Earlier this week I compared the thesis statement to a road map. The three things
you list in your thesis statement are the three destinations. Those destinations are
the topics of your body paragraphs. Your reader is taking a journey, with the help of
your map, to three dierent places or stops. These places are metaphorical, and are
content rather than physical places. But the idea is the same. The topic sentence of
each body paragraph clues the reader in to what destination they're visiting. That's
why the topic sentence must come "rst. The concluding sentence of each body
paragraph paves the way for the next stop on the journey, the next body paragraph.
