Writing Skills,Communication Skills

WRITING SKILLS

7.1       Introduction

Every essay is the result of a struggle between a writer and his or her material. If the writer’s struggle is successful, the finish essay is welded together without a seam, and the reader has no sense of the frustration the writer experienced while hunting for the right word or rearranging ideas. Writing is no easy business, and even a professional writer can have a very difficult time. Still, although no simple formula for good writing exists, some approaches for writing are easier and more productive than others.

At this point you may be asking yourself, “So what? What has this got to do with me? I’m not a professional writer”. True enough, during next few years you will be doing a good deal of writing. Throughout your collage carrier, you will need to write mid-term, final exams, quizzes, lab reports and short essays. In your professional life you may have to write progress reports, proposals, business correspondence, memos and resumes. As diverse as these assignments seems, they have something in common: They can be made easier if you are familiar with the writing process – the way in which effective writers begin with a subject, decide on a thesis  and eventually put together an essay.  

7.2       Choosing a Topic

            In an argumentative essay, as in all writing, choosing the right topic is important. It should be one in which you have an intellectual or emotional interest. Nevertheless, you should be open minded and willing to consider all sides of a question. If the evidence goes against your position, you should be able to change your thesis or even the subject. And you should be able, in advance, to consider your topic from other people’s viewpoints so that you understand what they believe and can build a logical case. If you cannot, then you should abandon your topic and pick another one that you can deal with more objectively.

            Other factors should also influence your selection of a topic. You should be well informed about your topic. In addition, you should select a limited issue, narrow enough to be treated effectively in the space available to you, or confine your discussion to a particular aspect of a board issue. You should also consider your purpose-what you expect your argument to accomplish and how you wish your audience to respond. If your topic is so far-reaching that you cannot identify what you want to convince a reader to think, or so idealistic that your expectations are impossible or unreasonable, your essay will not be effective.

7.2.1    Taking a Stand

            After you have chosen your topic, you are ready to take your stand-to state the position you will argue in the form of a thesis. Consider the following thesis statement:

            “Solar power is the best available solution to the impending energy crisis”.

This thesis says that you believe there will be an energy crisis in the future, that there is more than one possible solution to the crisis, and that solar energy is a better solution than any other. In your argument you will have to support each of these three assertions logically and persuasively, here is an opposing thesis on the same topic:

            “Solar power is not a good solution to the energy crisis”.

This thesis states that solar power could not solve such a crisis, at least not by itself. This is a simpler position to argue, with only one assertion that requires support. That is not to say, of course, that it is more valid.

Before going any further, you should examine your thesis to make sure that it is debatable. There is no point in arguing a statement of fact or a point that people accept as self-evident. For example most people would agree with the following assertion: “Immigrants have contributed much to the development of the United States.” A good argumentative thesis, however, would contain a proposition that has at least two sides and could function as the basis of an argument. “Because immigrants have contributed much to the development of United States, immigration quotas should be eliminated.” A good way to test the suitability of your thesis for an argumentation essay is to formulate an antithesis, a statement that asserts the opposite position. If you can, you can be certain that your thesis is indeed debatable: “Even though immigrants have contributed much to the United States, immigration quotas should not be eliminated.”

            It is also wise to test your own attitude toward your thesis. If you are so convinced you are right that you cannot understand or respect opposing views and the people who hold them, you do not have the objectivity you need to develop a sound and persuasive argument. Argument is demanding, and it requires clear thought and a reasonably cool head. Of course you should care about your subject and believe your position is right, but the strength of your conviction alone will not guarantee a strong argument.

7.2.2    Analyzing your Audience

            Before writing any essay, you should analyze the characteristics, values, and interests of your audience. Once you know who your audience will be, you need to assess what beliefs or opinions they are likely to hold and whether they are friendly, neutral, or hostile to your thesis. It is probably best to assume that some, if not most, of your readers are at least skeptically neutral and possibly hostile. That assumption is controversial; you should assume an informed and determined opposition is looking for holes in your argument.

            Often you begin with a purpose in mind but must decide on an audience. If you want to make something happen, who has the power to do it? Whom do you have to persuade, and how would those readers respond to your efforts? Sometimes you will need to appeal to several different audiences, tailoring your persuasive method and approach to each.

            Each of these considerations influences your approach to your subject. For example, it would be relatively easy to convince college students hat tuition should be lowered or instruction that salaries should be raised. You could be reasonably sure, in advance, that each group would be friendly and would agree with your position. But argument requires more than telling people what they already believe. It would be much harder to convince college students that tuition should be raised to pay for an increase in instructors’ salaries or to persuade instructors to forgo raises so that tuition can remain the same. Yet these are the kinds of challenges that arguments must routinely meet. Whether your readers are mildly sympathetic, neutral, or even hostile to your position, your purpose is to change their views to match your own more closely. Remember, your audience will not just take your word for things. You must provide evidence that will support your thesis and reasoning that will lead to your conclusion.

7.2.3    Gathering Evidence

            All the points that you make in your paper must be supported. If they are not, your audience will dismiss them as irrelevant or unclear. Sometimes you can support a statement with appeal to emotion, but most of the time you support the points of your argument by appealing to reason – by providing evidence, material presented in support of your claim.As you gather evidence and assess its effectiveness, keep in mind that evidence in an argumentative essay never proves anything conclusively. If it did there would be no debate and hence no point in arguing. The best that evidence can do is convince you audience that an assertion is reasonable and worth believing. Choose your evidence with this goal in mind.

            Evidence can consist of fact or opinion. Facts are statements that most people agree are true and that can be verified independently. Examples are the most common type of factual evidence, but statistics – evidence expressed as numbers – are also factual. It is a fact, for example, that since 1945 more than 45,000 people a year have been killed in automobile accidents on the nation’s highways. Facts may be drawn from your own experience as well as from reading and observation. It may be a fact that you yourself have had a serious automobile accident. Quite often, facts alone are not enough to support an assertion. In such cases, you need opinions, interpretations of facts. To connect your facts about automobile accidents to the assertion that installation of automatic airbags on all care could dramatically reduce deaths, you could cite the opinions of experts – consumer advocates Ralph Nader, for example. His statements, along with the facts you have assembled and your own interpretations of those facts, could convince readers that your solution to the problem of highway deaths is promising.

            Keep in mind that not all opinions are equal. You may form opinions based on personal experience and observation and use such opinions to support an argument. Still, the opinions of experts are more convincing than are those of individuals who have less experience with or knowledge of an issue. Your personal opinions can be excellent evidence provided you are knowledgeable about your subject, but they seldom constitute enough evidence to support a major assertion of you are argument. In the final analysis, what is important is not just the quality of the evidence, but also the credibility of the person offering the evidence.

            As soon as you decide on a topic, you should begin to gather as much evidence as you can. Brainstorm to think of experiences and observations that would support your claims. If your topic is technical or demands support beyond your own knowledge of the subject, go to the library and search card catalog, periodical indexes, and reference books to locate the information that you need. When selecting and reviewing material, remember three things about your evidence:

(1)        Your evidence should be relevant. Your evidence should support your thesis and should contribute to the argument that you are making. As you present evidence, you may concentrate so much on a specific example that your lose sight of the point you are supporting. As a result, you digress from your point, and your readers become confused. In arguing against mandatory AIDS testing for all government workers, one student made the point the AIDS was not yet of epidemic proportions. To illustrate this point he offered a discussion of the bubonic plague in fourteenth-century Europe. Although interesting, this example was not relevant because the writer did not link his discussion to his assertions about AIDS. To show its relevance he could, for instance, have compared estimates of the number of people who died of the bubonic plague during a single year with the number who have died of AIDS during a single year.

(2)        Your evidence should be representative. Your evidence should represent the full range of opinions your subject, not just one side or the other. Examples and expert opinions should be typical, not aberrant. Suppose you were writing an argumentation essay in which you supported the building of a trash-to-steam program. As you consider your evidence, you should ask yourself if Baltimore’s experience with trash-to-steam is typical. Did other cities in different regions of the country have less success? Look especially hard at opinions that disagree with the position and enable you to refute it effectively when you write your paper.

(3)        Your evidence should be sufficient. Your evidence should be sufficient to support your claims. The amount of evidence that you need depends on your audience and your thesis. It stands to reason that you would use fewer examples in a two-page paper than in a ten-page research assignment. Similarly, an audience that is favorably disposed to your thesis might need only one or two examples to be convinced, while a skeptical audience would need many more. As your thesis, consider the level of support that you will need as you write your paper. You may decide that a narrower, more limited thesis might be easier to support than one that is more expansive.

            What kind of evidence might change a reader’s mind? That depends on the readers, on the issue, and on the facts at hand. You need to put yourself in the place of your readers what would make hem agree with your thesis. Why should a student agree to pay higher tuition? You might concede that tuition is high but point out that it has not been raised for three years, while the college’s costs have kept going up. Heating and maintaining the buildings cost more and professors’ salaries have failed to keep pace with the cost of living, with the result that several excellent teachers have recently left the college for higher-paying jobs. Furthermore, cuts in government funding have already caused a reduction in the number of courses offered. How could you convince a professor to agree to accept no raise at all, especially in light of fact that faculty salaries have not kept up with inflation? You could say that because government cuts in funding have already reduced course offerings and because the government has also reduced funds for loans for the many students from families whose incomes average $200,000 or less, any further rise in tuition to pay faculty salaries might cause many students to drop out – and that in turn would cost some instructors their jobs. As you can see, the evidence and reasoning you use in an argument depend to a great extent on whom you want to persuade and what you know about them.

7.3 Moving from Subject to Topic

            Once you have considered the limits of your assignment, you need to narrow your subject in a workable topic within those limits. Many writing assignments begin as broad areas of interest or concern. Those general subjects always need to be narrowed or limited to specific topics that can be reasonably discussed. For example, a subject like DNA recombinant research is certainly interesting. But it is too vast to write about except in a vague and generalized way. You need to narrow such a subject into a topic that can be covered within the time and space available.

