Finding main idea 4 pdf

When writers tell a story in this order, from beginning to end in the order in which things happened, they are telling it in chronological order.. For example, look at the fol-lowing par

5 1

Structure

Now that you’ve covered the basics, you can begin to focus on one specific

reading comprehension strategy: structure How do writers organize their ideas?

You might want to think of a writer as an architect Every building has a number of rooms But how these rooms are arranged is up to the architect The same goes for a piece

of writing—how the sentences and ideas are arranged is entirely up to the writer How-ever, most architects—and most writers—generally follow certain patterns, not because they can’t think on their own, but because these patterns work In this section, you’ll study four organizational patterns that work for writers:

1 Chronological order

2 Order of importance

3 Compare and contrast

4 Cause and effect

You’ll learn to recognize these patterns and some of the reasons why writers use them

There are many ways to tell a story Some stories start in the middle and flash backward to the

begin-ning; a few start at the end and tell the story in reverse But most of the time, stories start at the beginning Writers often begin with what happened first and then tell what happened next, and next, and so on, until the end When writers tell a story in this order, from beginning to end in the order in which things

happened, they are telling it in chronological order Chronology is the arrangement of events in the order in which

they occurred

L E S S O N

Start from the Beginning:

Chronological Order

L E S S O N S U M M A R Y

This lesson focuses on one of the simplest structures writers use: chronological order, or arrangement of events by the order in which they occured

6

5 3

 C h r o n o l o g y a n d Tr a n s i t i o n s

Much of what you read is arranged in chronological

order Newspaper and magazine articles, minutes of

meetings, explanations of procedures, and so on are

usually arranged this way For example, look at the

fol-lowing paragraph that might be found in a company

newsletter:

This year’s employee award ceremony was a

tremen-dous success The first award was given to Carlos Fe

for Perfect Attendance The second award, for Most

Dedicated Employee, went to Jennifer Steele Then,

our president, Martin Lucas, interrupted the awards

ceremony to announce that he and his wife were

having a baby When he finished, everyone stood up

for a congratulatory toast Afterward, the third

award was given to Karen Hunt for Most Inspiring

Employee Finally, President Lucas ended the

cere-mony by giving everyone a bonus check for $100

You’ll notice that this paragraph tells what

hap-pened at the ceremony from start to finish You’ll also

notice that you can tell the order in which things

hap-pened in two ways First, you can tell by the order of the

sentences themselves—first things first, last things last

Second, you can tell by the use of transitional words and

phrases, which signal a shift from one idea to the next.

Here is the same paragraph with the transitional words

underlined:

This year’s employee award ceremony was a

tremen-dous success The first award was given to Carlos Fe

for Perfect Attendance The second award, for Most

Dedicated Employee, went to Jennifer Steele Then,

our president, Martin Lucas, interrupted the awards

ceremony to announce that he and his wife were

having a baby When he finished, everyone stood up

for a congratulatory toast Afterward, the third

Employee Finally, President Lucas ended the cere-mony by giving everyone a bonus check for $100

The underlined words—first, second, then, when, afterward, third, and finally—are transitional words

that keep these events linked together in chronological order Look at how the paragraph sounds without these words:

This year’s employee award ceremony was a tremen-dous success The award was given to Carlos Fe for Perfect Attendance The award for Most Dedicated Employee went to Jennifer Steele Our president, Martin Lucas, interrupted the awards ceremony to announce that he and his wife were having a baby

He finished; everyone stood up for a congratula-tory toast The award was given to Karen Hunt for Most Inspiring Employee President Lucas ended the ceremony by giving everyone a bonus check for $100

It doesn’t sound quite as good, does it?

