Steps to Writing Well

A good topic sentence has three main characteristics:

A clear subject
A controlling idea
A strong action verb

Study these characteristics on the chart below.  Note how the controlling idea limits the scope of the topic and controls its development.
Subject Predicate Controlling Idea
1. Many parents face challenges adopting older children
     
2. Misunderstandings can occur between parents and teenagers       
     
3. A school-aged child may experience problems moving to a new   neighborhood
Practice writing topic sentences with the above elements.  Try out complex and compound sentence structures with each topic. Which reads better?  Evaluate the relative importance of each clause within the sentence to answer the question. 
1. (Complex sentence)
 

 
    (Compound)
 

 
2.  (Complex)
 

 
     (Compound)
 

 
3.  (Complex)
 

 
     (Compound)