Topic Sentence都不知道，还怎么好意思混学术圈？

陈功

有时候，拿到大家的文章，读起来很费劲，总是不知道文章想说什么。仔细读来，语法基本没错，语言还算流畅，句子尚且连贯，但是一遍读完，总觉得缺了点什么。我们先来看一个例子：

X building is located in the southwest of the campus. The clean windows overlook a lawn of waving grass and the spiral staircase descends from the platform on the second floor. If you appreciate the building carefully, it is not hard to catch sight of the cafe under the stairs，which is rather convenient for students and staffs to relax themselves. The reason why I fancy it so much is that there is a second-hand bookstore lying on the fourth floor. In the bookshop，we can easily find the books with low prices and high quality.

这是我的一位学生对一个建筑物的描写。你觉得这段话想告诉大家什么呢？这个建筑的位置？环境？外观？还是用途？学生回答，其实我就是想说这个楼挺好的。好吧，为什么不把“其实”后面的那句话直接写出来呢？修改如下：

X building, located in the southwest of the campus, is gorgeous. The clean windows overlook a lawn of waving grass and the spiral staircase descends from the platform on the second floor. If you appreciate the building carefully, it is not hard to catch sight of the cafe under the stairs，which is rather convenient for students and staffs to relax themselves. The reason why I fancy it so much is that there is a second-hand bookstore lying on the fourth floor. In the bookshop, we can easily find the books with low prices and high quality.

其实也就修改了第一句话，但是这样写会不会稍微明白一些呢？大家可能会说，这个“gorgeous”看起来也不是很高大上啊，为什么加上它就会觉得好点呢？

柯林斯词典给“gorgeous”的释义是“If you say that something is gorgeous, you mean that it gives you a lot of pleasure or is very attractive.”

再看作者后面写的内容，确实如此啊！这个楼的环境和外观都不错，还有方便舒适的咖啡厅，还有作者喜欢的二手书店，“gorgeous”这个词用在这里还是比较合适的吧。

就这么一句话的修改，就让整个段落看起来有了焦点，有了情感和态度。

这就是topic sentence的力量！

看一下书上是怎么定义这个topic sentence的：

A topic sentence states the main idea of a paragraph. It is the most general sentence of the paragraph. All the other sentences serve to explain, describe, extend, or support this main-idea sentence. （Scarry & Scarry 2010:318）

看完这个就明白了吧？topic sentence是有统领作用的。所以我们写作文要养成好习惯，先把主要意思说出来，然后再慢慢说明或论证。

当然topic sentence并不总是一段话的第一句，有可能是第二句或最后一句。但是，我建议大家，如果没有把握，先学会把topic sentence放到第一句，这样有助于大家聚焦写作思路，避免跑偏。

最后还得提醒大家一句，这里说的topic sentence只适用于文章的主体段落哦（Body Paragraphs）！开头段和结尾段的写法是不一样的，今后我们再做探讨。