 P r a c t i c e w i t h Tr a n s i t i o n a l

Wo r d s a n d P h r a s e s

Practice Passage 1

Here’s a more extreme example of a paragraph with the transitional words and phrases omitted:

I went to work early to get some extra filing done I got there; the phone started ringing My boss walked

in He asked me to type a letter for him He asked me

to make arrangements for a client to stay in town overnight I looked at my watch; it was already 11:00

Now, take the paragraph and add the following transitional words and phrases:

– S TA R T F R O M T H E B E G I N N I N G : C H R O N O L O G I C A L O R D E R –

_ I went to work early to get some

extra filing done _ I got there, the

phone started ringing my boss

walked in he asked me to type a

letter for him he asked me to make

arrangements for a client to stay in town

over-night I looked at my watch, it was

already 11:00

See how much better the paragraph sounds with

transitional words and phrases to guide you?

Answers

You might have come up with a slightly different

ver-sion, but here’s one good way to fill in the blanks:

Yesterday, I went to work early to get some extra

fil-ing done As soon as I got there, the phone started

ringing A moment later, my boss walked in

Imme-diately, he asked me to type up a letter for him

Then he asked me to make arrangements for a client

to stay in town overnight When I looked at my

watch, it was already 11:00

Practice Passage 2

Here is a series of events listed in random order Use the

transitional words and phrases in each sentence to help

you put them in proper chronological order Number

the sentences from 1–6 in the blank provided

If the penalty structure is to your

lik-ing, make sure that the money market

account is FDIC insured

After you’ve found the best terms, be sure to find out what the minimum account balance is and ask what the penalties are if your account drops below the limit

In order to open a money market account, you should follow several steps

Then you should shop around for the best terms and yields available

Finally, once the account is opened and you are earning interest, you should consider using that interest to pay off outstanding credit card debt

First, you should decide what features are important to you

Answers

You should have numbered the blanks in this order: 5,

4, 1, 3, 6, 2 Here’s how the sentences look together in

a paragraph

In order to open a money market account, you should follow several steps First, you should decide what features are important to you Then you should shop around for the best terms and yields available After you’ve found the best terms, be sure to find out what the minimum account balance is and ask what the penalties are if your account drops below the limit If the penalty structure is to your liking, make sure that the money market account is FDIC insured Finally, once the account is opened and you are earning interest, you should consider using that interest to pay off outstanding credit card debt

immediately

as soon as

when

yesterday

a moment later then

– S TA R T F R O M T H E B E G I N N I N G : C H R O N O L O G I C A L O R D E R –

5 5

Practice Passage 3

Read the following paragraph, which describes a local community event

– S TA R T F R O M T H E B E G I N N I N G : C H R O N O L O G I C A L O R D E R –

The International Dinner raised $15,000 to renovate the Berkshire Park Com-munity Center Three-hundred and fifty people attended the dinner, which was held in the ballroom of a local hotel Tickets were sold in advance for $50 each

The attendees left the event feeling very good about their community The Berk-shire Park Community Center was damaged in a fire six months ago An ener-getic committee of eight community members came up with the idea of the International Dinner to raise funds to repair the damages The plan was to cel-ebrate the diversity of the Berkshire Park Neighborhood Association by serving ethnic food that represents the various cultures in the neighborhood The com-mittee also organized a silent auction with prizes donated by local businesses to take place during the dinner The committee chairperson talked to a local news-paper reporter at the dinner and stated that the goal was to raise $10,000 A follow-up letter to community members thanked everyone for the huge success

of the fundraiser and outlined a schedule for the renovation

Notice that this paragraph is not arranged in

chronological order Take the ten different events that

make up the story and rearrange them so that they are

in chronological order

Here’s the order of events as they are presented in

the story

■ The International Dinner raised $15,000 to

reno-vate the Berkshire Park Community Center

■ Three-hundred and fifty people attended the

dinner

■ Tickets were sold for $50 each

■ The attendees left the event feeling very good

about their community

■ The Community Center was damaged in a fire six months ago

■ A committee of eight community members came

up with the idea of the International Dinner to raise funds for repairs

■ The plan was to serve foods that represent the var-ious cultures in the neighborhood

■ The committee organized a silent auction to take place during the dinner

■ The chairperson talked to a local newspaper reporter stating the goal was to raise $10,000

■ A letter to community members thanked everyone and outlined the schedule for renovation