Structure question 9 pptx

Writers who use this pattern move from a general statement to specific examples or ideas that support that general statement.. Writers who use this pattern move from specific examples or

Using comparison/contrast as an organizational

pat-tern enables you to focus on the similarities and

dif-ferences between two or more topics For example, you

might want to compare and contrast living in a large

city with living in a small town You could first list the

comparisons, such as both places have streets,

com-mercial businesses, and residential homes But you

would probably spend more time developing the

con-trasts between these two subjects, such as level of crime,

job opportunities, and population

You can use a point-by-point method, in which

you give examples of a similarity between each topic

and then a difference between each topic Or, you can

list all the similarities between the two topics first, and

then list all the differences

Chronological

A chronological organizational pattern presents ideas

or events in a linear time frame, that is, their order of

occurrence It is often used to explain a process or to tell

a story You might want to use chronological

organi-zation to describe how to bake cookies: “First you

pre-heat the oven, then you gather the ingredients, then you

mix the ingredients and put them in the pan, and

finally, you bake the cookies in the oven.” This shows a

progression of chronological events You can also use

a chronological pattern to narrate a story, such as “This

morning I woke up and rushed off to the library After

studying for several hours, I went to the dining hall to

eat lunch The afternoon was spent in classes and labs

Then, for dinner I met two friends, and we talked until

nightfall.” Readers can see the progression of events

throughout the day, chronologically

Classification

An essay that uses classification as an organizational

pattern will likely contain items, topics, or ideas that are

divided into parts or separate categories If you choose

to use classification as a method of organization, be

sure that your categories are logical and that they don’t

overlap For example, if you divide books into the

categories of fiction, non-fiction, and romance novels, you are creating a faulty classification system because two items in the system overlap—romance novels are fiction Each category in a classification system needs to

be logical and complete To identify a classification method of organization, look for one general category that is broken down and divided into separate cate-gories For instance, the topic of non-fiction books at

a book sale could be broken down to the separate cat-egories of memoir, biography, and how-to

Cause and Effect

Cause and effect is a logical organizational pattern that explains how one thing or idea results in another thing

or idea If you use this pattern in your writing, be care-ful not to make leaps in your reasoning Each step of the cause needs to be clearly explained and shown how it created the effects you describe You don’t want to leave out any steps in this process, or you may leave your readers hanging Also, include both immediate causes

or effects and long-term causes and effects

Order of Importance

Ideas listed in their order of importance, either least important to most important or most important to least important, create an organizational pattern The most effective use of this pattern is to list ideas from least important to most important because the idea that is stated last has the most impact on the reader To use this pattern of organization, you need to spend time thinking about the importance of your ideas before you can determine which idea should be placed

in front of the other Save the strongest assertion for last

General to Specific

The general to specific organizational pattern uses deductive reasoning Writers who use this pattern move from a general statement to specific examples or ideas that support that general statement For example, you might write that Americans need to cultivate better money-saving habits This general statement would

then need to be supported by specific examples, such as:

only five percent of Americans save money out of every

paycheck, most Americans do not have enough money

saved to retire comfortably, and Americans save 70%

less than Europeans do

Specific to General

The specific to general organizational pattern uses

inductive reasoning Writers who use this pattern move

from specific examples or ideas to a general statement

that logically follows the specific examples For

exam-ple, you might list several specific examples, such as:

only five percent of Americans save money out of every

paycheck, most Americans do not have enough money

saved to retire comfortably, and Americans save 70%

less than Europeans do Then, you sum up this

discus-sion by stating the general idea that Americans need to

cultivate better money-saving habits

Definition

Offering a definition of a term, idea, or concept is

another method of organization Writers using this

organizational pattern offer an explanation of

some-thing or list the many different definitions of what is

being defined Sometimes you can help define

some-thing by stating what it is not This is called negation or

exclusion.

Sample Organizational Pattern

Question

Read the passage below written in the style of a

maga-zine article Then answer the question that follows

(1) The floundering dance company could no longer

fill their theater with patrons (2) _

(3) Their ticket sales started to pick up (4) The

dance company began advertising the fact that the

new choreographer was now working on their team

(5) More and more seats became full until there was

standing room only

4 Which of the following sentences, used in place

of the blank line labeled (2), would best fit the writer’s pattern of development in the

paragraph?

a The reason can be classified into three distinct

categories: lack of advertising, the public’s dis-interest in classical ballet, and lack of a good choreographer

b This saddened both the artistic director and

the dancers in the company

c Even though they were located in a busy

downtown district

d Therefore, they hired a new choreographer

who had an excellent reputation

Answer The correct answer is d The paragraph uses the cause

and effect organizational pattern The word therefore

signals the change in the paragraph from lack of sales

to booming sales The cause of the low attendance is implied to be that the dance company didn’t have a good choreographer You can infer this because after the new choreographer with the excellent reputation

was hired, sales began booming Choice a suggests the

organizational pattern in the paragraph is classification; however, the paragraph does not support this method

