Chapter 3: Stated Main Ideas
Lab Activity 13: Placement of Topic Sentences
 
Objective:
To identify the topic and main idea of a paragraph.

arrow.gifStep 2: Read the following paragraphs from college textbooks. Identify the topic of each passage and then the number of the sentence that states the main idea.


      5. 1Whenever people's attitudes conflict with one another or with their behavior, they feel uncomfortable. 2Leon Festinger (1919–1989) termed this feeling cognitive dissonance—a state of mental discomfort that arises from a discrepancy between two or more of a person's beliefs or between a person's beliefs and overt behavior. 3Based on the premise that people seek to reduce such dissonance, Festinger (1957) proposed a cognitive dissonance theory. 4According to the theory, when people experience conflict among their attitudes or between their attitudes and their behavior, they are motivated to change either their attitudes or their behavior. 5Most psychologists consider cognitive dissonance theory to be a type of motivation theory, because it suggests that people become energized by their cognitive dissonance to do something. 6As an example of behavior—attitude conflict, suppose you are a strong proponent of animal rights. 7You support the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and Greenpeace, refrain from eating meat, and are repulsed by fur coats. 8Then you win a raffle and are awarded a stylish black leather coat. 9Wearing the coat goes against your beliefs; but you know it looks great on you, and all your friends admire it. 10According to cognitive dissonance theory, you are experiencing conflict between your attitudes (belief in animal rights) and your behavior (wearing the coat). 11To relieve the conflict, you either stop wearing the coat or modify your attitude (leather becomes an acceptable choice). 12Psychologists acknowledge that not all people are consistent, nor do all psychologists suggest that consistency is important.

—Lefton & Brannon, Psychology 8th ed., pp. 449–450.

The topic of this paragraph is

 

 
 
 
 
      6. The topic sentence of this paragraph is  

 
 
 
 
      7.

1Certainly one of the strangest words in sociology is ethnomethodology. 2To understand this term, consider its three basic components. 3Ethno means folk or people; method means how people do something do something; ology means "the study of." 4Putting them together, then, ethno/method/ology means "the study of how people do things." 5Specifically, ethnomethodology is the study of how people use commonsense understandings to get through everyday life.

—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 99.


The topic of this paragraph is 

 
 
 
 
      8. The topic sentence of this paragraph is 

 
 
 
 
      9.

1The more privileged social classes are not crime-free, of course, but for them different illegitimate opportunities beckon. 2They find other forms of crime to be functional. 3Rather than mugging, pimping, and burglary, the more privileged encounter "opportunities" for evading income tax, bribing public officials, embezzling from employers, participating in fraud, and so on. 4Physicians, for example never hold up cabbies, but many do cheat Medicare. Sociologist Edwin Sutherland coined the term white-collar crime to refer to crimes that people of respectable and high social status commit in the course of their occupations.

—Henslin, Essentials of Sociology, 5th ed., p. 149.


The topic is  

 
 
 
 
      10. The topic sentence of this paragraph is  

 
 
 
 





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