Unity in the theme
(in general)

The theme topic is the subject matter of the theme, the one clear, rather brief
thought that answers the question What is the theme about?

A good theme has one and only one theme topic.

Make sure that the theme topic is itself unified. If it contains more than one idea,
make sure either that they are very closely related or that there is only one main
idea to which the others are subordinate.

It often starts both reader and writer well to state the theme topic in a topic para-
graph near the beginning of the theme.

Make every sentence develop its paragraph topic; make every paragraph develop
the theme topic.

Digressions

In long and leisurely themes, it is all right to indulge in an occasional digression
provided that

- There is some good reason for the digression.

- The reader is told in one way or another just when you leave the theme and
when you come back to it.

- The digressions are relatively few and brief. (One digression of a sentence or
so is about the maximum for a three- to five-hundred-word theme.)

INTRODUCTIONS

Make sure that your introduction is closely connected with the rest of the theme
and naturally leads into it.

Ordinarily an introduction will tend to be closely connected with the rest of the
theme and to lead into it naturally if it answers all or some of these questions:

- What (and who) is going to be talked about?

- Why is it going to be talked about?

- Who is going to talk about it?

- What is he going to say about it?

- Why is he saying it to this particular audience at this particular time, and so
on?

- How is he going to talk about it? What divisions of the subject is he going to
make, what is he going to include or exclude, and so on?

unity-2