Choice b does not make sense because there is no

log-ical connection between the sadness of the dancers and

the sudden increase in sales Choice c is a sentence

fragment

Now that you recognize main ideas and organi-zational patterns, it’s time to dig into the details of how

to plan and write an essay

 E s s a y P l a n n i n g

a n d I n t r o d u c t i o n s

This section covers how to plan an essay and write an

introduction for the essay portion of the THEA The

first step in writing an essay is to evaluate the

assign-ment You should spend the first four or five minutes

of the allowed time to define your purpose for writing

the essay, to identify your audience, and to establish the

appropriate level of formality After you evaluate the

assignment, you will next want to plan or outline your

essay

Planning Your Essay

Below are some tips on how to use the first four or five

minutes to plan your essay, based on an essay topic

similar to one that could appear on the THEA Take

extra care in answering this sample question because

this topic will appear many times in the next few

lessons

Sample Persuasive Essay

Question

5 In your opinion, should public schools require

student uniforms?

After you read the question carefully, choose your side

of the issue If there is a side of the issue you are

pas-sionate about, the choice will be easy If you know very

little about a subject and do not have an opinion, just

choose the side that you think you can best support

The test scorers don’t care which side you take

Brainstorming

After you choose a side to support for this topic, jot

down as many ideas as you can that directly relate to

and support your position Following are some

exam-ples of questions that can help you frame your opinions

for a persuasive essay Note the suggested answers to the

questions for the topic of school uniforms

1 Do you know anyone who might feel strongly

about the subject?

parents of school-age children, children, uni-form companies, local children’s clothing shops

2 What reasons might they give for feeling the way

they do?

Parents will not have to worry about what clothing to buy for their children for school Children will not feel peer pressure to dress a certain way Some children will not feel that their clothing is less fashionable than that of the more affluent children Uniform companies and fabric shops will receive more business

3 If your side won the argument, who would

benefit?

teachers and principals, because uniforms may help keep discipline in the school; parents, because clothing costs will be lower; and chil-dren, because they’ll feel more accepted by their peers

4 If the opposing side won, who would be hurt?

Take the arguments you came up with in ques-tion 3 and negate them

5 What might happen in your city, state, country,

and in the world should your side win? If your side was the law, what good might happen next and why? If the opposite side was the law, what bad might happen and why?

Here you take your position and extend it to the larger community For instance, imposing school uniforms will lead to a greater sense of order and equality among children across the United States

6 How does your side affect, for the better, other

current issues your readers might be passionate

about; i.e., the environment, freedom of speech,

and so on?

Requiring uniforms will preserve natural

resources, since children will buy fewer clothes

7 Should your side win, what senses—taste, smell,

sight, touch, sound, and feelings—might be

affected?

Think about the sight of hundreds of

orderly-looking children quietly studying in an

organ-ized classroom or whatever fits your topic

If you can appeal to one or more of the five

senses, you will have a more persuasive essay

Organize

When you have finished brainstorming, organize your

notes into three or more topics For instance, if you

have three groups of people the proposal would affect,

you would write how each group would be affected,

whether any of the groups would take a financial loss,

and what else might happen to them Here’s an

exam-ple of how the notes above might be organized into

topics:

Parents—Save money, children can use

hand-me-downs, save wear on good clothes,

buy-ing clothes easier, less pressure from children

and fewer fights over money for clothes

Children—All children feel as well dressed as

peers, feel more of a sense of belonging,

eas-ier and faster to dress in morning, don’t have

to worry about what others think, more

dis-ciplined and calmer at school

School staff—Fewer fights at school, less

bully-ing and teasbully-ing, more school loyalty among

children so builds school community,

par-ents less stressed so fewer calls for advice,

frees officials to do other things like

academics

Conclusion: In the end, children, families, and

school employees benefit

Your essay doesn’t absolutely have to have just three body paragraphs, though it shouldn’t have fewer than three It’s just that three is a good, solid number

of main points, so start practicing with three right from the start You wouldn’t want to be in the middle

of your fourth body paragraph when time runs out

Practice

Try outlining the following essay topic using the orga-nizational guidelines

6 In the last three decades, environmental issues

have received increasing amounts of attention Teaching materials on this subject are abundant and some are even offered free to school districts Taking into consideration that some environ-mental issues should be covered, do you believe too much emphasis is being placed on environ-mental issues in our schools?

