Which of the statements would best serve as a topic sentence for a paragraph?
a) walt whitman changed the way americans thought of poetry.
b) robert frost composed many poems, including mending wall.
c) ralph waldo emerson often walked in the woods surrounding walden pond. d) benjamin franklin ran away from home because his brother was cruel to him.

The statement that would best serve as a topic sentence for a paragraph is A) Walt Whitman changed the way Americans thought of poetry.

Explanation:

A topic sentence has the goal of informing readers on what the paragraph is about. It works as a map of the paragraph, letting readers know where you are going and how you are getting there in terms of the idea being developed. The sentences that come after the topic sentence function as its support, as evidence to defend the topic.

The reason why option A serves best as a topic sentence is the fact that it is more general than the others, allowing for its development throughout a paragraph. How come Walt Whitman changed the way Americans thought of poetry? The rest of the paragraph shall unveil the answer to that.

As for the other sentences, they would serve best as evidence to a topic sentence. B could be explaining why Robert Frost is considered a great poet; C could be detailing where Emerson got inspiration from; and D could be offering insights on Franklin's life history.

i’m writing a memoir and i’ve been given the great suggestion of placing a ‘sub-narrative’ within some of the chapters – sort of, what was going on with me in the grand scheme of things.

i was wondering how to format this so that it is very obvious we are stepping out the of story.

firstly is a change in font from serif to sans workable? i also use dashes for a scene change. was thinking of using a different scene-changer too.

here’s a (shortened) example:

university – or what’s known as ‘uni’ in australia – were some of the best days of my life. where else do you get to potter around in a great location, have very little responsibility, learn lots of things, do lots of things and walk out four years later with a bonus – a degree!

with my university years i had immersed myself into community of intelligent ambitious people. generally everyone had a confidence about themselves. they knew where they were going in life and weren’t threatened by others.

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next normal paragraph continues here…

(sorry couldn’t show the fonts in this comment field)

too much?

the mending wall was written by robert frost