Topics and Main Ideas
Hey guys! Welcome to this Mometrix video over topics and main ideas.
Topic
A topic is the word or phrase that everything in a text refers back to. See if you can guess the topic of these pictures.
The topic is baseball.
Now let’s look for the topic in a text:
The topic is music.
A helpful way to identify the topic is to look for repeated words or phrases. The word music, in this case, was repeated in each sentence. The word may not be repeated in every sentence, but often time there will be a pronoun that points us back to the topic. For instance: “I like to listen to music when I study. Music calms me down. It helps me to focus.”
The first two sentences identify the topic, music, and the last sentence uses the pronoun it to refer back to the topic.
Some paragraphs, however, are not as blatant. Some can be more tricky. Sometimes an author will use different words for the same thing:
The topic is Mometrix, even though the word is only stated once. The topic is repeated, but a different word is used to refer to the same thing.
Main Idea Examples
Once we have found the topic of the paragraph, we can find the main idea.
This may be a helpful topic to help you identify the main idea:
\(\text{topic} + \text{main point about the topic} = \text{main idea}\)
The topic is music. The main point about the topic: Music can be an effective study tool.
Notice that topics are expressed as words or phrases, but main ideas are expressed in sentences.
The topic is physical activity. The main idea: Physical activity provides innumerable benefits.
In many paragraphs, the first sentence states the main idea. When the author states the main idea, it is called an explicit main idea. But the main idea is not always in the first sentence.
In this paragraph, this first sentence is not the main idea. So, let’s look at the topic. We know that the topic is autumn, because it is repeated, and everything is referring to it. “Autumn, or fall marks the transition from summer to winter.” is the main idea. This sentence includes the topic, and it also makes a main point about the topic. It may seem a little silly that the sentence that states the main idea is called the topic sentence, but that’s just the way it is. Always remember, to find the main idea, figure out the topic first. Then, look for a sentence that states a main point about the topic.
I hope this was helpful. See you next time!
Differences between Topics and Main Idea PDF