Subject                                                           Topic

DNA recombinant research                            One use of DNA Recombinant research

Herman Melville’s Billy Budd                          Billy Budd as a Christ figure

Constitutional law                                            One result of the Miranda ruling

Microcomputers                                              A comparison of the Apple Macintosh SE and IBM PC 50 Computers

As these examples illustrate, a topic does more than a narrow general subject. A topic also

defines the manner in which you will treat a subject.

To narrow a general subject, you need to explore the topics it contains that fall within your limits and to consider what you have to say about each topic. Do not make the mistake of skipping this stage of the writing process, hoping that a topic will suddenly come to you. Not only will you waste time with this haphazard approach, but you also may fail to realize the potential of your subject. Instead, you can use three of the most productive techniques - free writing, questions for probing and brainstorming - to help you narrow your subject and generate ideas. Like most other writers, you will probably discover by trial and error which of these methods of invention work best for you.

7.3.1    Getting Started: Free writing

You can use free writing at any stage of the writing process - to narrow your subject, to generate information, or to find a thesis –but it is particularly useful as a way to get started. Free writing is just what the term implies. Begin writing for a fixed period, usually five or ten minutes and write down everything that comes to mind. Do not worry if your ideas do not seem to relate to your subject. The object of free writing is to let your ideas flow. Often your best ideas will come to your as a result of unexpected connections that you make as free write. When your free write, you should not pay attention to spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Your goal is to get your ideas down on paper so you can react to them. If your find that you have nothing to say, write down anything until ideas begin to emerge -- and in time they will. The secret is to keep writing.

            After completing your free writing, read it and look for ideas that you can use in your essay. Some writers underline ideas they think they might explore in their essays. These ideas may become supporting information for the writing topic, or they could become subjects for other free writing exercises. For example, if after reading your free writing you find a promising idea, you can free write again using your new idea as you focus. This technique – called looping – can yield a great deal of useful information and can help you arrive at a workable topic. In fact, many writers do a free writing draft of an essay before they do a more structured version in this way; they concentrate on ideas and do not become bogged down in the more formal aspects of writing.

            If you do your free writing on a computer, you may find that staring at your own words can cause you to freeze. Or you may find that you are paying so much attention to what you are writing that your ideas just do not flow. A possible solution to these problems is to turn down the brightness until the screen becomes dark and then free write. This technique allows you to block out distracting elements and to focus on your ideas. Once you finish free writing, turn up the brightness and see what you have. If you have expressed an interesting idea, you can move it onto a new page and free write again.         Here is a ten-minute free writing assignment that a student did on the subject “An event that had an impact on my life.”

            “Write for ten minutes – ten minutes – at 9 o’clock in the morning. She must be kidding – Just what I want to do – Don’t stop – Don’t stop – Hungry – I didn’t even have breakfast. Great, just spilled coffee on my paper. Remember the time Dad spilled a whole pot and burned his hand. Mom wasn’t home and I bandaged it. I was eight or nine I guess. The doctor at the emergency ward asked who did the professional job of bandaging. He told me that I should think about becoming a doctor. Maybe he was kidding or maybe he was just humoring a kid. Who knows? That was the first time I ever thought about it. Before that–nurse or teacher, I remember the whole thing clearly. Probably could write about it – Before etc. My teachers – my parents. Why not”?

After some initial floundering, Laura arrived at an idea that could be the basis for her essay. Although the incident that Laura describes must be expanded, her free writing has helped her arrive at a possible topic for her essay.

7.3.2    Focusing on a Topic: Question For Probing

When you probe your subject, you ask a series of questions about it. These questions are useful because they reflect ways in which your mind operates: finding similarities and differences, for instance, or dividing a whole into its parts. By running through the list of questions, you can prove your subject systematically. Of course, not all questions will work for every subject. Still, any question may lead to many different answers, and each answer is a possible topic for your essay.

·         What happened?

·         When did it happen?

·         Where did it happen?

·         What does it look like?

·         What are its characteristics?

·         What are some typical cases or examples of it?

·         How did it happen?

·         What makes it work?

·         How is it made?

·         Why did it happen?

·         What caused it?

·         What does it cause?

·         What are its effects?

·         How is it related to something else?

·         How is it like other things?

·         How is it different from other things?

·         What are its parts or types?

·         How can its parts or types be separated or grouped?

·         Do its parts or types fit into a logical order?

·         Into what categories can its parts or types be arranged?

·         On what basis can it be categorized?

·         How can it be defined?

·         How does it resemble other members of its class?

·         How does it differ from other members of its class?

·         What are its limits?

            When applied to a particular subject, even a few of these questions can yield many workable topics – some you might never have considered had you not asked the questions. By applying this approach to a general subject, such as “the Brooklyn Bridge,’ you can generate more ideas and topics than you need:

·         What happened? A short history of the Brooklyn Bridge

·         What does it look like? A description of the Brooklyn Bridge

·         How is it made? The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge

·         What are its effects? The effect of the Brooklyn Bridge on American writers

·         How does it differ from other members of its class? Innovations in the design of the Brooklyn Bridge

            At this point in the writing process, you mainly want to explore possible topics, and the more ideas you have, the wider your choice. So write down all the topics you think of. You can even repeat the process of probing several times to uncover topics that are still more limited. For instance, you might begin probing the subject of television programs and decide you are interested in writing about game shows. But that topic: types of game-show contestants. Once you have generated many topics, eliminate those that do not interest you or that go too far beyond you knowledge or are too complex or too simple to fit the limits of the assignment When you have discarded these weaker ideas, you will still have several left, and you can select from these possible topics the one that best suits your paper’s length, purpose, audience, and occasion, as well as your knowledge of the subject.

            If you are writing on a computer, you can store your questions in a file that you can return to every time you have a new topic to probe. Having easy access to the questions makes it more efficient to use them. In addition, you can keep copies of your responses for each essay. Not only will you be able to keep a complete record of your prewriting activities, but you can easily determine what invention techniques work best for you.

7.3.3    Finding Something to Say: Brainstorming

            After you have decided on a topic, you still have to find something to say about it. Brainstorming is a method of invention that can help you to do this. Like free writing, brainstorming is a method of free association for generating ideas. By the time you brainstorm, however, you usually have a topic in mind, so brainstorming is often more focused.

            You can brainstorm in a group, exchanging ideas with several students in your composition class and writing down the useful ideas that come up. Or, you can brainstorm individually, quickly writing down every fact idea or association you think of that relates to your topic. Your list might include words, phrases, statements, or questions. Jot them down in whatever order you think of them, allowing your thoughts to wander freely. Some of the items may be inspired by your class notes; others may be ideas you got from reading or from talking with friends. Still other items may be ideas you have begun to wonder about, points you thought of while working toward your topic or thoughts that spontaneously occur to you as you brainstorm. An engineering student planning to write a ten-page research paper for his composition class on the advantages and disadvantages of alternate energy sources made this brainstorming list:

Alternate Energy Sources

• Solar
• Fusion
•  Wind
• Tidal
• Nuclear
• Nuclear technology already exists and is widely used
• Nuclear plants can leak radioactivity (Chernobyl)
• Synthetic fuels
• Steam power plants
• Free fuel source for solar
• Solar technology exists guy is not widely used
• Inefficiency of solar collectors
• Efficiency of fusion reaction
• Difficulty of containing fusion reaction
• Solar collectors safe
• Disposal of nuclear wastes – dangerous
• Proliferation of plutonium
• Breeder reactors
• Sophisticated technology still not developed for fusion
• Fusion relatively clean – little radioactive waste
• Unlimited fuel source for fusion – H₂O
• Limited uranium resources
• Solar – no waste – no pollution
• Oil could run out by 2020
• Limited energy resources
• Gas crisis of 1970s
• Congress and president worried?
• Development money
• Certain alternate sources still too expensive
• Coal gasification
• Shale oil
• Decontrol
• Raising prices
• Rationing
• Heating
• Cars and transportation
• Electricity

The student who wrote this brainstorming list was obviously at no loss for ideas. After reading his list over several times, he decided that he would concentrate on the advantages and  disadvantages of the three alternate energy sources with which he was most familiar nuclear, solar, and fusion. He knew he could research these three sources of energy in his college library, and he felt confident that they could be clearly explained in nontechnical language for his composition instructor and classmates.

7.3.4      Making an Informal Outline

The next step in the writing process is to organize your ideas by grouping the items from your brainstorming list under a few broad headings, thereby creating an informal outline. An informal outline can take many forms and can be prepared at various stages of the writing process. Quite often an informal outline is just a list of your major points, perhaps presented in some tentative order: sometimes, however, it will include some supporting details or suggest a pattern of development. Informal outlines do not detail the major divisions and subdivisions of your paper or the relative importance of your ideas; they simply suggest the shape of your emerging essay. Here is how the engineering student grouped his ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear, solar, and fusion power.

·         Nuclear Power

            Nuclear technology already exists and is widely used
            Nuclear plants can leak radioactivity (Chernobyl)
            Limited uranium resources
            Disposal of nuclear wastes – dangerous

           

• Solar Power

            Solar technology exists but is not widely used
            Inefficiency of solar collectors
            Solar collectors safe
            Free fuel source
            No waste – no pollution

• Fusion Power

            Sophisticated technology still not developed
            Difficulty of containing fusion reaction
            Unlimited duel source – H₂O
            Relatively clean – little radioactive waste

            The informal outline above represents only a rough sketch of one possible way to arrange material. At this point in the writing process, neither the order of points nor the writer’s emphasis is fixed. Neither are the supporting details nor the pattern of development. In the course of his work, the student will experiment with different ways of arranging his ideas until eventually he is able to sum up in one sentence a possible main idea for his essay; “ Although nuclear, solar, and fusion power are promising energy source, each also has disadvantages.”

