Evidence that is based on personal observations is considered

quite an interesting way to teach topic sentences, because the answer to this question is the best definition of a topic sentence that one can present, it is as if answering the questions taught you how to do it, this is some real teaching, it is terribly well-done.

the topic sentence in this paragraph is:

topic sentences writers stay on track and keep a paragraph from becoming an aimless collection of sentences about an idea.

which incidentally tells you what a topic sentence should be.

onto a large boat, and mark the water level that the boat sinks to. then, take the elephant out and put a bunch of marked weights onto the boat until it reaches the same water level. add up the masses of the weights to get the weight of the elephant.