all right hey everybody welcome to the first smart live class i'm very excited to be here i'm

sean i'm going to be your teacher for today for the next uh 45 minutes or so we've got i'm sure
you guys have have already noticed you've got lane who's our friendly moderator there to
help you guys out um during the stream if you guys have uh questions about anything that i'm
talking about if you missed something you need me to to repeat it or anything at all just put it
in the in the chat and we'll do our best to answer all of your questions or as many as we can
and let's get let's get started i thought because it was our first class because so many students
have trouble with or have challenges with writing academic writing that that's where we
would start today okay so i thought that we would start with some basics on of academic
writing therefore we're going to start with really the the basics of paragraph writing okay so if
if anybody is already a a student of smart i'm going to tell you where you can go and if you're
not then don't worry about it because we're going to share some documents and exercises
with you as we go okay so let's let's get started all right here we go all right so if you are a
student of smart we're going to be in english 125 today okay and we're going to start with
writing one writing a paragraph okay i'll just show you that so that you can direct yourself uh
to that lesson and then i'm going to put something else on my screen okay again if you're not
a student in smart don't worry about it um you'll have lots to to do and see today okay all
right so let's start with this okay writing a paragraph really any good essay any good writing
assignment is really dependent on the ability to write a strong paragraph so i wanted to keep
it simple today and and look at that how do you write a strong paragraph okay so let's start
with the most obvious question is a simple one what is a paragraph okay what is a paragraph
a paragraph is a group of sentences that share one idea it's not just a bunch of sentences
together but it's really important that these sentences have one unifying idea that kind of
keeps them related and connected okay so this is what we're going to look at today is
paragraphs paragraph structure and how to write a strong one okay and again if at any time
you guys have questions throw them into the into the chat and we'll get to you okay so most
paragraphs the basic paragraph has the same basic structure as every other paragraph okay a
three-part structure and i'm sure some of you have have seen this before the basic paragraph
structure is topic sentence supporting sentences concluding sentence okay basically every
paragraph that you see every paragraph that you write is going to have this same three-part
sequence and i thought we would start by focusing on the topic sentence really every
paragraph starts with the topic sentence every strong paragraph stems from a strong topic
sentence okay so what is the topic sentence is the question um the topic sentence usually but
not always is going to be the first or second sentence in a paragraph okay um it's important to
keep in mind though that what we're looking at today is writing and not reading now
sometimes in a class if if if you're doing a reading exercise and you're looking for the main
idea of a paragraph it could be really anywhere because an experienced writer can put the
main idea or the topic sentence anywhere in the paragraph that they want but for students i
usually advise them to put the topic sentence in the first one or two sentences of the
paragraph okay so let's talk about what the topic sentence is all right the topic sentence
presents the main idea of the paragraph and it controls the focus and the direction of the
paragraph okay so everything else in the paragraph all of the other sentences stem from the
main idea that is put in in the topic sentence so that's why it's really important to be able to
have a strong one okay so i can't overestimate the importance of a of a strong topic sentence
which brings me to kind of my first question for you guys okay and i'm i'm actually going to
remove myself from the screen for a moment so that you can take 30 seconds to maybe a
minute and just look at these four sentences and decide which of them do you think would
make a strong topic sentence for a paragraph okay as you look through it again feel free to
toss your answer into the chat and and then we'll discuss it together okay so i'm going to
remove myself from the screen take 30 seconds to a minute look at each one and and decide
which of these do you think would make a strong topic sentence for a paragraph okay go
ahead uh all right i love that music happy music okay so really the only the only thing i
wanted you guys to do is is look at the four sentences and decide which do you think makes a
strong topic sentence okay so let's look at them together number one it says canada shares a
border with the united states okay in this case here let me let me go over here canada shares a
border with the united states now this is not a strong topic sentence now let me tell you why
this is a very common mistake that students make writing a topic sentence like this the
problem with this topic sentence is that it is too narrow okay so when i say it's too narrow it
means it's it's too specific now in this case canada shares a border with the united states that is
a fact okay so a key thing to remember when it comes to topic sentences and paragraph
writing is a topic sentence should never be a fact because the main idea of the topic sentence
the topic sentence has to contain something that your supporting sentences will develop okay
now if you have a fact as the main idea there's really nothing there for the supporting
sentences to add to it so that's why you can't have it too narrow no facts of the topic sentence
as i said here it needs an idea some some kind of feeling some kind of opinion or something
like that that you can expand on and develop and we'll talk more about how to develop that a
little bit later okay so number one um not a good topic sentence is too narrow how about
number two studying is difficult all right now some of you may agree with this uh sentence