7.3.5    Formulating a Thesis

            Once you have decided what your essay is going to discuss, your next job is to formulate a thesis. Your thesis is the main idea of your essay; it is the central point that your essay supports. The word thesis at one time denoted an argumentative statement one that took a firm stand on an issue. But the definition of thesis has broadened considerable over the years. Now, the term is commonly used to identify the main idea of an essay whether or not it is argumentative. On this sense, every essay has a thesis.

            An effective thesis statement clearly expresses your essay’s has idea. What this means is that a thesis does more than just prime your essay’s topic; it indicates what you will say about your topic, and it signals what your approach toward your material will be.           The following thesis, from the essay “Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts” clearly communicates the main idea the writer will support.

“They {Grant and Lee} were two strong men, these oddly different generals, and they represented the strengths of two conflicting currents that, through they, had come into final collision”.

This thesis indicated that the essay will compare and contrast Grant and Lee; more specifically it reveals that the writer’s approach to his material will be to present the two Civil Wear generals as symbols of two historical currents that were also in opposition. If writer’s thesis had been less fully developed – if, for example, he had said, “Grant and Lee were quite different from each other” – it would have communicated no more than the essay’s title, and it would have failed to signals the essay’s purpose or approach – or its real subject – to his readers.

            Your thesis evolves from your purpose, and it is an expression of that purpose. Whether your purpose for writing is to evaluate or analyze or simple to describe or recount, your thesis communicates that purpose to your readers. In general terms, your purpose may be to express your feelings, to present information in a straightforward manner, or to persuade. Accordingly, your thesis can be expressive, conveying a mood or impression; it can be informative, perhaps listing the major points you will discuss or presenting an objective overview of the essay to follow; or it can be persuasive taking a strong stand or outlining the position you will argue. The three thesis statements below express different purposes.

·                     The city’s homeless families live in heartbreaking surroundings.                  (Purpose – to express feelings)

·                     The plight of the homeless has become so serious that it is a                       major priority for many city governments. (Purpose – to inform)

·                     The only responsible reaction to the crisis at hand is to renovate                  abandoned city housing to provide suitable shelter for homeless                         families. (Purpose – to persuade)

Whether your thesis is expressive, informative, or argumentative, it is always more that a title, an announcement of your subject, or a simple statement of fact. A descriptive title is useful because it orients your reader, but it is seldom detailed enough to reveal much about your essay’s purpose or direction. An announcement of your subject can reveal more, but it is stylistically intrusive. Finally, a statement of fact – for instance, a historical or scientific fact or a statistic – is typically a dead end and therefore not worth developing in an essay. A statement likes “Alaska becomes a state in 1959” or “Tuberculosis is highly contagious” or “The population of Greece is about 10 million” provides your essay with no direction. However, a judgment or opinion in response to a fact can be an effective thesis – for instance, “The continuing threat of tuberculosis, particularly in the inner cities, may make it necessary to conduct more frequent diagnostic tests among high-risk population.” To gain an appreciation of the differences among titles, announcements, statements of fact, and thesis statements, compare the statements in each of the following groups.

Title:                           The 55-Mile-Per-Hour Speed Limit: Pros and Cons

Announcement:          In the following pages, I will examine the pros and cons of doing away with the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit on most state highways.

Statement of Fact:      Ohio has increased the speed limit from 55 to 65 Miles per hour.

Thesis:                         The federal government should withhold highway fund from any state that decides to increase the speed limit on state highways from 55 to miles per hour.

Title:                            Orwell’s “A Hanging”

Announcement:          This paper will discuss George Orwell’s attitude toward the death penalty in his essay “Hanging”

Statement of Fact:      In his essay Orwell describes a hanging that he witnessed in Burma.

Thesis:                         In “A Hanging” George Orwell shows that capital punishment is not only unpleasant but immoral.

Title:                            Alternate Energy Sources

Announcement:          This essay will explore some alternatives to oil, gas and electricity.

Statement of Fact:      Nuclear, solar, and fusion are three alternate energy sources.

Thesis:                         Although nuclear. Solar, and fusion power are promising energy sources, each has drawbacks that would keep it from replacing traditional energy sources.  

            To communicate your essay’s main idea, an effective thesis should be clearly and specifically worded. Often, it is expressed in one complete sentence. Also, it should speak for itself (it is not necessary to say, “My thesis is that…” or “The thesis of this paper is…”). The thesis statement should be pertinent to the rest of the essay, giving a fair indication of what follows and not misleading reading readers about the essay’s direction, emphasis, content, or point of view. Vague language, confusing abstraction, irrelevant details, or overly complex terminology have no place in a thesis statement.

            Naturally your thesis cannot include every point you will discuss in your paper. Still, it should be specific enough to indicate to your readers the direction in which your essay is going. The statement “The new immigration law has failed to stem the tide of illegal immigrants” does not give your essay much focus. Which law will you examining? Which illegal immigrants? Of course your thesis cannot mention every idea you will explore, but it should define the scope of your discussion. Keep in mind, too, that your thesis should not make promises that your essay is not going to keep. If you are going to discuss just the effects of the new immigration law, do not emphasize in your thesis the sequence of events that led to the law’s passage.

            The following thesis statement fulfills the requirements for an effective thesis. It clearly indicates what the writer is going to discuss, and it establishes a specific direction and purpose for the essay.

“Because it fails to take into account the economic causes of illegal immigration, the 1986 immigration law is an inadequate solution to the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States”.

With this thesis, the writer is committed to a position and can easily move ahead and present the facts and reasoning that will support it. Furthermore, readers have been shown where the essay is headed and so will not have to puzzle out just what the writer means to say.  Although every essay should have a clear sense of purpose, not every kind of writing requires an explicitly stated thesis. Sometimes a thesis may only be implied. Like an explicitly stated thesis, an implied thesis conveys your essay’s purpose, but the purpose is not directly stated in a single sentence. Instead, it is suggested by the selection and arrangement of the essay’s points. Although using an implied thesis requires that a writer plan and organize especially carefully, many professional writers whose essays are included in this book prefer this option because it is more subtle than a stated thesis.

Activity

                   

                   Organize your ideas about a special festival or holiday in your country. Write an outline to indicate main ideas and supporting details.

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7.4       Parts of the Essay

An excellent way to learn how to write clearly and logically is to practice the traditional college essay that typically consists of an introductory paragraph, two or four supporting paragraphs and a concluding paragraph. No matter what pattern of development you use, an essay should have a beginning, middle, and an end – that is an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

7.4.1 The Introduction         

            The opening of your essay, usually one paragraph and rarely more than two, introduces your subject, engages your reader’s interest, and often states your thesis. But in so short a space, there is obviously no room for an in-depth discussion or even a summary of your topic. You can introduce an essay and engage your readers’ interest in number of ways. Here are several you can employ:

(1)        You can give some background information and then move directly to your thesis. This approach works well when you know hat the audience is already interested in your topic and that there is so reason not to come directly to the point. It is especially useful for exams, where there is no need or time for subtlety. For example:

·         With inflation taking its toll, many companies have understandably been forced to raise prices, and the oil industry should be no exception. But well-intentioned individuals begin wondering whether high prices are justified when increases occur as frequently as they do. It is at this point that we should start examining the pricing policies of the major American oil companies.

                                                                                      

(2)        You can introduce an essay with a definition of a relevant term or concept. (Keep in mind, however, that the “According to Webster’s Dictionary….” Formula is overused and trite.) This technique is especially useful for research papers or examinations where the meaning of specific term is crucial. As illustrated in the following example:

·         Democracy is a form of government in which the ultimate authority is vested in and exercised by the people. This may be so in theory, but recent elections in our city have caused much concern for the future of democracy here. Extensive voting-machine irregularities and ghost voting have seriously jeopardized the people’s faith in the democratic process.

(3)          You can begin your essay with an anecdote or story that leads into or prepares                  for your thesis, as in the following example:

·         Upon meeting the famous author James Joyce, a young student stammered, “May I kiss the hand that wrote Ulysses?” “No!” said Joyce. “It did a lot of other things, too.” As this exchange shows, Joyce was an individual who valued humor. This tendency is also present in his final work, Finnegans Wake, where comedy is used to comment on the human condition. 

      

            (4)        You can begin with a question, as is in the example given below:

·         What was it like to live through the holocaust? Elie Wiesel, in One Generation After, answer this question by presenting a series of accounts about individuals who found themselves thrust into Nazi death camps. As he does so, he challenges some of the assumptions we hold in our somewhat smug and highly materialistic society.

            (5)        You can also begin with a quotation. If it is well chosen, it can interest your             audience in reading further. For example:

·         The rich are different, “said F. Scott Fitzgerald more than fifty years ago. Apparently, they remain so today. As any examination of the tax laws shows, the wealthy receive many more benefits than do the middle class or the poor.

No matter which method you select, your introduction should be consistent in tone and approach with the rest of your essay. If it is not, it can misrepresent your intentions to your reader and even destroy your credibility. (For this reason, the introduction is often the last part of a rough draft to be written.) A technical report, for instance, should have an introduction that reflects the formality and seriousness of the occasion. The introduction to an autobiographical essay or a personal letter, on the other hand, should have an informal and relaxed tone.

7.4.2    The Body Paragraphs         

      The middle section, or body, of your essay supports and expands your thesis. The body paragraphs present the detail, such as examples, descriptions, and facts that will convince your audience that your thesis is reasonable. To do their job, body paragraphs should be unified, coherent, and well developed. Body paragraphs should be unified. A paragraph has unity when every sentence directly relates to the main idea of the paragraph. Sometimes the main idea of a paragraph is stated in a topic sentence. Like a thesis a topic sentence acts as a guidepost and makes it easier for readers to follow your discussion. Although where you place a topic sentence depends on your purpose and your subject, beginning writers often make it the first sentence of their paragraph.

