Unidad III

ING-INST-1
CUAM “Cuestión de Excelencia”
Topic Sentence – Definición

El Topic Sentence1 es un recurso gramatical que permite conocer la idea principal de un

párrafo. Por lo general, es la primera oración en un párrafo, aunque no siempre es así.
El Topic Sentence actúa como un ‘sumario’ de ideas que se van uniendo para darnos la(s)
idea(s) principal(es). En este sentido, el Topic Sentence nos ofrece una visión retrospectiva
de las ideas principales que el autor quiere dar a conocer en cada párrafo.

Para establecer las ideas principales de un determinado texto en inglés, debemos primero
tomar en cuenta lo siguiente:

a) Identificar los párrafos

Consiste en dividir el texto en 2 o más párrafos (ver resultados). Divida este párrafo:

The Libyan government has authorized Venezuela to take the "necessary" actions to create
an international commission in order to mediate in the conflict in the Arab country, as
suggested by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. "We authorize you to take all necessary
measures to choose the members and coordinate their participation in the talks," Venezuela's
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolás Maduro read over the letter just received from Libyan
Foreign Minister Moussa Kussa, Efe reported.

b) Establecer el orden de cada párrafo.

Observe el siguiente texto que trata acerca del cultivo de algodón en la India. Los párrafos
no están en el orden correcto. Coloque los párrafos en el orden correcto. Recuerde que cada
idea debe tener una relación lógica con el párrafo anterior y así sucesivamente.

Pesticide suicide

Most of the farmers are extremely poor. Attracted by cheap loans from pesticides traders and
the prospect of a quick buck, they borrowed heavily to raise cotton on small plots of land.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the crop losses and destruction in Andhra Pradesh
arose from the repeated application of excessive amounts of chemicals - a practice actively
encouraged by pesticides traders.
The suicide of Samala Mallaiah in Nagara village grabbed media headlines. He owned one
acre of land, leased two more and grew cotton on all three. After making a loss in the first
year, he leased yet more land in an attempt to recover.

Confronted with falling prices, mounting debts and pest attacks, he committed
harakiri. ‘Cotton has given us shattered dreams,’ said one old farmer in Nagara village.

As many as 60,000 small farmers in the region of Andhra Pradesh, southern India, have
taken to farming cotton instead of food crops. Some 20 of them have recently committed
suicide by eating lethal doses of pesticide.
Whitefly, boll weevils and caterpillars multiplied and destroyed their crops, despite the
constant application of pesticides. The average yield of cotton fields in Andhra Pradesh fell
by more than half in just one year. Now the farmers are in no position to repay the loans or
feed their families.

Nearly half the pesticides used in India go into protecting cotton, the most important
commercial crop in the country. However, pests have shown increased immunity to a range
of pesticides. Last year there were heavy crop losses due to leaf-curl, which is caused by the
dreaded whitefly. This nondescript, milky-white fly sucks sap from the cotton leaves, making
them curl and dry up. The fly struck first in Pakistan and north-western India. Then it turned
south.
1
Para ampliar su conocimiento en este tema, visite Topic Sentencies.

c) Identificar la idea o las ideas principales (Topic Sentence) de cada párrafo.

A professor and a student join hunger strike to request a fair Budget

A university employee and a professor at the University of Carabobo joined a hunger strike
that seven students have been staging for 10 days outside the Caracas chapter of the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP), Professor Raúl Nuñez reported. He added that the
salaries of university professors have not been increased in the past four years.

"We hold Minister (of Education) Yadira Córdova responsible for the health of all the hunger
strikers and we urge the government to increase the salaries of university professors by 140
percent," he said.

Meanwhile, Diego Scharifker, the president of the Federation of Students' Councils, Central
University of Venezuela (UCV), lamented that the government continues to make fun of
students and said that the members of other unions would join the hunger strike in the next
few days.

d) Lea los párrafos acerca de Leonardo da Vinci. La primera oración de cada párrafo ha
sido removida. Las oraciones que van en la primera línea, están listados abajo. Asocie las
oraciones en cada párrafo correctamente.

The Genius of Leonardo.

1.
He was the illegitimate son of a Florentine lawyer and property owner. His artistic bent
obviously appeared at an early age for when he was 15 he was apprenticed to the painter
Verocchio. In 1472 he was accepted in the painters’ guild in Florence, where he remained
until 1481.

2.
And among his early drawings were many sketches of mechanical apparatus and weapons,
evidence of his interest in, and knowledge of things mechanical.
3.
His artistic achievements in Milan reached their peak with the mural ‘The Last Supper’
completed in 1497.

4.
In the 1490s he began monumental treatises on painting, architecture, human anatomy and
mechanics. He set down his observations on these themes in voluminous notes and
sketches, which he would later assemble in his notebooks. There remain of his notebooks a
prodigious 7000 pages, all in characteristic ‘mirror-writing’.

5.
He then went back to Milan and entered the service of the French King Louis XII. Later he
was to work in Rome with Raphael and Michelangelo on designs for the new church of St
Peter. In 1516 he settled in France, at Cloux, near Amboise, where he died three years later.

6.
He was no mere theorist advancing fanciful ideas. He was a practical man, who designed
things that would work, because he could see how they would work.

7.
There is no evidence that Leonardo actually built the machines and mechanical devices he
sketched and described. And in many cases their practical importance remained unrealised
and unrealisable for centuries. There was neither the demand for them nor the technology.
(Pears Encyclopaedia, 1987, p. 342)

Match the following sentences with the correct paragraphs.

a. Leonardo returned to Florence in 1499, where he painted that most famous
painting 'The Mona Lisa' (1503).
b. Between 1482 and 1499 he was employed in the service of the Duke of
Milan, to whom he was painter, sculptor, musician and technical adviser on
military and engineering matters.
c. In whatever subject he studied, Leonardo laid absolute faith in the evidence
of his eyes.
d. Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in Vinci, a small village in Tuscany.
e. And it is in his 'things', his machines, that we are interested in this book.
f. By then Leonardo's expertise with paint brush and palette, pen and pencil
was already well advanced.
g. But his creative energies now were turning more and more to scientific and
literary pursuits.