but again this is not a great topic sentence either and this is a mistake for the opposite reason
as the first one in this case the sentence is too broad now what i mean by that is that it's it's
too big of an idea to really be uh dealt with in a single paragraph there's it's not specific
enough so a good topic sentence has to be somewhere between being too narrow and too
broad you want it to be specific but not too specific that it's a fact so it's a very delicate kind
of balance that you have to hit there with a good topic sentence now in this case how can you
make it more specific you have to ask things like what and who so studying is difficult
studying what for example or difficult for whom who finds studying difficult okay so again
number two not a good topic sentence but a very again a common mistake that students make
in their writing so let's look at number three hopefully we'll we'll do better with that one so
why traditional values are disappearing so this is also not a very good topic sentence i i'm it's
been kind of a trick question actually i think i'm trying to trick you a little bit um why
traditional values are disappearing is not a good topic sentence because it's just an incomplete
sentence it's grammatically incomplete so not only do you need your idea to be not too broad
or too narrow but you have to make sure that your sentence is grammatically correct and in
this case this is what we call a sentence fragment which again we'll deal with uh in another
lesson more specifically but the problem here is that you've got a question word at the
beginning of this of this clause there you've got a your subject and your verb but the subject
and verb are not inverted so this is not a question because you see there's a period there too so
it looks like a question but it's it's not quite it's actually what we call a noun clause
grammatically incomplete and and therefore not a good topic sentence right uh i so i am kind
of tricking you as people are kind of noticing in the in the chat over there so let's look at
number four i would like to discuss in this paragraph the growing concern about air pollution
in my city now this one's i mean it looks better right than the other ones but it's still
problematic it's still not a good topic sentence and here's why what you don't want to do in in
academic writing you don't want to announce your topic and you don't want to announce your
intentions so little phrases like i would like to discuss you don't want to start a sentence with
that don't announce what you're going to talk about and don't refer to yourself as well words
like i or me or my typically in academic writing you want to avoid that kind of stuff okay also
in this paragraph try not to refer to the actual paragraph or or essay itself right now it's
important to remember that different things for different situations so if you have a
presentation to give in class this type of sentence would be fine right if you're if you're
speaking in front of a group of people or in a classroom or or something like that and you say
today i would like to discuss air pollution in my city that's fine but for writing um it's it's not
great okay so yes i kind of try to trick you all of these four sentences are very common
problems that students have with with topic sentences so the question is what is a good topic
sentence a good topic sentence clearly introduces the topic of the paragraph and it makes a
point about the topic as we said so it has to have some kind of idea in there okay and it has to
make a statement that's not too broad and not too narrow so it's right in the middle as we said
also you want a good topic sentence to to give the reader an idea of the type of paragraph that
they're going to read is it going to be opinion or description or narration is it going to tell a
story is it going to explain cause and effect the reader should get an idea of that from your
topic sentence okay um so let's look at some good ones okay so how do we how do we fix
them how do we make them better number one canada shares a border with the united states
so that's a fact it's too narrow how do we expand it and make it more interesting well here's
my revised version here okay canadian culture has been heavily influenced by its relationship
and proximity to the united states a little fancy because i should move to the side here a little
bit all right but in this case it now has an idea that can be developed and explained a little bit
a little bit more okay so that's definitely an improvement on the first one how about the
second one studying is difficult as we said this is too broad there's not enough information in
here to to really focus it for the paragraph so how do you fix it i said studying two languages
at once can be very challenging um now you're getting a little bit more specific about what it
is you're studying and therefore you've got a clearer idea of of what you can write about in
the paragraph okay what about the second one or the third one rather why traditional values
are disappearing well problems like this is kind of an easy fix because you just have to make
it a complete sentence okay so there are several reasons why traditional values are
disappearing just keep it simple put a there are three reasons at the beginning and now you've
got a complete sentence and you're and you're fine okay obviously this paragraph will be
about causes and effects and how about one more and then i'm going to get you guys to do do
some work here okay so i would like to discuss in this paragraph the growing concern about
air pollution we said don't announce your topic just get on with it make your point in your
paragraph and you've got this air pollution is a growing concern in my country actually i
should have said city there that's my that's my little mistake there but that's fine okay so now
you're no longer announcing your topic um it's a little bit more focused and it's a better topic
sentence so again this is the beginning of being able to write a good a good paragraph or
multiple paragraphs in a longer composition like an essay or something like that okay so with
that i would like you guys to do some work now with me or for me i should say okay so if
lane moderator could please put the link to the exercise in the in the chat so that everybody