At other times, the main idea of a paragraph is implied by the sentences in the paragraph. Professional writers infrequently use this technique because they believe that in some situations – especially narratives and descriptions – a topic sentence can seem forced awkward. As beginning writers, it is easier for you to select topic sentence. Not only will topic sentences emphasize the ideas that you are discussing in each paragraph, but they will also keep you on track by reflecting the major divisions of your outline.

Whatever strategy you use, remember that each sentence in a paragraph should reflect your purpose and should develop the main idea of the paragraph. If the sentences in a paragraph do not do this, the paragraph is said to lack unity. In the following excerpt from a student essay, notice how the topic sentence unifies the paragraph by summarizing its main idea.

“Built on the Acropolis overlooking the city of Athens in the fifth century B.C, the Parthenon is an excellent example of Greek architecture. It was a temple of the gods and was very important to the people. Although at first glance its structure seems to be perfect, on closer examination it becomes clear that it is a static, two-dimensional object. As long as you stand in the center of any of its four sides to look at it, its form will appear to be perfect. The strong Doric columns seem to be equally spaced, one next to another, along all four of its sides. But if you take a step to the right or left, the Parthenon’s symmetry is destroyed”.

This paragraph identifies the Parthenon as an excellent example of Greek architecture. The explicit topic sentence, located at the beginning of the paragraph, enables readers to grasp the writer’s point immediately. The examples that follow all relate to that point. The whole paragraph is therefore focused and unified.

Body paragraphs should be coherent. A paragraph is coherent if it is composed of sentences that smoothly and logically connect to one another. Coherence can be achieved through three devices. First, you can repeat key words to carry concepts from one sentence to another and to echo important terms. Second, you can use pronouns to refer back to key nouns in previous sentences, finally, you can use transitional expressions to show chronological sequence (then, next, after that); cause and effect (as a result, therefore); addition (first, second, and, furthermore); comparison (similarly); and contrast (but, however, still, nevertheless). These strategies for connecting sentences can spell out for your readers the exact relationship among your ideas. The following paragraph, uses all three techniques to achieve coherence.

“The burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open – I could see far down into the caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even be able to finish him. I sent back, for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock”.

            In this paragraph the writer keeps his narrative coherent by using transitional expressions (already, finally, when the shots hit him) to signal the passing of time. He uses pronouns (he, his) in nearly every sentence to refer back to the elephant, the topic of his paragraph. Finally, repetition of key words like shot and die (and its variants dead and dying) also link the paragraph’s sentences together. The result is a coherent, cohesive whole.

Body paragraphs should be well developed. A paragraph is well developed if it contains the examples, facts, and discussions readers need to understand the main idea. If a paragraph is not adequately developed, your readers will feel that they have been given only a partial picture of your subject. Just how much information you need depends on your audience, your purpose, and the claims you make in your topic sentence,

Should you find that you need more information in a paragraph, you can consult the brainstorming list created during your prewriting. If the list does not provide enough material to develop your main idea sufficiently, you can free write or brainstorm again, review your notes, talk with friends and instructors, read more about your topic, or go to the library and do some research. Your assignment and your topic will determine the kind and amount of information you need. The following paragraph by a student writer marshals a good deal of concrete information to support the assertion make in the topic sentence.

“Just look at how our society teaches males that extravagance is a positive characteristic. Scrooge, the main character of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, is portrayed as an evil man until he is rehabilitated – meaning that he gives up his miserly ways and freely distributes gifts and money on Christmas day. This behavior, of course, is rewarded when people change their opinions about him and decide that perhaps he isn’t such a bad person after all. Diamond Jim Brady is another interesting example. This individual was a financier who was known for his extravagant taste in women and food. In any given night, he would consume enough food to feed at least ten of the many poor who roaned the streets of late nineteenth –century New York. Yet, despite his selfishness and infantile self-gratification, Diamond Jim Brady’s name has become a synonym for the good life”.

This student writer provides two examples to support her assertion that society teaches males that extravance is a positive attribute. Her literary and historical examples are not only complete but also carefully chosen and effectively presented.

In addition to making sure that your body paragraphs are unified, coherent, and well developed, you need to arrange your material according to the pattern of development you have chosen. For instance, an essay in which you discuss the causes of Hitler’s defeat in Russia could be organized following a cause-and-effect pattern:

Introduction:           Thesis
Body Paragraphs:
            Cause 1:          The Russian winter
            Cause 2:          The opening of a second front
            Cause 3:          The Problem of logistics
            Cause 4:          Hitler’s refusal to take advice
Conclusion

            A lab report on the synthesis of aspirin could be organized like this, following a process pattern of development:

Introduction:    Thesis
Body
            Step 1:             Mix 5 g. of salicylic acid, 10 ml of acetic anhydride, and 12 ml. of                                       sulphuric acid.
            Step 2:             Wait for the mixture to cool.
            Step 3:             Add 50 ml. of water and collect on a Buchner filter.
            Step 4:             Dry the residue.
            Step 5:             Recrystallize the aspirin from benzene.
Conclusion     

7.4.3    The Conclusion       

            Readers remember best what they read last and so your conclusion is extremely important. Always and you essay in a way that reinforces your thesis and your purpose.           Like your introduction, your conclusion should be brief. In a short essay, it can be as brief as one sentence and most often is no longer than a paragraph. Regardless of its length, however, your conclusion should be consistent with the content of your essay. Therefore, it should not introduce new points or material that you have not discussed earlier. Frequently, a conclusion will end an essay by restating the thesis. Like thesis statements, effective conclusions need announcement, and you should avoid beginning your conclusion with the artificial phrase In conclusion. Conclusions can be as challenging to construct as introductions. Here are several ways to conclude as essay:

(1)        You can conclude your essay by simply reviewing your main points and restating your     thesis, as shown in the following example:

·         Rotation of crops provided several benefits. It enriched soil by giving it a rest; it enabled farmers to vary their production; and it ended the cycle of “boom or bust” that had characterized the prewar South’s economy when cotton was the primary crop. Of course, this innovation did not solve all the economic problems of the postwar South, but it did lay the groundwork for the healthy economy this region enjoys today.

 (2)       You can end a discussion of a problem by recommending course of action, for example:

·         While there is still time, American engineering has to reassess its priorities. We no longer have the luxury of exotic and wasteful experiments such as automobile airbags. Instead, we need technology grounded in common sense and economic feasibility. That Volks wagen, rather than an American company, developed an outstanding and inexpensive passive restraint system illustrates how far we have strayed from old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity.

(3)        You can conclude with a prediction. Be careful, however, your prediction is supported      by the points you have made in the essay. The conclusion is not the place to make new        points or changing direction, as in the following example:

·         It is too late to save parts of the great swamps in northern Florida, but it is not too late to preserve the Everglades in the southern part of the state. With intelligent planning and an end of the dam building program by the Army Corps of Engineers, we will be able to halt the destruction of what the Indians called the “Timeless Swamp.”

(4)        You can also end with a quotation. If selected carefully, it can add weight to an already     strong essay. Consider the following example:

·         In Walden, Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” This sentiment is reinforced when you drive through the Hill District of our city. Perhaps the work of the men and women who run the health clinic on Jefferson Street cannot totally change this situation, but it can give us hope to know that some people, at least, are working for the betterment of us all.  

Activity

Identifying the Parts of an Essay

This activity will sharpen your sense of the parts of an essay. “Copying with Old Age” has no indentations starting new paragraphs. Read this essay carefully, and then double-underline the thesis and single-underline the topic sentence of each of the three supporting paragraphs and the first sentence of the conclusion. Write down those sentences in the spaces provided at the end.

Coping with Old Age

I recently read about an area of the former Soviet Union where many people live to be well over a hundred years old. Being 115 or even 125 isn’t considered unusual there, and these old people continue to do productive work right up until they die. The United States, however, isn’t such a healthy place for old people. Since I retired from my job, I’ve had to cope with the physical, mental, and emotional stresses of being “old.” For one thing, I’ve had to adjust to physical changes. Now that I’m over sixty, the trusty body that carried me around for years has turned traitor. Aside from the deepening wrinkles on my face and neck, and the wiry gray hairs that have replaced my brown hairs, I face more frightening changes. I don’t have the energy I used to. My eyes get tired. Once in a while, I miss something that’s said to me. My once faithful feet seem to have lost their comfortable soles, and I sometimes feel as though I’m walking on marbles. In order to fight against this slow decay, I exercise whenever I can. I walk, I stretch, and I climb stairs. I battle constantly to keep as fit as possible. I’m also trying to cope with mental changes. My mind was once as quick and sure as a champion gymnast. I never found it difficult to memorize answers in school or to remember the names of people I met. Now I, occasionally have to search my mind for the name of a close neighbour or favourite television show. Because my mind needs exercise, too, I challenge it as much as I can. Taking a college course like this English class, for example, forces me to concentrate. The mental gymnast may be a little slow and out of shape started to think that maybe I was a cast-off, one of those old animals that slow down the rest of the herd. But I have now decided to rebel against these negative feelings. I try to have friends of all ages and to keep up with what’s going on in the world. I try to remember that I’m still the same person who sat at a first-grade desk, who fell in love, who comforted a child, who got a raise at work. I’m not “just” an old person. Coping with the changes of old age has become my latest full-time job. Even though it’s a job I never applied for, and one for which I had no experience, I’m trying to do the best I can.

Thesis statement in “Coping with Old Age”:

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Topic sentence of first supporting paragraph:

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Topic sentence of second supporting paragraph:

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Topic sentence of third supporting paragraph:

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First sentence of the conclusion:

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7.5       Types of Writing

            Traditionally the essay writing has been divided into the four basic types as narration, description, exemplification and argumentation. Each of the essay developed around some organizational plan, however it is not unusual to find more than one pattern in a single essay.

