Braddock Revisited: the Frequency and Placement of Topic Sentences in Academic Writing

____________________ It has been more than thirty years since Richard Braddock published the notable article in which he examined the manner that professional writers utilize topic sentences. He found in his corpus that expository paragraphs seldom began with topic sentences. Consequently, Braddock (1974) admonished teachers to stop instructing their students that most professional writers begin their paragraphs with topic sentences. The purpose of this study is to replicate Braddock’s study using a corpus made up of articles selected from a particular area of written discourse, American history. Braddock’s model, with a few exceptions, is used in the evaluation of this material. Braddock’s conclusion, that only 13% of expository paragraphs begin with a topic sentence, has been widely cited to support the notion that teachers need to reassess the manner in which they teach reading and writing skills. Results of this study indicate that, in this corpus, a major topic sentence is at the initial position of the respective discourse block unit in approximately twothirds of the cases. Thus, certain conclusions which have been drawn from Braddock’s study need to be re-considered. _____________________ Introduction The idea that writers begin each paragraph with a topic sentence is an old one. The first systematic description of paragraph theory was put forward by Alexander Bain in 1866. The third of Bain’s six rules called for a statement of topic in the initial sentence of the paragraph. Later scholars noted that the topic sentence could appear in another part of the paragraph or even be implied (Rogers, 1965). Furthermore, in his notable study, Braddock (1974) found that only 13% of the expository paragraphs in his study began with a topic sentence. Braddock’s study has