Page 4 CUE: Developing Emphasis

To provide emphasis in your writing is to ensure that you have made the main ideas the most important ideas in your report.

This can be accomplished through

• effective placement of ideas, and key words, and sentences.
• developing topic and concluding sentences carefully because they leave both an initial and a lasting impression.
• ensuring big ideas are developed fully; give less attention or writing space to smaller ideas.
• emphasizing the importance of main ideas through precise word choice such as “key”, “highlight", or “most importantly” or “another significant aspect”. These provide cues to the reader.
• varying your sentences using both long and short sentences to provide interest.
• effective repetition, sentence variety, and climactic order, when one statement after the other becomes more forceful, are important emphatic tools.

Read a sample essay introduction that has emphasis problems below.

Sample Introductory Paragraph with Emphasis Problems Cars are expensive.  They may look classy, but are pricey.  You look at ads for cars and the nicest, cheapest one is usually over $30 000! The company Subaru released its first car in 1954, the 1500. Through the years, they have made a name for themselves, especially in motorsports.

This essay lacks emphasis for the following reasons:

• Car costs seems to be the main topic of the essay, but actually, the remainder of the essay is why Subaru BRZ is a great car.
• Ideas are too repetitive and similar. Three sentences repeat the idea of price.
• Subaru's name in motorsports is too broad a topic and is not the main idea of the story.

To improve emphasis in this example, consider the following:

• The minor idea, the date Subaru released its first car, should be eliminated from the introduction. 
• Use an engaging hook.
  

Example:         

Have you ever wished you had a car that was so nice that people would stop and stare at you wherever you went? Surely everybody has. Surprisingly, sports cars are affordable, especially the Subaru BRZ. The best in its class, the BRZ, outshines the rest for price, looks, and handling.