7.5.1    Description

Description tells what something or someone looks like. In the following paragraph, the writer relies on sense impressions and figurative language to paint a word picture of the jungle in Ecuador.

“When you are inside the jungle, away from the river, the trees vault out of sight it is hard to remember to look up the long trunks and see the fans, strips, fronds, and sprays of glossy leaves. Inside the jungle you are more likely to notice the snarl of climbers and creepers round the trees’ boles, the flowering bromeliads and epiphytes in over bough’s crook, and the fantastic silk-cotton tree trunks thirty or forty feet across, trunks buttressed in flanges of wood whose curves can make three high walls of a room – a shady loamy-aired room where you would gladly live, or die. Butterflies, iridescent blue, striped, or clear-winged, thread the jungle paths at eye level. And at your feed is a swath of ants bearing triangular bits of green leaf. The ants with their leaves look like a wide fleet of sailing dinghies – but they don’t quit. In either direction they wobble over the jungle floor as far as the eye can see. I followed them off the path as far as I dared, and never saw an end to ants or to those luffing chips of green they bore”.

            Before we make judgments about the words, before we compare a contrast or classify our experiences, we describe what we observe. Scientists observe and describe whenever they conduct experiments, and you do the same thing whenever you write a paper. In a comparison-and-contrast essay, for example, you may describe the performance of two cars to show that one is superior to the other. In an argumentative essay, you may describe a fish kill in a local river to show that factory pollution is a problem. Through description, you introduce your view of the world to your readers. If your readers come to understand or share your view, they are more likely to accept your conclusions and judgments as well. Therefore, in almost every essay you write, knowing how to write effective description is important. In this chapter, we focus on descriptive writing as a strategy for a whole essay.

            A narrative essay presents a series of events; it tells a story. A descriptive essay, on the other hand, tells what something looks like or what it feels like, sounds like, smells like, or tastes like. Description can also go beyond personal sense impressions. Novelists can create imaginary landscapes, historians can paint word pictures of historical figures, and scientists can describe physical phenomena that they have never seen. When you write description, you use language to create a vivid impression for your reader. A good narrative may depend heavily on descriptive details. It is important, however, not to confuse these two types of writing. A narrative always presents events in time, in some sort of chronological order, whereas a description presents things in spatial rather than temporal order.

            You can use description to support an implied or explicit thesis. Writers often use an implied thesis when they describe a person place, or thing. This technique allows them to convey the narrative dominant impression – the mood or quality that is emphasized in the piece of writing – subtly through the selection and arrangements details. When they use description to support an idea or assertion however, many writers prefer to use an explicitly stated thesis. The strategy eliminates ambiguity by letting readers see immediately what point the writer is making – for example, “The sculptures that adorn Philadelphia’s City Hall form a catalog of nineteenth-century artistic styles.” Whether you state or imply your thesis, the details of your narrative essay must work together to create a single dominant of the dominant impression; sometimes, however, your thesis may go further and make a point about the dominant imprecision.

7.5.2    Objective and Subjective Descriptions

            There are two basic approaches to description: objective and subjective. In an objective description, you focus on the object rate than on your personal reactions to it. Your purpose is to convey literal picture of subject. Many writing situations require precise descriptions of apparatus or conditions, and in these cases you goal is to construct as accurate a picture as possible for your audience. A biologist describing what he sees through a microscope and a historian describing a Civil War battlefield would both write objectively. The biologist would not, for instance, say how surprising she thought the outcome of battle was. Newspaper reporters also try to achieve this camera like objectivity, and so do writers of technical reports, scientific papers, and certain types of business correspondence. Of course, objectivity is an ideal for which writers strive but never achieve. Any time writers select some details and eliminate others, they are not being completely objective. In the following descriptive passage, the writer aims for objectively by giving his readers all the factual information they need to visualize Shakespeare’s theater.

            “When James Burbage built the Theatre in 1576 he naturally designed it along the lines of inn-yards in which he had been accustomed to play. The building had two entrances – one in front for the audience; one in the rear for actors, musicians, and the personnel of the theatre. Inside the building a rectangular platform projected far out into what was called ‘the yard’ – we know the stage of the Fortune ran halfway across the “yard,” some twenty-seven a half feet”.

Note that the writer is not interested in responding to or evaluating the environment he describes. Instead, he chooses impersonal words that are calculated to convey sizes, shapes, and distances. His use of adjectives such as two and rectangular reflects this intent. Only one word in the paragraph – naturally – suggests that the author is expressing and opinion.

In contrast to objective description is subjective or impressionistic description, which discloses your personal vision or your emotional responses to what you see and tries to get your readers to share them. These responses are not necessarily expressed directly, through a straightforward statement of your opinion or perspective. Often they are revealed indirectly, through your choice of words and phrasing. If an assignment in freshman English required that you describe a place of special meaning to you, you could convey your subjective reaction to your topic by selecting and emphasizing details that showed your feelings about the place. For example, you could write a subjective description of your room – by focusing on several objects – your desk, your window, and your bookshelves – and conveying all the impressions these things bring back to you. Your desk could be a “warm brown rectangle of wood whose top contains the scratches of thousand school assignments.”

            A subjective or impressionistic description should convey not just a factual record of sights and sounds but also their meaning or significance. For example, if you objectively described a fire, you might include its temperature, its duration, and its dimensions. In addition to these quantifiable details you might describe, as accurately as possible, the fire’s color, its movement, and its intensity. If you subjectively described the fire, however, you would include more than these unbiased observations about it. Through your choice of language and your phrasing, you would try to re-create for your audience a sense of how the fire made you feel; your reactions to the crackling noise, to the dense smoke, to the sudden destruction. In the following passage, the writer subjectively describes the Mississippi River.

“I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steam boating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal”.

In this passage, the writer uses language that has emotional connotations – wonderful – and comparisons that suggest great value – gold opal – to convey his feelings to the reader. By nothing the red color the solitary log “black and conspicuous,” and the “boiling, tumbling rings,” he shares with his readers his vivid perception of sunset of the river.

            Neither of two approaches to description exists independently. Objective description almost always contains some subjective elements, and subjective description needs some objective elements to convey a sense of reality. The skillful writer adjusts the balance between objectivity and subjectivity to suit the topic, thesis, audience, purpose, and occasion of an essay.

7.5.3    Objective and Subjective Language

Both objective and subjective descriptions depend on specific and concrete ways to convey, as precisely as possible, a picture of the person, place, or thing that the observer is describing. But objective and subjective descriptions use different kinds of language. Objective descriptions rely on precise, factual language that details your observations without including your attitude toward the subject. They describe things with words and phrases so unambiguous that many observers could agree that the descriptions were appropriate and exact. Subjective descriptions, however, generally rely on richer and more suggestive language than objective descriptions. Subjective descriptions are more likely to rely on the connotations of words, their emotional associations, than on their denotations, or dictionary definitions. They may deliberately provoke the individual reader’s imagination with striking phrases or vivid comparisons. For example, a subjective description might compare the behavior of an exotic peacock spreading its feathers to that of a pet Siamese cat posturing and posing, thus evoking a lively image in the reader’s mind.

            Although both kinds of description may use comparisons to evoke a subject, subjective descriptions rely more on elaborate or imaginative comparisons. When you write subjective descriptions, you can compare two similar things, using the familiar parakeet to describe the unfamiliar peacock. Or, instead of comparing two things that are alike, you can find similarities between things that are unlike, such as the peacock and the cat, and provide a fresh view of both. Such special comparisons are known as figures of speech. Three of the most common are simile, metaphor, and personification.

            A simile compares two things that are unlike, using like or as. These comparisons occur frequently in everyday speech, for example, when someone claims to be “happy as a clam,” “free as a bird,” or “hungry as a bear.” As a rule, however, you should avoid these clichés in your writing. Effective writers constantly strive to use original similes. A metaphor identifies two unlike things without using like or as. Instead of saying that something is like something else, a metaphor says that it is something else.

            Personification endows animals or objects with the qualities of human being. If you say that the wind whispered or that the engine died, you are using personification. Your purpose and audience determine whether you should use predominantly objective or subjective description. Legal, medical, technical, business and scientific writing assignments frequently require objective descriptions, but even in these areas you may be encouraged to tailor your descriptions so that they develop your own interpretations and arguments. Still, in all information about your subject. In contrast, an assignment that specifically asks for your reactions demands a subjective or impressionistic description.

            Sometimes inexperienced writers load their subjective descriptions with empty words like beautiful, tasty, disgusting, or scary. They may confuse their own reactions to an object with the qualities of the object itself. To produce an effective description, however, you must do more than just say something is wonderful – you must picture it as wonderful to the reader, as Twain does with the sunset. Twain does in fact use the word wonderful at the beginning of his description, but he then goes on to give many concrete details that make the experience vivid and specific for his readers.

7.5.4    Selection of Detail

            All good descriptive writing, whether objective or subjective, relies heavily on specific details that enable readers to visualize what you are describing. Your aim is not simply to tell your readers what something looks like but to show them. Every person, place, or thing has its special characteristics, and you must use your powers of observation to detect them. You then must select the concrete words that will convey your dominant impression that will enable your readers to see, hear, taste, touch or smell what you describe. Do not be satisfied with “he looked angry” when you can say, “His face flushed, and one corner of his mouth twitched as he tried to control his anger.” What is the difference? In the first case, you simply identify the man’s emotional state. In the second, you describe his appearance by providing enough detail so that readers can tell not only that he was angry but also how he revealed the intensity of his anger. Of course, you could have provided even more detail by noting the man’s beard or his wrinkles or any number of other features.

