Finding Main Ideas in Paragraphs
You can find the main ideas by looking at the way in which paragraph are written:
A paragraph is a group of sentences about one main idea.
Paragraphs usually have 2 types of sentences:
------a topic sentence, which contains the main idea, and
------one or more detail sentences which support, prove, provide more information, explain, or give examples.
You can only tell if you have a detail or topic sentence by comparing the sentences with each other. The only exception to this is if there is only one sentence in the paragraph. Then the one sentence is the topic sentence.
Look at this example paragraph:
There are many uses for this great product. ---TOPIC SENTENCE
Some mix it with chocolate to make cake icing. --DETAIL SENTENCE
It is the main ingredient in some milkshake mixes. --DETAIL SENTENCE
It will also kill rats in small amounts. --DETAIL SENTENCE
The first sentence introduces the main idea and the other sentences support and give the many uses for the product.