can can get it i'm putting a or lane's going to put a link in here for everybody to to follow in
the chat and it will bring you to to this exercise here or again if you're already in smart you
can just go to writing 1-1 and go right into the exercise up here and that will take you to the
exercise as well so it's it's the same we have we have it in the chat we're good to go yeah okay
so when you open it up you won't be able to type on this copy on what you see so you've got
to go into file and make a copy okay make a copy so that you can write your answers on there
just like that and then you'll own it and you can you can write whatever you want on on that
copy this one is this one's mine okay so when you open it up you'll see probably about 10
sentences and all of them are topic sentences some of them are strong and some of them are
are weak could be could be better could be improved upon all right so your job now and
again i'm going to remove myself from the screen and put on some more of that happy music
to help you work i would like you to look at each of these sentences and now that we've
discussed the strong and the weak topic sentences i'd like you to go through and just identify
which of these are good topic sentences and which of them are weak or need improvement
and why okay so number letter a we'll start with that one we'll do one together okay
communication is important now while this is true a lot very similar to the the studying is
difficult it's too it's too broad uh of a sentence there's too much to say about communication
in one paragraph so you have to get more specific so i would say this one simply is just too
broad and that's all you have to do right now just go through if it's weak tell me why and if
it's strong you can just put correct or put a happy face or a unicorn or whatever you like next
to it to indicate that it's that it's good okay and again while you're doing that feel free to to put
your answers in the chat and lane will put some of your answers up here on the screen and
then we'll discuss them together as a big group okay so get to work on that take two or three
minutes and go through and and identify the strong and the weak topic sentences and then
we'll go over it together do do so that do a do do that do do all right everybody um let's let's
go over some of these together all right um i see some of your answers have been put into the
document here let's let's talk about them together um a we already did okay b one of my most
wonderful childhood memories now uh we got an answer in there from marissa but it looks
like it might be number for number one i'm not i'm not sure but that's okay um thanks marissa
for the answer um if you said it's definitely a it's a weak topic sentence you are definitely uh
correct i would say b the problem with this one is that it is incomplete okay so i'm going to
put that well i'm going to remove that and here let's say incomplete all right one of my most
wonderful childhood memories this is just a subject with a prepositional phrase next to it and
it's an incomplete sentence okay so that's not not a good topic sentence all right what about c
this paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate justin davis gave us an answer thank you
justin uh and you're correct it says announcing the topic you're absolutely right good you
don't want to announce your topic or intentions i don't even put an exclamation point there
awesome okay what about d um also i should say guys while i'm going through these if you
have any questions about why or anything that i'm saying again pop them in the into the chat
and i will try to answer as many of your questions as i can so d parents do not need to spend
money in order to show they love their children so claudia says it's good blue guitar i think
it's a fact most appropriate sentence is d so marissa i think that means you like you like d and
i think um i think you're right i think claudia you're you're right too um i wish i wish this was
a fact um blue guitar 77 but unfortunately it's not you could you could argue with it some
people could say that spending money is a good way of showing your children you love them
i i certainly disagree with that statement but in this case i'm going to say this is a good topic
sentence lots to discuss in this paragraph i think it's a a strong statement let's do a couple
more here e three reasons to study a language abroad muhammad says it's good in the
supporting sentences we will discuss them now it's a good this is a good topic three reasons to
study a language abroad definitely a lot to to discuss and you could put the three reasons in
the top in the in the paragraph but it's not a good topic sentence because it's incomplete all
right e is incomplete and i think it's incomplete because there's no there's no verb there right
it's missing a verb three reasons to study a language abroad good topic but there's no verb and
every sentence needs a verb in order to be complete so we're going to have to fix that one up
all right and we've got a few more no answers here but that's that's okay we'll just go over
them uh quickly f a difficult experience while traveling taught me the importance of family
now in this case this is a good topic sentence it's good because it has a clear topic difficult
experience there's your topic there and then taught me the importance of family that's a an
idea that you can explore and i know by reading that sentence that you're going to be telling
me a story a narrative therefore it's a it's a good it's a good topic sentence any answers for g
nothing for g okay technology is changing so fast in this case i would say too too broad
because technology is changing so fast i mean it is true but it's still such a broad quest a broad
topic that you really wouldn't be able to to write very well about that in one paragraph there's
so much technology out there and changing so fast is is is just not specific enough okay so
you want to narrow that down a little bit uh h my daughter was born in the summer of 2010.
all right i think we don't have any answers coming in for that one so i'll give it to you i would
say that that is too narrow okay it's a it's a fact my daughter was born in the summer of 2010.