 In a given description, however, not all details are equally useful or desirable. Only those that contribute to the dominant impression you wish to create should be included. In describing a man’s face to show how angry he was, you would probably not describe the shape of his nose or the color of his hair. (After all, the color of somebody’s hair does not change when he or she gets angry.) The number of details you use is less important than their quality and appropriateness. To avoid a seemingly endless list of details that blur the focus of your essay, you must select and use only those details relevant to your purpose.

            The level and knowledge of your audience also influence the kind of detail that you include. For example, a description of DNA molecule written for first-year college students would contain more basic details than a description written for junior biology majors. In addition, the more advanced description would contain details - series of amino acid groups, for instance – that would be inappropriate for freshmen.

7.6       Exemplification

An example is a particular case, a concrete instance that supports more general assertion or concept. In the following paragraph from Sexism and Language, the writer uses a number of well-chosen examples to support her assertion that the armed forces use words that have positive male connotations to encourage recruitment.

“The armed forces, particularly the Marines, use the positive masculine connotation as part of their recruitment psychology. They promote the idea that to join the Marines (or the Army, Navy, or Air Force) guarantees that you will become a man. But this brings up a problem, because much of the work that is necessary to keep a large organization running is what is traditionally thought of as woman’s work. Now, how can the marines ask someone who has signed up for a man-sized job to do woman’s work? Since they can’t, they euphemize and give the jobs titles that are more prestigious or, at least, don’t make people think of females. Waitresses are called orderlies, secretaries are called clerk-typists, nurses are called medics, assistants are called adjutants, and cleaning up an area is called policing the area. The same kind of word glorification is used in civilian life to bolster a man’s ego when he is doing such tasks as cooking and sewing. For example, a chef has higher prestige than a cook and a tailor has higher prestige than a seamstress”.

You have probably noticed, when watching television talk shows or listening to classroom discussions, that the most interesting and persuasive exchanges take place when those involved illustrate their points with specific examples. It is one thing to say, “The mayor is corrupt and should not be reelected,” and another to exemplify his corruption by saying, “The mayor should not be reelected because he has fired two city employees who refused to contribute to his campaign fund, put his family and friends on the city payroll, and used public funds to pay for improvements on his home.” The same principle applies to writing, and many of the best essays use examples extensively. Exemplification is used in every kink of writing situation, either as a basic essay pattern or in combination with every other pattern of development, to explain, to add interest, and to persuade.

7.6.1    Examples Explain and Clarify

            On a film midterm, you might say, “Even though horror movies seem modern, they really are not.” You may think your statement is perfectly clear, but do not be surprised when your examination comes back with a question mark in the margin next to this sentence. After all, your statement goes no further than making a general assertion or claim about horror movies. It is not specific, nor does it anticipate a reader’s questions about the ways in which horror movies are not modern. Furthermore, it includes no examples, your best means of ensuring clarity and avoiding ambiguity. To make sure your audience knows exactly what you mean, you should state your point precisely: “Despite the fact that horror movies seem modern, the most memorable ones are adaptations of nineteenth-century Gothic novels.”

            Then, you could illustrate your point thoroughly by discussions specific films like Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, and Dracula, directed by Todd Browning, and by linking them with the novels on which they are based. With the benefit of these specific examples, a reader would know that you meant that the literary roots of such movies are in the past, not that their cinematic techniques or production methods are dated. Moreover, a reader would understand which literary sources you meant; with these additions your point would be clear.

7.6.2    Examples Add Interest

The more relevant detail you provide for you readers, the more interesting and appealing your essay will be. Well-chosen examples provide such detail and add life to relatively bland or straight forward statements. When you use exemplification to support your assertions, look for examples that are interesting in themselves. Test the effectiveness of your examples by putting yourself in your readers’ place. If you would not find your own essay lively and absorbing, you need to rewrite it with more spirited examples. After all, your goal is to communicate your ideas to your readers, and energetic, imaginative examples can make the difference between an engrossing essay and one that is a chore to read.

7.6.3    Examples Persuade

            Although you may use examples simply to help explain an idea or to interest or entertain your readers, examples are also an effective way of convincing others that what you are saying is reasonable and true. A few well-chosen examples can eliminate pages of general, and many times unconvincing, explanations. For instance, a statement on an economics quiz that “rising costs and high unemployment have changed life for many Americans” needs support to be convincing. Noting appropriate examples – that in a typical working-class neighborhood one out of every six primary wage earners is now jobless and that many white-collar workers can no longer afford to go to movies or to eat any beef except hamburger – can persuade a reader that the statement is valid. Similarly, a statement in a biology paper that “despite recent moves to reverse its status, DDT should not be released to commercial users and should continue to be banned” is unconvincing without persuasive examples like these to back it up:

(1)        Although DDT has been banned since December 31, 1972, traces are still being found in the eggs of various fish and water fowl.

(2)        Certain lakes and streams cannot be used for sport and recreation because DDT levels are dangerously high, presumably because of farmland runoff.

(3)        DDT has been found in the milk of a significant number of nursing mothers.

(4)        DDT residues, apparently carried by global air currents, have even been found in melt water samples from Antarctica.

(5)        Because of its stability as a compound, DDT does not degrade quickly: therefore, existent residues will threaten the environment well into the twenty-first century.

Because examples are often necessary to convince, you should consider both the quality and the quantity of your examples when deciding which ones to include in an essay. Keep in mind that for examples to work, they should be concrete illustrations of your thesis: otherwise, they are beside the point and do not act as support.

7.6.4    Examples Test Your Point

            Examples can help you test your ideas as well as the ideas of others. For instance, suppose you plan to write a paper for a composition class about the decline in verbal skills of students nationwide. Your thesis is that writing well is an inborn talent and that teachers can do little to help people writer better. But is this really true? Has it been true in your own case? To test your point, you go back over your academic career and brainstorm about the various teachers who tried to help you improve your writing.

            As you assemble your list, for example, you remember Mrs. Colson, a teacher you had when you were a junior in high school. She was strict, required lots of writing, and seemed to accept nothing less than perfection. At the time neither you nor your classmates liked her; in fact, her nickname was Warden Colson. But looking back, you recall her private conferences, her organized lessons, and her pointed comments. You also remember her careful review of essay tests and realize that after your year with her; you felt much more comfortable taking such tests. After examining some papers that you saved, you are surprised to see how much your writing actually improved that year. These examples cause you to reevaluate your ideas and revise your thesis. You now think that even though the job is difficult, a good teacher can make a difference in a person’s writing.

7.6.5    Using Enough Examples

Brief Examples are useful because they allow a writer to pile up evidence quickly and to cover a wide range of possibilities. Extended examples, because of their greater detail, can add clarity and interest that brief examples sometimes cannot.      Unfortunately, no general rule exists to tell you whether to use one extended example or many brief examples to support your ideas. Simply stated, the number and type of examples you should use depend on your thesis. If, for instance, your thesis is that an educational institution, like a business, needs careful financial management, a detailed consideration of your own school or university could work well. This one extended example could provide all the detail necessary to make your point. In this case, you would not need to include examples from a number of schools. In fact, too many examples could prove tedious to your readers and undercut your points.

            On the other hand, if your thesis were the conflict between sons and fathers is a recurrent theme throughout the work, several examples would be necessary. One example would show only that the theme of conflict is present in one of the works. In this case, the more examples you include, the more effectively you prove your point. Of course for some theses even a great number of examples would not be enough. You would, for instance, have a very difficult time finding enough examples to demonstrate convincingly that children from small families have more successful careers than children from large families. This thesis would require a statistical study to prove its validity.  The most common method of developing an exemplification essay is by combining brief and extended examples. This method takes advantage of the strengths of both types.

            Selecting a sufficient range of examples is just as important as choosing an appropriate number of examples to support your ideas. If you wanted to convince a reader, for example, that Douglas MacArthur was an able general, you would choose examples from more than just the early part of his career. Likewise, if you wanted to argue that outdoor advertising was ruining the scenic view from local highways, you would discuss an area larger than your immediate neighborhood. Your object in each case is to select a cross section of examples appropriate for the boundaries of your topic.

7.6.7    Using Representative Examples

            Just as professional pollsters take great pains to ensure that their samples actually do reflect the makeup of the general public, you should make sure that your examples fairly represent the total group you are discussing. If you want to propose a ban on smoking in all public buildings, you should not base your supporting points solely on the benefits of such a ban for restaurants. To be convincing, you would have to widen your scope to include other public places such as government office buildings, hospital lobbies, and movie theaters. For the same reason, one person’s experience or one school’s problems are not sufficient for a conclusion about many others unless you can establish that the experience or problems are typical.

            If you decide that you cannot cite enough representative examples to support your points, reexamine your thesis. Rather than switching to a new topic, you may be able to make your thesis narrower. After all, the only way your paper will be convincing is if your readers believe that your examples and your claim about your topic correspond – that your thesis is supported by your examples and that your examples fairly represent the breadth of your topic.

            Of course, your essay will be effective not simply because you use examples effectively but because you keep it focused on your point. Careful use of transitional words and phrases can help you reinforce the connection of examples to thesis (“Another example of successful programs for the homeless…..”). A constant danger when using examples is that you may get so involved with one that you wander off into a digression. Disregarding your paper’s topic in this way not only could confuse your readers but also could render much of your essay irrelevant. No matter how carefully they are developed no matter how specific, lively, and appropriate they are, all of your examples must address the main idea of your essay.

7.7       Narration

            A narrative tells a story by presenting events in an orderly, logical sequence. In the following paragraph, the writer summarizes the sequence of events that led to the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott; an action that many believe began the civil rights struggle in the 1950s.

“Her name was Rosa Parks, she was forty-two years old, and on Thursday, December 1, 1955, she was very tied. She found a seat on a Montgomery bus, but when the bus filled up the driver told her to stand so a white man could sit there. It was on old southern custom for Negroes to surrender their seats to whites. It was also against the law for anyone to disobey a bus driver’s instructions. Mrs. Parks thought about it for a moment and then said she wouldn’t move. At that moment, Eldridge Cleaver later wrote, “somewhere in the universe a gear in the machinery had shifted.”

