How do you find the supporting details of a paragraph?.

Step 1: Identify the topic. To identify the topic of reading, ask yourself, "What is this about?" The answer provides the topic of the reading. It does not need to be a complete sentence, and it is usually no longer than two or three words.

Step 2: Identity what the author is saying about the topic. To identify what the author is saying about the topic, ask yourself, "What does the author want me to know about the topic?" Again, this does not need to be a sentence and is generally five to seven words long.

Step 3: Identify details that support or explain the main idea. To find the main idea, first, take your answer from Step 1, add it to your answer from Step 2, and then find a phrase or sentence in the first part of the reading that most closely matches your answers. This will be the main idea of the reading. To identify major supporting details that support that main idea, ask yourself, "What else in the reading helps me to understand the author’s main idea?" To identify minor supporting details, ask of each major detail, "What else in the paragraph helps me to understand this major supporting detail?" Be aware that not all major details require further explanation, so they will not all have minor details supporting them.