The topic sentence acts as a kind of summary, and offers the reader an insightful view of the paragraph's main ideas.
[3] More than being a mere summary of a paragraph, however, a topic sentence often provides a claim or an insight directly or indirectly related to the thesis.
It adds cohesion to an academic text and helps organize ideas not only within the paragraph but also the piece of writing as a whole.
Pivot topic sentences will come somewhere in the middle of a paragraph, and usually announce that the content will be changing in a different direction.
A paragraph may begin something like this: Kubler and Kessler have identified 5 stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.