      Narration can be the dominant pattern in many types of writing-formal, such as history, biography, autobiography, and journalism, as well as less formal, such as personal letters and entries in diaries and journals. Narration is also an essential part of casual conversation, and it underlies tall tales, speeches, and news and feature stories presented on television or radio. In short, any time you “tell what happened,” you are using narration.

            Although a narrative may be written simply to recount events or to create a particular mood or impression, in much college writing narration presents a sequence of events in order to prove a point. For instance, in a narrative essay about your first date, your purpose may be to show your readers that dating is a bizarre and often unpleasant ritual. Accordingly, you do not simply “tell the story” of your date. Rather, you select and arrange details of the evening that show your readers why dating is bizarre and unpleasant. As in any other kind of essay, you may state your thesis explicitly (“My experiences with dating have convinced me that this ritual should be abandoned entirely”) or you may imply your thesis through the selection and arrangement of events.

            Narrative writing may be part of an essay that is not primarily narrative. In an argumentative essay in support of stricter gun-control legislation, for example, you may devote one or two paragraphs to a story of a child killed by a handgun. These narrative paragraphs, though only a small portion of the essay, still have a definite purpose. They support your point that stricter gun-control laws are needed. During your college career, you will have many assignments that call for such writing. In an English composition class, for instance, you may be asked to write about an experience that was important to your development as an adult; in European history, you may need to relate the events that led to Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo; in a technical writing class, you may be asked to write a letter of complaint reviewing in detail a company’s negligent actions. In each of these situations (as well as in case studies for business management classes, reports for criminal justice classes, and many additional assignments), the piece of writing has a structure that is primarily narrative, and the narrative is presented to make a point.

            The skills you develop in narrative writing will also be helpful to you in other kinds of writing. A process essay, such as an account of a laboratory experiment, is like a narrative in that it outlines a series of steps in chronological order; a cause-and-effect essay, such as your answer on an economics midterm that directs you to analyze the events that led to the Great Depression, also resembles narrative in that it traces a sequence of events. A process essay, however, presents events to explain how to do something, and a cause-and-effect essay presents them to explain how they are related. Still, writing both process and cause-and-effect essays will be easier if you master narration.

7.7.1    Narrative Detail

            Narratives, like other types of writing, need rich, specific detail if they are to be convincing. Each detail should help form a picture for the reader; even exact times, dates, and geographical locations can be helpful. Look, for example, at the following excerpt:

            “In the winter she sewed night; after night; endlessly; begging cast off clothing from relatives; ripping apart coats; dresses; blouses; and trousers to remake them to fit her four daughters and son. Every morning and every evening she milked cows, fed pigs and calves, cared for chickens, picked eggs, cooked meals, washed dishes, scrubbed floors, and tended and loved her children. In the spring she planted a garden once more, dragging pails of water to nourish and sustain the vegetables for the family. In 1936 she lost a baby in her sixth month”.

            In this excerpt, the list of details makes the narrative genuine and convincing. The central figure in the narrative is a busy, productive woman, and the readers know this because they are presented with a specific list of her actions.

7.7.2    Narrative Variety

            Because narratives are often told from one person’s perspective, and because they usually present a series of events in chronological order, a constant danger is that all the sentences will begin to sound alike: “She sewed dresses….. She milked cows….She fed pigs….She fed calves….She cared for chickens….” A narrative without sentence variety may affect your readers like a ride down a monotonous stretch of highway. You can avoid this monotony by varying your sentence structure – for instance, by alternating sentence openings, inverting subject-verb order, or combining simple sentences: morning and every evening she milked cows, fed pigs and calves, cared for chickens…..”

7.7.3    Narrative Order

            Many narratives present events in exactly the order in which they occurred, moving from beginning to end, from first event to last. Whether or not you follow a strict chronological order, though, depends on the purpose of your narrative. If you are writing a straightforward account of a historical event or presenting a series of poor management practices, you will probably want to move efficiently from beginning to end. In writing personal experience essays or fictions narratives, however, you may choose to engage your reader’s interest by beginning with a key event from the middle of your story, or even from the end, and then presenting the events that led up to it. You may also begin in the present and then use a series of flashbacks, shifts into the past, to tell your story. Whatever ordering scheme you use, it should shape and direct your narrative.

            Verb tense is an extremely important clue in writing that recounts events in a fixed order because tenses show the temporal relationships of actions – earlier, simultaneous, later. When you write a narrative, you must be especially careful to keep verb tense consistent and accurate so your readers can easily understand the time sequence. Naturally, there are times when you must shift tense to reflect and actual time shift in your narrative. For instance, convention requires that you use present tense when discussing works of literature (“when Hamlet’s mother marries his uncle….”), but a flashback to an earlier point in the story calls for a shift form present to past tense (“Before their marriage, Hamlet was…”). Nevertheless, it is important to avoid unnecessary shifts in verb tense because such unwarranted shifts will make your narrative confusing.

            Together with verb tenses, transitions – connecting words or phrases – are the most precise indicators of the relationships among events in time. Transitions can indicate to readers the order in which events in a narrative occur, and they also signal shifts in time. Transitions commonly used for these purposes in narrative writing include first, second, next, then, later, at the same time, meanwhile, immediately, soon, before, earlier, after, afterward, now, and finally. In addition to these transitions, specific time markers – such as three years later, in 1927, after two hours, and on January 3 – indicate how much time has passed between events. Without these guides narratives would lack coherence, and readers would be unsure of the correct sequence of events.

7.8       Argumentation

Argumentation is a reasoned, logical way of convincing an audience of soundness of, belief, or conclusion. Argumentation takes a stand - supported by evidence - and urges people to share the writer’s perspective and insights. In the following paragraph form “Test- Tube Babies: Solution or problem? Ruth Hub-bard argues that before we endorse further development of the technology that allows for the creation of test-tube babies, we must carefully consider the consequences.

“In vitro fertilization of human eggs and the implantation of early embryos into women are new biotechnology that may enable some women to bear children who have hitherto been unable to do so. In that sense, it may solve their particular infertility problems. On the other hand, this technology poses unpredictable hazard since it intervenes in the process of fertilization, in the first cell divisions of the fertilized egg, and in the implantation of the embryo into the uterus. At present we have no way to assess in what ways and to what extant these interventions may affect the women or the babies they acquire by this procedure. Since the use of the technology is only the beginning, the financial investments it represents are still modest. It is therefore important that we, as a society, seriously consider the wisdom of implementing and developing it further”.

            Unlike an informal exchange of opinion, formal arguments follow rules designed to ensure that ideas are presented fairly and logically. The first rules governing argument where formulated thousand of year ago by the ancient Greeks. They designed their rules to apply to public speaking, but as you will see in this chapter, the techniques of argument apply to writing as well. One purpose of argument is to convince reasonable people to accept your position. Another is simply to defend your position, to establish its validity even if other people cannot be convinced to agree. A tired purpose of argumentation is to question or refute some position you believe to be misguided, untrue, or evil, without necessarily offering an alternative of your own. (You could, for example, question a political party’s platform without presenting one of your own.)

7.8.1    Argumentation and Persuasion

            Although persuasion and argument are terms frequently used interchangeably in everyday speech, they are quite different. Persuasion is a general term used to describe a technique a writer uses to move an audience to adopt a belief or follow a course of action. To persuade an audience a writer relies on various appeals – to the emotions, to reason, or to ethics.

            Argument is the appeal to reason. In an argument a writer connects a series of statements in an orderly way so that they lead to a conclusion. Argument is different from persuasion in that it does not try to move an audience to action; its primary purpose is to demonstrate to an audience that certain ideas are valid and that others are not. Unlike persuasion, argumentation has formal structure. To support a conclusion, an argument makes points, supplies evidence, establishes a logical chain of reasoning, refutes opposing arguments, and accommodates the views of an audience.

            As the readings in this section demonstrate, most effective argumentation essays appeal to the emotions as well as to reason. For example, you could use a combination of logical and emotional appeals to argue against lowering the drinking age in your state from twenty-one to eighteen years of age. You could appeal to reason by constructing an argument that leads to the conclusion that the state should not condone policies that have a high probability of injuring or killing citizens. You could support your conclusion by presenting statistics that show that alcohol-related traffic accidents kill more teenagers than show that alcohol-related traffic accidents kill more teenagers than disease does. You could also discuss a study that shows that states with a lower drinking age have more fatal traffic accidents than states with a higher drinking age. In addition, you could appeal to the emotions by telling a particularly sad story about an eighteen-year-old alcoholic or by pointing out how an increased number of accidents involving drunk drivers would cost taxpayers more money and could even cost some their lives. These appeals to your audience’s emotions could strengthen your argument and widen its appeal.

            What appeals you choose and how you balance them depend in part on your purpose and your sense of your audience. But ethical questions are also involved. Some extremely effective means of persuasion are quite simply unfair. Although most people would agree that lies, threats, and appeals to greed and prejudice are unacceptable ways of motivating an audience to action, such appeals are commonly used in political campaigns, international diplomacy, and daily conversation. Still, in your college writing you should use only those appeals to emotion that most people would perceive as being fair. In addition, because so much of the persuasive writing that you do in college requires you to adhere to the rules of argument, your primary means of convincing an audience should be the appeal to reason.

7.8.2    Dealing with the Opposition

            When gathering evidence, you should keep in mind that you must deal effectively with arguments against your position. You should address the most obvious – and sometimes the not-so-obvious – objections to your case. Try to anticipate the objections that a reasonable person would have to your thesis. By directly addressing these objections in your essay, you go a long way toward convincing readers that your arguments are sound. In classical rhetoric, this part of an argument is called refutation and is considered essential to making the strongest case possible on behalf of your thesis.

