A body paragraph contains three main parts.

• the topic sentence.
• the supporting sentences.
• the concluding sentence.

Topic Sentences

Check out the following example:

Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it.

Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Displaying variant ads while an audience is engaged with a show has been the most common means of hypnotizing people into purchasing the advertised items. This suggestion technique can be conducted explicitly, as a result of those projected ads, or implicitly, by exposing the audience to items while watching the protagonist of a film wearing designer’s clothes and driving specific cars. All these different methods of selling are relatively effective. Thus, those ads can make a company’s net income increase dramatically.

As you can see the paragraph starts with the topic sentence. A topic sentence is the first sentence in your body paragraphs. It should tell what the general topic is, and what the controlling idea of the body paragraph is. A body paragraph should have one main controlling idea to be supported throughout the argument of your body paragraph one.

Bear in mind that you should never write a general statement instead of the topic sentence. Look at the following examples:

Displaying variant ads while an audience is engaged with a show is common.

The previous example of a topic sentence presents the topic but no controlling idea is presented.

Another mistake people make is that they start by writing an example in the topic sentence while this should be kept for the supporting sentences.

For example, if someone watches an ad for a chocolate, they can feel the urge to buy that chocolate.

Supporting Sentences

When it comes to supporting sentences, you need to think critically. That means you need to find out what examples, facts, and even quotes if you can think of any, to write in your body paragraphs. The challenge is to stay on-topic as many people go off-topic when they try to support their controlling ideas.

Read the following sentence which is off the topic of the controlling idea.

Also, some ads could be culturally damaging to the community or offensive to some people.

This could make you lose marks in the criterion of coherence and cohesion.

Concluding Sentences 

The last part is the concluding sentence. Some people may argue that there is no need for a concluding sentence as long as they write a whole conclusion paragraph. This can be correct to some extent.

However, when you write a concluding sentence, you mark higher in the coherence and cohesion category because of how it affects the flow of the whole essay. It also helps conclude one idea before moving to the next. A common mistake here is that people can present new ideas in the concluding sentence which should not happen. You just need to summarize the controlling idea, paraphrase it or present a result of that controlling idea.

Check out the following examples:

Consequently, people could be hypnotized into buying products they do not need.

Thus, those ads can make a company’s net income increase dramatically.