Why you Need to Support your Main Ideas

1. How much support do I need to provide?

1.1. Each body paragraph should clearly focus on your one ‘central topic’, with all the supporting ideas logically organised around that.

1.2. If you include an idea that isn’t related to the main topic of your paragraph, then this will lower your coherence and cohesion score.

1.3. Also, if your supporting ideas within a paragraph are not logically ordered, then your coherence and cohesion score will suffer because of it.

2. More than one main idea per body paragraph is risky

2.1. In fact some students spend nearly the whole paragraph discussing one main idea.

2.2. But then near the end, they seem to panic or get overexcited, and suddenly add a second unrelated idea

2.3. It's risky because

2.3.1. 1. Your coherence and cohesion score might suffer because your body paragraph isn’t focussed on one topic.

2.3.2. 2. you might not have enough time to support each idea clearly.

2.3.2.1. Some ideas always end up being better developed than others, and the less developed idea can seem less related to the main idea.

3. Summary

3.1. – Each body paragraph should have only one main idea – all the supporting ideas in the paragraph must link together around a clear central topic.

3.2. – Each main idea must be clearly supported – with suitable and relevant explanation and examples that clearly link to the main idea.