            You can refute opposing arguments by showing that they are unsound, unfair, or weak. Frequently you present contrasting evidence to show the weakness of your opponent’s case. Careful definition and exacting cause-and-effect analysis may also prove effective. In the following passage, the writer refutes an opponent’s argument:

            “I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and construction. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, thought not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious actions of a minority”.

            The writer begins by stating the points he wants to make. He goes on to define the argument against his position, and then he defines its weakness. Later in the paragraph the writer bolsters his argument by presenting two examples that support his point. When refuting an argument, you should not distort an opponent’s argument or make it seem weaker than it actually is. This technique, called creating a straw man, can backfire and actually turn fair-minded readers against you.

            When an opponent’s argument is so compelling that it cannot be easily dismissed, you should acknowledge its strength. By conceding that the point is well taken, you reinforce the impression that you are a fair-minded person. If possible, point out the limitations of the opposing position and then move your argument to more solid ground. Many times a strong point represents only one element in a multifaceted problem. For this reason your ability to use process and classification and division will be important in establishing the strengths of your argument. When planning your argumentative essay, you should write down all the objections to your thesis that you can identify. As you marshal your evidence, you can then decide which points you will refute. Remember, though, that careful readers will expect you to refuter intelligently the most compelling of your opponent’s arguments.

7.8.3    Deductive and Inductive Argument

            In argument, you may move from evidence to conclusion in two basic ways. One is called deductive reasoning. It precedes form a general premise or assumption to a specific conclusion, and it is what most people mean when they speak of logic. Using strict logical form, deduction holds that if all the statements in the argument are true, the conclusion must also be true. The other is inductive reasoning. It proceeds from individual observations to a more general conclusion and uses no strict form. It requires only that all the relevant voidance be stated and that the conclusion fit the evidence better than any other conclusion would. Most written arguments use a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning, but here it is simpler to discuss them separately.

            (1)        Deductive Arguments         

                        The basic form of a deductive argument is a syllogism. A syllogism consists of a   major   premise, which is a general statement; a minor premise, which is a related but          more    specific statement and a conclusion, which has to be drawn from those          premises. For example:

            Major premise:            All Olympic runners are fast.

            Minor premise:            John is an Olympic runner.

            Conclusion:                 Therefore, John is fast.

            As you can see, if you grant each of the premises, then you must also grant the    conclusion – and it is the only conclusion that you can properly draw. You cannot say            that john is slow, because that goes beyond the premises.        Of course this argument         seems obvious, and it is much simpler than an argumentative essay would be. But a           deductive argument can be powerful, and its premises can be fairly elaborate. The             declaration of Independence has at its core a deductive argument that might be    summarized in this way:

            Major premise:            Tyrannical rules deserve no loyalty.

            Minor premise:            King George III is a tyrannical rule.

            Conclusion:                 Therefore, King George III deserves no loyalty.

            The major premise is one of those truths that the Declaration claims is self-evident.           Much of the Declaration consists of evidence to support the minor premise that King     George is a tyrannical ruler. And the conclusion, because it is drawn from those   premises, has the force of irrefutable logic: The king deserves no loyalty from his           American subjects, who are therefore entitled to revolt against him.

            When a conclusion follows logically from the major and minor premises, then the argument is said to be valid. But is the syllogism is not logical, the argument is not valid     and the conclusion is not sound. For example:

            Major premise:            All dogs are animals.

            Minor premise:            All cats are animals.

            Conclusion:                 Therefore, all dogs are cats.

            Of course the conclusion is absurd. But how did we wind up with such a ridiculous            conclusion when both premises are obviously true? The answer is that although both            cats and dogs are animals, cats are not included in the major premise of the syllogism.         Thus the form of the syllogism is defective, and the argument is invalid. Here is another           example of an invalid argument:

            Major premise:            All dogs are animals.

            Minor premise:            Ralph is an animal.

            Conclusion:                 Therefore, Ralph is a dog.

                        Even without using formal logic, most of us can tell that there is a problem with      this conclusion. This error occurs when the minor premise refers to a term is the     major   premise (animals) that is undistributed – that is, it covers only items in the class          denoted (dogs). In the major premise, dogs are the distributed term; it designates       all dogs. The    minor premise, however, refers not to dogs but to animals and animals is             undistributed    because it refers only to animals that are dogs. Just because, as the           minor premise establishes, Ralph is an animal, it does not follow that he is also a    dog.     He could be a cat, a horse, or even a human being.

            But even if a syllogism is valid – that is, correct in its form – its conclusion will not necessarily be true. For example:

            Major premise:            All dogs are brown.

            Minor premise:            My poodle Toby is a dog.

            Conclusion:                 Therefore, Toby is brown.

            As it happens, Toby is black. The conclusion is false because the major premise is            false: Many dogs are not brown. If Toby had actually been brown, the conclusion would        have been correct, but only by chance, not by logic. To be sound, the syllogism must be       both logical and true.

                        The advantage of a deductive argument is that if you convince your audience to   accept             your major and minor premises, they should also accept your conclusion. The       problem is to establish your basic assumptions. You try to select premises that you            know your audience accepts or that are self-evident – that is, premises that most people would   believe to be true. Do not think, however, that “most people” is made up only of          your friends and acquaintances. Think, too, of those who may hold different views. If        you think that your premises are too controversial or difficult to establish firmly, you     should use inductive reasoning.

            (2)        Inductive Arguments

                        Inductive arguments move from specific examples or facts to a general     conclusion. Unlike deduction, induction has no distinctive form, and its conclusions      are less definitive than those of syllogisms whose forms are valid and whose      premises are   clearly true. Still, there is a sequence of events that is common to much           inductive thinking and to some writing based on that thinking. First, usually, you     decide on a question to be answered – or, especially in scientific work, a tentative         answer to such a question, called a hypothesis. Then you gather all the evidence            you can find that is relevant to the question and that may be important to finding the           answer. Finally you draw a conclusion, often called an inference that answers the             question and takes the evidence into account. Here is a very simple example:

      Question:         How did that living-room window get broken?

      Evidence:        There is a baseball on the living-room floor.

                              The baseball was not there this morning.

                              Some children were playing baseball this afternoon.

                              They were playing in the vacant lot across from the window.

                              They stopped playing a little while ago.

                              They aren’t in the vacant lot now.

      Conclusion:     One of the children hit or threw the ball through the window. Then they all ran away.

                        The conclusion seems obvious. That is because it takes all of the evidence into     account. But if it turned out that the children had been playing softball, not baseball that        one additional piece of evidence would make the conclusion very doubtful – and the            true answer would be much harder to infer. And just because the conclusion is         believable you cannot necessarily assume it is true. Even if the children had been             playing baseball, the window could have been broken in some other way. Perhaps a         bird flew against it, and perhaps the baseball in the living room had been there unnoticed all day, so that the second piece of “evidence” is not true.

                        Because inductive arguments tend to be more complicated that this example,       how can you move from the evidence you have collected to a sound conclusion? That             crucial             step can be big one, and indeed it is sometimes called an inductive leap. With            induction, conclusions are never certain, only highly probable. Although the form of           induction does not point to any particular type of conclusion the way deduction does,   making sure that your evidence is relevant, representative, and sufficient can increase
            the probability of your conclusion’s being sound. In addition, the more         information
            you gather, the better your chances of establishing the connection between your
            evidence and your conclusion. Considering alternate conclusions is a good way to            avoid reaching and unjustified or false conclusion. In the example above, a        hypothesis something like this might follow    the question:

            Hypothesis:     Those children playing baseball broke the living-room window.

            Many people stop reasoning at this point, without considering the evidence.            When the gap between your evidence and your conclusion is too great, you can be          accused of reaching a hasty conclusion or one that is not borne out by the facts. This            well-named error is called jumping to a conclusion because it amounts to a premature         inductive leap. In induction, the hypothesis is merely the starting point. Rest of the             inductive process continues as if the question were still to be answered – as in fact it is     until all the evidence has been taken into account.

Activity

                   

Adding Details to Complete an Essay

            In the following essay, specific details are needed to back up the ideas in supporting paragraphs. Using the spaces provided, add a sentence or two of clear, convincing details for each supporting idea. This activity will give your practice at supplying specific details and an initial feel for writing an essay.

Life Without Television

Introduction

            When my family’s only television set went to the repair shop the other day, my parents, my sister, and I thought we would have a terrible week. How could we get through the long evenings in such a quiet house? What would it be like without all the shows to keep us company? We soon realized, though, that living without television for a while was a stroke of good fortune. It became easy for each of us to enjoy some activities alone, to complete some postponed chores, and to spend rewarding time with each other and friends.

First Supporting Paragraph

            First of all, with no television to compete for our time, we found plenty of hours for personal interests. We all read more that week than we had read during the six months before.

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We each also enjoyed some hobbies we had ignored for ages.

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In addition, my sister and I both stopped procrastinating with our homework.

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Second Supporting Paragraph

            Second, we did chores that had been hanging over our heads for too long. There were many jobs around the house that had needed attention for some time.

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We also had a chance to do some long-postponed shopping.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 And each of us also did some letter writing or other paperwork that was long overdue.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Third Supporting Paragraph

            Finally, and probably most important, we spent time with each other. Instead of just being in the same room together while we stared at a screen, we actually talked for many pleasant hours.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moreover, for the first time in years my family played some games together.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And because we didn’t have to worry about missing this or that show, we had some family friends over on a couple of evenings and spent an enjoyable time with them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conclusion

            Once our television set returned, we were not prepared to put it in the attic. But we had a sense of how it can take over our lives if we are not careful. We are now more selective. We turn on the set for our favourite shows, certain sports events, and the news, but we don’t leave it running all night. As a result, we find we can enjoy television and still have time left over for other activities and interests.