um it's kind of like you have to ask so what right tell me something about the experience or
what else can you write about in the paragraph there's really nothing to to say there okay what
about i i would like to discuss how poverty affects education okay and again justin davis he's
justin davis who's really good at uh that's identifying when you're announcing the topic
because you you were right again justin thanks for that i you're you're correct that i would
like to discuss is really not appropriate for academic writing so you would have to change
that okay and i see we've got one here coming in from claudia i think that one came in just a
little bit too late i'm just going to take that one out because we've discussed that h is too
narrow there's i know there's a bit of a a time delay here how about j the last one in some
ways friends can be more important than family now i'm going to give you the answer for this
one i think this one's good okay it's not a fact um you could argue against this and you could
definitely write a pretty a pretty good paragraph on this on this topic kind of an opinion-based
paragraph giving reasons how friends can be more important than family okay so how we
doing okay we're good for time now i'm gonna put you guys to work again now this is the
maybe the hard part now that we've looked at all of these sentences and decided which ones
are weak and which ones are strong now i'd like you guys to take we'll say five minutes to do
as much as you can i would like you to fix the topic sentences that are weak and rewrite them
with a topic sentence that you think is now strong enough to to be used to develop a good
paragraph so number or letter a communication is important you have to rewrite that sentence
so it's not too broad so how can you fix it so i'll give you an example for a i would say
communication is important for a marriage to work okay communication is important for a
marriage to work now it's a little bit more specific it's talking about communication in a
marriage between a husband and wife and why that would be important for the marriage to to
last and to be successful okay so that's the freebie i'm giving you the answer for a um that
means i would like you to do b c e g h and i okay now do as many as you can i'll give you
five minutes i'll turn the happy music back on and make myself disappear from the screen as
you go feel free to throw your new amazing topic sentences into the chat and we'll put them
up here on the on the screen and then i'll comment on them and we'll look at them together
okay all right guys get to work fix those topic sentences up and uh i'll be back so so do do do
this my do do do so so do do all right everybody i'm back i see some answers in there this is
good let's um let's try to go over some of this stuff time is time is flying by here um so letter a
i given an answer and it looks like muhammad uh added another answer there too cool thanks
thanks muhammad this communication is important for us to prevent from misunderstanding
that happened among us i think that's that's pretty good it's definitely an improvement on the
first one because it's more specific um i would just change something there now what you're
saying just the grammar is a little bit off and i would say communication is important for us
to prevent and i think i actually saw somebody mention it in the in the chat i would just say to
prevent misunderstandings just keep it kind of simple like that communication is important
for us to prevent misunderstandings and there you go that's that's a great um that's a great
topic sentence so thanks mohammed for that now it looks like b another one from justin davis
he took the incomplete sentence and fixed it up and he says summer vacation was one of my
most wonderful childhood memories nailed it yeah that's awesome and now you've got a
complete sentence there with a subject and a verb it's got an idea it's going to be a narrative
you can give lots of details and everything it's great okay did i get anything for c c is this
paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate now when it comes to fixing these types of
sentences you just really have to remove the the part that announces the the topic right so do
we get anything from that no okay i'll just give an answer here i would say something like the
increasing divorce rate has many effects on society something like that there the increasing
divorce rate has many effects on society keep it simple but again now you've got you still
have a complete sentence you've got an idea in there and it's a little bit more focused too if
you just say this paragraph is about the increasing divorce rate we don't know if you're
talking about the causes of it the effects of it or anything like that so now it's it's much clearer
and more focused all right what about e three reasons to study a language abroad coming in
from muhammad i think yeah good yeah so he maybe he took my advice from from earlier
and kept it simple and again nailed it there he said there are three reasons why you should
study a language abroad i would just change that one that g to an s there right three reasons i
hear a sentence coming in um let me see so the one from um from gerald maybe coming in
that says teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education where's which one is that
hmm it's a question is this oh is this a good one oh i see okay so is this a good topic sentence
teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education um yes i think that's a great topic
sentence um lots and lots to write about in the paragraph so yeah to gerald there i would say
definitely that is a good topic sentence all right um what about g do we get anything for g
technology is changing so fast again it's too broad what could you say about technology
changing so fast how about i'll just copy this put it down here oops uh technology is changing
so fast that what could you say the older generation has trouble keeping up with
advancements yeah sorry to the any any older people watching but technology is changing so
fast that the older generation has trouble keeping up with advancements now you've just got
something a little bit more specific um h anything coming for h no um okay my daughter was
born in the summer of 2010 i would again say something meaningful about it say give some
kind of idea about it so how about my daughter's my daughter's birth was the best day of my
life we'll keep it simple okay um my daughter's birth was the best day of my life and then i
coming in from justin oh yeah sorry he said that it was announcing the topic i would like to
discuss poverty how poverty affects education again keep this one simple and say there are
many ways how poverty affects education just like that okay and now you've got some strong
topic sentences all right so um that basically wraps it up 45 minutes has just flown by um and
i want to thank everybody for for joining um we'll continue on with more academic writing
next week and uh we're going to try to get a schedule out soon too so people can know what
what lessons are coming up and i would also appreciate it if anybody has questions or
comments or anything relating to writing or grammar or anything like that you can put it in
the chat or put it in the comments from this video and we'll take a look at them and try to
answer some of your questions in the next in the next lesson all right so once again thanks for
thanks for tuning in and um i guess we'll we'll see you we'll see you next time on the on the
live class all right see you later you