PREFACE

First of all lets say thanks to Allah SWT, has been given chance and health to finish this short paper. And also thanks to prophet Muhammad saw who has brought from the darkness to the lightness. This short paper is entitled Understanding Main Idea to comprehend main idea in a paragraph. The writer hopes that this short paper will help the readers and also others who want to learn about it. But this short paper is still far from the completeness, and critics and ideas to develop this short paper.

UNDERSTANDING MAIN IDEAS

To gain the best understanding of a written text you must analyze it by examining its organization. Information in the text is typically organized and written using main ideas and related details which support these main ideas. The main idea of a paragraph gives specific information about its subject. Then all, or most, of the sentences in the paragraph are related to this main idea because they tell you something about that specific information. The identification and analysis of main ideas and related details are extremely important reading techniques when you try to master the enormous amount of information usually presented in textbooks. There are three major structural of paragraph: topic, supporting sentence and concluding sentence. A. Topic Sentence and Main Ideas Every good paragraph has a topic sentence, which clearly states the topic and the controlling idea of the paragraph. The topic sentence states main idea of the paragraph.1 The topic is the sentences relate to one another in the sense that each is about a common person, place, thing, or idea.2 And then main idea is the point of the paragraph. The author can locate the main idea in different places within a paragraph. The main idea is usually a sentence, and it is usually the first sentence. The writer then uses the rest of the paragraph to support the main idea. Let's use the paragraph below as an example. First find the topic, then look for the main idea. Summer is a wonderful time to spend at West Beach. It is a beach with light- colored, soft sand. The coastline goes on for a long way and many people enjoy walking along it. Children like to play in the surf and walk along the rocks that are visible at low tide. This is a fun beach for people of all ages.

Eka Sustri Harida, Reading Comprehension I, (Padansidimpuan: STAIN, 2011), hlm. 59. Kathleen T. McWhorter, Efficient and Flexible Reading Third Edition, (New York: Harper Collon Publusher, 1992), hlm. 168.
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In this paragraph we can find: The Topic is West Beach. The Main Idea is (what the writer is saying about the topic) is that summer is a wonderful time at West Beach. Topic is not also names the topic of the paragraph, but it also limited in one or two areas that can be discussed completely in the space of single paragraph. The specific idea is controlling idea; it is to control ideas that want to be developed by the writer. For instance: 1. Registering for college classes can be a frustrating experience for new students. Topic Controlling Idea

2. The average American teenager consumes enormous quantities of junk food. Topic Controlling Idea

B. The Technique To Find Main Idea There are two techniques to determine a main idea, like: 3 1. When beginning instruction in finding the main idea, it is important to establish a common language and a common set of expectations. Students should understand and be able to use terms such as main idea, topic sentence, supporting detail, and author's purpose. 2. To determine importance and choosing the main idea of a text. Use the think-aloud strategy to model how you determine the main idea and which details in the text support your conclusion. Students should understand that the search for meaning in texts is often hard work, requiring considerable mental effort. And also there are some ways to look for the main idea in the text, like:4 1. Before you read, look to see if the main idea of the lesson is listed on the first page or in the first paragraph. If not, skim the lessons paragraphs, headings, and graphics to see if you can figure out its main idea.

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Diane Vener, Study Skills, http://www. a landmark school student guide.html, (retrieved on April 18, 2012, Ibid.

17.36 p. m).

2. As you read each paragraph, ask yourself what is most important. What idea ties everything together? 3. After you read, ask yourself what you learned. Why did the author write the lesson or paragraph? How does understanding the main idea help you understand the lesson? How do you find the main idea? 4. Use the main ideas of the paragraphs to check your understanding of the lessons main idea. Look for words or ideas that are repeated in the text. Be sure to look at: Title Review Questions Paragraph Vocabulary 5. Decide what is most important. What information must the lesson include in order for you to understand it?

C. The Location of Main Idea There are some locations of main ideas in the text. The main idea not also in the first paragraph, but the main idea can in the middle, last, first and last of the paragraph. Look the example: 1. Main Idea In The First Paragraph The movie Apollo 13 was a blockbuster for the summer of 1995. It is an exciting story about space exploration. In the movie, the astronauts get in trouble while they are trying to return to Earth. People in the audience are on the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens. What makes it even more exciting is that it is a true story.

2.

Main Idea In The Middle Paragraph The United States seems to be in love with the idea of going out to eat. Because of this, a real variety of restaurants has come about specializing in all kinds of foods. McDonald's is the king of a subgroup of restaurants called fast-food restaurants. Chances are, no matter where you live, there is a McDonald's restaurant near you. There are even McDonald's in the Soviet Union. Now McDonald's is trying something new. It is called
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McDonald's Express and there is a test site in Peabody, Massachusetts. It is part of a Mobil gas station. This allows you to fill up with gas and fill up on food at the same time. What will they think of next?

3.

Main Idea In Last Paragraph We can measure the radioactivity of plants and animals today and compare this with the radioactivity of ancient organic matter. If we extract a small, but precise, quantity of carbon from an ancient wooden ax handle, for example, and find it has one-half as much radioactivity as an equal quantity of carbon extracted from a living tree, then the old wood must have come from a tree that was cut down or made from a long that died 5730 years ago. In the way, we can probe into the past as much as 50.000 years to find out such things as the age of ancient civilizations or the times of the ice ages that covered the earth.

4.

Main Idea In The First And Last Paragraph The study of prehistoric humans is, of necessity, the study of their fossil remains. To begin to understand who our ancestors were and what they were like, we must able to interpret the fragments of them that are coming to the surface in increasing numbers. Given fairly reliable methods to determine their age, we can now turn with more confidence to primate fossil for an answer to the all-important question: how do we tell monkeys, apes, and human apart? For present-day species this is no problem; all have evolved sufficiently so that they no longer resemble one another. But since they all have a common ancestor, the farther back we go in time, the more similar their fossil begin to look. There finally comes a point when they are indistinguishable. The construction of a primate fossil family tree is essential if we are ever going to discover the line of descent from early hominid to modern human.

D. The Importance of Main Ideas Identifying main ideas and working out the relationship between main ideas and supporting details is really the essence of reading comprehension. If we cannot understand what an author is trying to say or why an author has chosen to provide us with certain details,
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then we do not understanding the text. Identifying the main idea teaches students to discriminate the important information from the less important details in a text. The ability to identify essential ideas and salient information is a prerequisite to developing insight.5

TeacherVision:http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/readingcomprehension/48706.html, (retrieved on April 18, 2012, 19.00 p. m).

References
Harida, Eka Sustri. Reading Comprehension I, Padansidimpuan: STAIN, 2011. McWhorter, Kathleen T., Efficient and Flexible Reading Third Edition, New York: Harper Collon Publusher, 1992. TeacherVision:http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skillbuilder/readingcomprehension/48706.html, (retrieved on April 18, 2012, 19.00 p. m). Vener, Diane, Study Skills, http://www. a landmark school student guide.html, retrieved on April 18, 2012, 17.36 p. m.