 G i v i n g L i f e t o a n I n t r o d u c t i o n

If you feel your introductions are dull, or that they lack sparkle, there is hope One way to enliven your introductions is to make them fun Get creative Indeed, the introduction can be the most fun of all the para-graphs of your essay because you have the opportunity

to be creative about drawing readers into your essay A surefire formula for a strong introduction has three parts: an attention-grabber, an orientation for the reader, and a thesis statement (using parallel struc-ture) The thesis statement is indispensable; you can play around with the other parts a bit

The purpose of the first sentence or two of your introduction is to get your reader’s attention You may start your introduction with a question or statement that engages the reader’s imagination, such as:

Imagine a school auditorium full of alert

chil-dren, all dressed neatly in blue and white

uni-forms Imagine these alert children happily

running out to play in their blue shorts and

white oxford shirts, playing tag and flying on

swings

You will then need one or more sentences to

ori-ent your reader Introduce your topic and give some

background information Here’s an example:

Over 98% of our nation’s schools have some kind of

dress code for their students Twenty percent of these

codes designate a certain color and style of dress

Some of these uniform regulations even include

specifics on shoes, socks, sweaters, and jackets Over

1,000 schools each year are added to the ranks of

those that have adopted stricter uniform policies

for their children

State Your Thesis

The most important part of your introduction includes

a sentence that states your three or more main points

in parallel form; this is called the thesis, or thesis

state-ment The purpose of this sentence is to tell readers

what you are going to tell them in the rest of the essay

The thesis sentence is taken from the three main points

of your outline: parents, children, and school staff Put

these in order from the least persuasive or important to

the most persuasive or most important Look at your

arguments for each topic and put last the argument for

which you can make the best case Do you feel you can

make the most convincing case for school staff and the

least convincing case for parents? If so, write about

parents first, then children, and finally, staff

The trick here is to put the three in parallel form

You can always just state the three topics as they are:

Adopting a school uniform policy will benefit

parents, children, and school staff

Alternatively, you can use any number of words

in phrases or even whole sentences that summarize the ideas you are going to write about This is not the place to give much detail, however, or you will have nothing to develop in the next paragraphs

Uniform policies provide relief for parents, enhance self-esteem in children, and facilitate learning at school

Parallelism

Your thesis statement should use parallel form Paral-lel writing serves to aid casual readers, impress test evaluators, and excite English teachers The preceding sentence is an example of parallel writing Parallel writ-ing occurs when a series of phrases or sentences follow the same form In the second sentence of this para-graph, there are three phrases that are parallel in form: verb, adjective, noun

aid casual readers impress test evaluators excite English teachers

Practice

Test and strengthen your skills at parallelism Change each sentence to correct faulty parallelism

7 Simple, cheerful, and having trust, children are a

joy to be around

8 Being happy is more desirable than to be rich.

9 Succeeding as a teacher requires patience, caring,

and having a tolerant attitude

7. Simple, cheerful, and trusting, children are a

joy to be around

8. Being happy is more desirable than being rich

9. Succeeding as a teacher requires patience,

car-ing, and tolerance

Body and Conclusion

Once you have your outline and your introduction,

you need not concentrate so much on ideas; you already

have them written down In the body and conclusion

of the essay, show off your writing style Each of the

three paragraphs after the introduction should contain

a topic sentence and at least four supporting sentences

Your conclusion should restate your thesis and offer a

few closing words

Extra Practice

The sample paragraphs on pages 186 and 187 contain

mistakes in grammar, punctuation, diction, and even

organization See whether you can find all the errors,

and try to correct them

You may need to simply rewrite some of the

para-graphs Then, compare your revisions to the ones you

will find on pages 195 and 196 There are many ways to

rewrite the paragraphs; maybe you will find a better way

than the ones given If you can do that, you’re sure to

pass the writing portion of the THEA

 To p i c S e n t e n c e a n d

S u p p o r t i n g S e n t e n c e s

Each paragraph should have a topic sentence Usually

the topic sentence begins the paragraph and states the

main idea of the paragraph in general For each of the

three or more paragraphs that will make up the body

of your essay, one of the points from your outline

should be used That is why you made the outline The

points you wrote down will be the subject of the rest of

the sentences in the paragraph

After composing the topic sentence, uphold and explain your main idea with supporting sentences These sentences should be as detailed and descriptive

as possible

Let’s go back to the uniform example and write some topic sentences and supporting sentences Remember, the outline looks like this:

Parents—Save money, children can use

hand-me-downs, save wear on good clothes, buy-ing clothes easier, less pressure from children and fewer fights over money for clothes

Children—All children feel as well dressed as

peers, feel more of a sense of belonging, eas-ier and faster to dress in morning, don’t have

to worry about what others think, more dis-ciplined and calmer at school

School staff—Fewer fights at school, less

bully-ing and teasbully-ing, more school loyalty among children so builds school community, par-ents less stressed so fewer calls for advice, frees officials to do other things, like academics

Conclusion: In the end, children, families, and

school employees benefit

These are the thesis statement examples:

■ Adopting a school uniform policy will benefit parents, children, and school staff

■ Uniform policies provide relief for parents, enhance self-esteem in children, and facilitate learning at school

Your first reason in favor of uniforms is that par-ents benefit To make things easier, you can copy the first part of the thesis statement This provides you with a transition (see below) as well as a topic sentence:

In my opinion, a uniform policy will benefit parents