一篇英文作文是否成功的标准之一是看文章中所有段落是否达成了段落统一性，尤其是在论述文当中。

统一性的英文单词unity中的词根uni-来自于拉丁语，表示“一”，因此一个段落中所有的支撑句都应该围绕着一个中心思想展开。通常这个中心思想是由段落的中心句（topic sentence）所决定。

下面请大家阅读以下英文段落，并找出其中的中心句。

Quincy Jones once said “Sometimes your biggest disadvantage can be your biggest advantage.” Legendary music producer and multi-Grammy award winner, Quincy Jones lived a life of poverty, conflict and constant stress and deprivation growing up, but he says that his home life and loneliness caused him to practice piano for hours and hours on end as an escape. Without those thousands of hours of practice, he would not have become the accomplished musician he is today. It’s a much-told story, Oprah Winfrey too grew up in an abusive and harsh environment. She used to bury herself in books and educated herself that way to become one of the richest people in the entertainment world.

该段落的中心句为第一句。作者引用了Quincy Jones的语言表达了“曾经的劣势也可能成为日后的优势”，因此段落剩余的部分都应该起到证明这一观点的作用。作者引用了Quincy Jones本人的例子来证明了他小时候因为孤单而长时间投身与练琴的结果，反而成为了他日后成为成功音乐家的基础。作者紧接着又引用了Oprha Winfrey作为第二个例子。因为家庭环境的影响，Oprah小时候会看很多的书，这为以后成为最成功的娱乐人起到了至关重要的作用。

这个段落是一个达成了统一性的好段落，但很多时候有些段落在一致性上会出现问题，例如下面这个段落。

For hundreds of years, man has made use of the talents of monkeys. Ancient Egyptian paintings show baboons gathering fruit for their masters. Even in 1879, in Abyssinia, monkeys were still being used as torchbearers at feasts. The monkeys would sit in a row on a bench and hold the lights until the guests went home. Then the monkeys would eat. Most of the world’s zoos contain a variety of monkeys for people to watch.

中心句依然是段落第一句，表明人类会利用猴子的聪明才智帮自己做事情。随后的支撑句总共举了三个例子。第一个例子是人类会利用猴子帮忙收集水果；第二个例子是人类会训练猴子举火把为人类照明。但是第三个例子仅仅讲述了人类会在动物园中展览猴子。和前两项行为相比，猴子并不需要特别的聪明才智才会被放入动物园展示，因此这个例子并不能够证明本段落的主题句。如果进行适当的修改，如“人们还会训练猴子在马戏团进行表演”则可以算是对猴子才智的利用，就是更好的段落支撑句。

因此，大家只有在写作的过程当中，不断思考所写的支撑句是否与中心句有直接关联，才能够达成段落统一性。