If your topic sentence does accomplish all three of these goals, hurray! Leave it alone. If it leaves out any of them (or all of them), revise the topic sentence so that it does do all three. Write out your explanation for the changes you make. Your explanation must refer to the criteria set out above.

THESIS ANALYSIS:
In a new document, copy and paste your existing thesis sentence (highlighted in yellow) at the top of the page.
Review the Essay Structure power point and analyze your thesis according to the criteria presented there. Explain what changes you will make and WHY. The answers as to why should come from the “good thesis” criteria.
Then type “REVISED THESIS”: and type up your new, improved thesis statement.
TOPIC SENTENCE ANALYSIS:
Next, you will analyze your topic sentences.
Copy and paste your topic sentences (highlighted in orange). Use only the sentence that is highlighted. You are working on just the first sentence of each paragraph, no others.
Then, one by one, ask each topic sentence if it does each of the following:
Does it refer back to the thesis?
Does it state the main claim for the paragraph?
Does it transition or position the reader?
If your topic sentence does accomplish all three of these goals, hurray! Leave it alone. If it leaves out any of them (or all of them), revise the topic sentence so that it does do all three. Write out your explanation for the changes you make. Your explanation must refer to the criteria set out above.
So, you should have your original sentence. Underneath should be your explanation of how the sentence either does or not accomplish all three goals and what changes you think are necessary. And then type up your revised topic sentence.
Repeat with each topic sentence.

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