How to Write TOEFL Essay Supporting Ideas

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Writing supporting ideas

Before we begin, let's have another look at our first topic sentence. Here's what we have so far:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good.

Now let's use something that we've heard or read about for our supporting ideas. Our paragraph might look something like this:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good. There are often stories in the newspapaer about people who are accidentally shot. Moreover, many of these stories involve police officers. If guns had not been involved, these accidents would not have happened. On the other hand, there are very few stories about how a gun has saved somebody's life.

In this example, our supporting ideas come from stories we've read in the newspaper. And they all explain why guns cause more harm than good.

We have also used a few interesting phrases at the beginning of some sentences: morevoer and on the other hand. These are called transitional phrases. We'll talk about them in a separate lesson.