Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Division of Antique
District of San Jose
ANTIQUE INTEGRATED SCHOOL
San Jose St., San Jose, Antique
SY: 2022-2023

Hand-Outs in ENGLISH IV
Quarter 3-Lesson 2

DISTINGUISH BETWEEN GENERAL AND SPECIFIC STATEMENT

A sentence is a group of words or phrases that form a statement. A statement that gives information is
classified into general and specific statement.

General Statement is a sentence that defines or declares some large and broad information. It does not
describe one particular event. It is usually express as the general idea of a piece of writing.

Specific Statement refers to the exact and precise description. It provides evidence to further define the
general idea or general statement. Being able to recognize whether a statement is specific or general is a
key to understand how sentences operate in the given statement.

Study the example below.

Main idea: Land Transportation

Related Words: bicycle
tricycle
motorcycle

Read the following pair of statement:

1. a. The doctors are heroes of pandemic.
b. Dr. Salvador from Bataan Hospital treats Covid-19 patient.

2. a. Nurse expands lives as frontline members of health care.

b. Nurse Mary provides hope and care to their patient.

3. a. A teacher helps people to learn.

b. An English teacher is responsible for ensuring pupils learn proper grammar,
writing and reading comprehension.

What is the difference

between the first and second
sentences?

The first sentences (a.) are more general than the second sentences (b.).

Let’s identify what is general and

specific statement.

Let’s start with no. 1 example. First sentence (a) is a general statement as covers broad
categories or group of people like “doctors.”
Second statement (b) is very specific as it talks about a particular individual named “Dr.
Salvador,” that supports the statement, “Doctors are heroes of pandemic. Statements are classified as
general and specific. General Statement expresses the main point. Specific Statement provides evidence
that define general statement. When you read “The doctors are heroes of pandemic.”, you will know that
this is a general statement and “Dr. Salvador from Bataan Hospital treats Covid-19 patient.”, is a specific
statement. It is because of the word or group of words used and how the idea was presented.