You say you can't write. You're afraid you don't have savvy to put your thoughts into written words. I want to ease those fears by showing you a way to overcome that hurdle and start your writing career today. Bear with me as I demonstrate a writing technique of two United States presidents. The content of excerpts that follow have absolutely nothing to do with what I'm trying to show you. But three paragraphs when looked at sentence by sentence do have one thing in common.
See if you can discover similarity of each example. Never mind words and that they were written by highly educated, famous men. Look only at structure of each paragraph.
"THE WORLD is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around globe--the belief that rights of man come not from generosity of state, but from hand of God."
John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Friday, January 20, 1961
"THE MONEY changers have fled from their high seats in temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to ancient truths. The measure of restoration lies in extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
Franklin D. Roosevelt First Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1933
Okay, what in world am I talking about? Here's how to find out. Open a word processing file and do this little exercise.
For each paragraph, type these headings:
"Topic Sentence" "1." "2."
Then copy and paste first sentence of each passage after heading "Topic Sentence". Finally, place second sentence after number 1 and third sentence after number 2.
Can you see a simple pattern developing? Notice that each paragraph has only three sentences. The first is topic sentence, or main idea, and next two are supporting sentences.
Now, get out a blank sheet of paper and write our three headings, leaving a little space between them. Then do this little exercise.
Write for your topic sentence, "I like to do these two things in my spare time." For number one write," First, I like to..." And for number two, write, "Second, I like to..."