<aside> 💡 See also Organizing an effective argument: Methods and examples.
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A claim is a statement that expresses the main idea or argument of a text. In academic writing, a claim is usually presented as a thesis statement in the introduction, and then supported by topic sentences and supporting sentences in the body paragraphs.
A thesis statement is a concise and specific claim that answers the research question or represents the main idea of the entire text and guides the rest of the paper.
A topic sentence is a more specific claim that introduces the main point of a paragraph and relates it back to the thesis statement.
<aside> 💡 A supporting claim that supports a more general claim is called a premise (see A premise defined.
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A supporting sentence within a body paragraph includes claims that provide evidence, examples, details, facts, or statistics that come from an outside source and that support the topic sentence. A supporting sentence also includes claims that provide explanations, analysis, comparisons, synthesis, etc. that link or connect the evidence sentence to the topic sentence, ideas from a prior body paragraph, and/or the thesis statement.
A claim should be clear, debatable, and relevant to the purpose and audience of the text. A claim is typically not a question, an imperative statement, nor a non-debatable (non-argumentative) statement.