We've worked through our introduction. And now it's time to work through our body paragraphs. In our scaffold, where we have say what you're going to say, say it and say what you just said, we're in the say it phase of our argument. And in this video, we're going to work on topic sentences. What is a topic sentence? A topic sentence in the first sentence of every paragraph. The topic sentence does two vitally important things for you as the writer. One, it gives your reader a signpost on their journey through your document. You provided a roadmap in your introduction. Your topic sentences provide signposts so that your reader knows exactly where they are on their map or to put it another way. Strong topic sentences paired with a roadmap puts you, the writer in the driver seat. You're controlling the reading experience and guiding your reader precisely through your document so that they can't get lost or deviate from the argument that you want to make or the information that you want to impart. You stay in control, you're the authority and that's exactly what we want. 2, the second thing that a strong topic sentence does is serve as a signpost for you, the writer. The topic sentence tells you what should go in the paragraph as you write it. Every sentence in the paragraph has to relate to the topic sentence. If it doesn't, then that subject needs to go somewhere else in your document or you just need to cut it. The topic sentence is a self editing tool. Let's work on the topic sentences for our documents so that you can get a sense for how this works in a real application. Normally for my process, I would work through a document and draft a paragraph at a time as I went through, you might work differently and that's fine. For the purposes of this lesson, I'm going to go ahead and just draft all three of our topic sentences for each of our three bodied paragraphs so that you can really get a sense for how this works. it will help reinforce the lessons for you. According to our outline, our first topic is Best professional selves. I remember from my brain storm with Dave and William that we're offering our students the ability to achieve success by communicating not just their ideas but themselves in the best possible way. So I'm going to turn that concept in to our first topic sentence. I'm going to write Effective Communication teaches learners how to present not just their ideas, but themselves in the best possible way. That's pretty straight forward. Our second paragraph is about Market need. I want to establish with coursera that there's a market need for this specialization. And I know from my years as a business professional that my ability to write well and present well really helped me get ahead. And I also know that a lot of my smart peers who didn't have those skills struggled with their advancement. I've also done some research and I know that even today, employers are frustrated that their employees don't have these skills. So I'm going to hit on some of that. In spite of their critical nature, employers complaint about the lack of writing and presentation skills amongst their employees. This sentence establishes that in spite of their critical nature, many employees need development on these skills. I'll keep that for our topic sentence for now. But remember at this stage, I'm just trying to construct decent sentences, not perfect ones. I'm just trying to get what I need on the page, where I need it. We'll come back later and revise. Our third paragraph is about Learning outcomes. It's about answering the need I established in the second paragraph. I'm going to keep this one simple and benefit based. Also, I feel like the course title pretty much says it all, Effective Communication: Mastering Business Writing, Graphic Design, and Successful Presentation. The title itself is about learning outcomes, so my reader is already pretty aware. So, I'm going with this as my topic sentence. By the end of this course, students will write well organized, clear documents. They will design impactful, elegant slides, and they will speak with confidence, and power. I noticed something here, which is that I have a list of three points. This is a perfect time to use a bullet-pointed list. I'm going to go ahead and write it like that in my outlines so that I don't forget. Good, our topic sentences are complete. We know what each paragraph of our document is about. We're making progress. Next, we'll flesh out a full paragraph of our memo, but first, the following quiz will give you a chance to test out your knowledge of topic sentences. Give it a shot.
