practice in writing an accurate point, or topic sentence-one that is neither too broad nor too narrow for the supporting material in a paragraph. Sometimes you will construct your topic sentence after you have decided which details you want to discuss. An added value of this activity is that it shows you how to write a topic sentence that will exactly match the details you have developed.
Topic sentence: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
a. People who settled the American frontier had to clear dense forests.
b. They had to fight off deadly diseases that threatened them and their animals.
c. The weather, which was unpredictable, sometimes destroyed their crops.
d. Because knowledge of farming methods was limited, they sometimes failed to grow enough food to sustain themselves.