The University of Cambodia

School of Foreign Languages

ENG001

Writing’s Keywords

1. Topic sentence
2. Thesis statement
3. Supporting sentences (how to have the strong and relevant
supporting sentences?)
4. Coherence (how to have coherence?)
5. Unity (how to have the unity in writing?)
6. Conclusion
Definitions

1. Topic sentence: The first sentence in a paragraph; it introduces the main idea of the
paragraph, it summarizes the main idea of your paragraph, and it indicates to the reader
what your paragraph will be about.
2. Thesis statement: Is the sentence in your essay and tells your reader what the writing is
going to be about and it usually appears at the end of the introduction.
3. Simple sentence: Is a sentence that contains at least one subject and a verb, and express a
complete idea
4. Controlling idea: The main point of writing; it is usually written in either the thesis
statement or the topic sentence; it is an idea that makes a reader asks a question, the
reader will have his or her curiosity raised. (Example, My hometown is an attractive
village: It has friendly villagers – clean environment – paved roads…)
5. Compound sentence: A sentence that has two main clauses, joined by a comma and a
coordinating conjunction, or by a semicolon.
6. Coherence: when words, ideas, sentences, paragraphs are properly
connected from one to another by USING TRANSITIONAL TAGS such as
Subordinating conjunctions: and, but, nor, for, yet, or, (and sometimes) so
and the conjunctive adverbs and transitional expressions such as however,
moreover, nevertheless, on the other hand.
7. Unity: means that each paragraph has only one main idea; Unity is the
quality of oneness in a paragraph or essays that all the words and sentences
are written to support a single main idea.