91Adequate Development

The first paragraph lacks examples of undemocratic provisions, whereas the second one provides the needed information.

Readability also helps set paragraph length. Within a paper, paragraphs signal natural dividing places, allowing the reader to pause and absorb the material presented up to that point. Too little paragraphing overwhelms the reader with long blocks of material. Too much creates a choppy effect that may seem simplistic, even irritating. To counter these problems, writers sometimes use several paragraphs for an idea that needs extended development, or they combine several short paragraphs into one.

EXERCISE

1. Indicate where the ideas in this long block of material divide logically; explain your choices.

During the summer following graduation from high school, I could hardly wait to get to college and “be on my own.” In my first weeks at State University, how-ever, I found that independence can be tough and painful. I had expected raucous good times and a carefree collegiate life, the sort depicted in old beach movies and suggested by the selective memories of sentimental alumni. Instead, all I felt at first was the burden of increasing responsibilities and the loneliness of “a man without a country.” I discovered that being independent of parents who kept at me to do my homework and expected me to accomplish certain household chores did not mean I was free to do as I pleased. On the contrary, living on my own meant that I had to perform for myself all the tasks that the family used to share. Studying became a full-time occupation rather than a nightly duty to be accomplished in an hour or two, and my college instructors made it clear that they would have little sympathy for negligence or even for my inability to do an assignment. But what was more troubling about my early college life than having to do laundry, prepare meals, and complete stacks of homework was the terrifying sense of being entirely alone. I was independent, no longer a part of the world that had seemed to confine me, but I soon realized that confinement had also meant security. I never liked the feeling that people were watching over me, but I knew that my family and friends were also watching out for me—and that’s a good feeling to have. At the university no one seemed particularly to be watching, though professors constantly evaluated the quality of my work. I felt estranged from people in those first weeks of college life, desperately needing a confidant but fearful that the new and tenuous friendships I had made would be damaged if I were to confess my fears and problems. It was simply too early for me to feel a part of the university. So there I was, independent in the fullest sense, and thus “a man without a country.”

2. The following short, choppy units are inadequately developed. List some details you could use to expand one of them into a good paragraph.

I like living in a small town because the people are so friendly. In addition, I can always get the latest gossip from the local busybody.

In a big city, people are afraid to get too friendly. Everything is very private, and nobody knows anything about anybody else.

3. Scan the compositions you have written in other classes for paragraphs that are over- or underdeveloped. Revise any you find.

Organization

An effective paragraph unfolds in a clear pattern of organization so that the reader can easily follow the flow of ideas. Usually when you write your first draft, your attempt to organize your thoughts will also organize your paragraphs.

Writers do not ordinarily stop to decide on a strategy for each paragraph. But when you revise or are stuck, it’s useful to understand the available choices.

Here are some options:

1. The strategies discussed in Chapters 8–16 2. Order of climax

The choice you make depends upon your material and purpose in writing.

Writing Strategies These include all of the following patterns:

5.4

Use a variety of para-graph organizational

Four example paragraphs follow. The first, organized by time sequence, traces the sequence of a horrifying failed rescue attempt at sea.

I once read a story about a sailor who was washed overboard while rounding the Horn on a clipper ship. His shipmates immediately lowered a boat, and a few of them rowed to the rescue while the remainder of the crew dropped sail and brought the ship into the wind. The boat crew plucked the hapless sailor out of the sea, but the small boat broached on a steep breaking wave and capsized. As the men clung to the upturned keel, a flock of albatrosses circled overhead. The lookout on the main ship watched with horror as one of the birds dove, landed on a man’s head, and plucked out his eyes. Then a second bird dove, and a third. Another res-cue boat was dispatched, but the lines became tangled in the davits as the mother ship drifted downwind. The lost time was fatal. Blinded and bloody, the men in the water untied their life vests and one by one dove to their deaths rather than face the continued assaults.

Jon Turk, Cold Oceans: Adventures in Kayaks, Rowboat, and Dogsled The next paragraph, organized by space sequence, describes a ceramic elf, starting from the bottom and working up to the top. Other common spatial ar-rangements include top to bottom, left to right, right to left, nearby to far away, far away to nearby, clockwise, and counterclockwise.

The ceramic elf in our family room is quite a character. His reddish-brown slippers, which hang over the mantel shelf, taper to a slender point. Pudgy, yellow-stockinged legs disappear into a wrinkled tunic-style, olive-green jacket, gathered at the waist with a thick, brown belt that fits snugly around his roly-poly belly. His

93 Organization short, meaty arms hang comfortably, one hand resting on the knapsack at his side

and the other clutching the bowl of an old black pipe. An unkempt, snow-white beard, dotted by occasional snarls, trails patriarch-fashion from his lower lip to his belt line. A button nose capped with a smudge of gold dust, mischievous black eyes, and an unruly snatch of hair peeking out from under his burnt-orange stocking cap complete Bartholomew’s appearance.

Maria Sanchez, student Although descriptive paragraphs, like those developed by narration, often lack topic sentences, our example leads off with the central idea.

Here is a paragraph showing process development.

Making beer nuts is a quick, simple procedure that provides a delicious evening snack. You’ll need six cups of raw peanuts, three cups of sugar, and one-and-one-half cups of water. To begin, combine the sugar and water in a two-quart saucepan and stir to dissolve the sugar. Next, add the peanuts and stir again until all of the peanuts are covered by the sugar-water solution. Leave the pan, uncovered, on a burner set at medium-high heat for ten to twelve minutes, until the sugar crystallizes and coats the peanuts thoroughly. Stay at the stove during the heating process and stir the mixture every two or three minutes to ensure even coating of the nuts. When the peanuts are thoroughly coated, pour them onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about thirty minutes, stirring and lightly salting at ten-minute intervals.

Serve your beer nuts fresh out of the oven or eat them at room temperature.

Kimberlee Walters, student Again, the topic sentence comes first.

The final example illustrates development by comparison and also proceeds from an opening topic sentence.

Taken together, we found that both intoxicated drivers and cell phone driv-ers performed differently from baseline and that the driving profiles of these two conditions differed. Drivers using a cell phone exhibited a delay in their response to events in the driving scenario and were more likely to be involved in a traffic acci-dent. Drivers in the alcohol condition exhibited a more aggressive driving style, fol-lowing closer to the vehicle immediately in front of them, necessitating braking with greater force. With respect to traffic safety, the data suggest that the impairments associated with cell phone drivers may be as great as those commonly observed with intoxicated drivers.

David L. Strayer, Frank A. Drews, and Dennis J. Crouch, A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver

Order of Climax Climactic order creates a crescendo pattern, starting with the least emphatic detail and progressing to the most emphatic. The topic sen-tence can begin or end the paragraph, or it can remain implied. This pattern holds the reader’s interest by building suspense. On occasion, writers reverse the order, landing the heaviest punch first; but such paragraphs can trail off, leaving the reader dissatisfied.

Here is a paragraph illustrating climactic order:

The speaking errors I hear affect me to different degrees. I’m so conditioned to hearing “It don’t make any difference” and “There’s three ways to solve the prob-lem” that I’ve almost accepted such usage. However, errors such as “Just between you and I, Arnold loves Edna” and “I’m going back to my room to lay down” still offend my sensibility. When hearing them, I usually just chuckle to myself and walk away. The “Twin I’s”—irrevelant and irregardless—are another matter. More than any other errors, they really grate on my ear. Whenever I hear “that may be true, but it’s irrevelant” or “Irregardless of how much I study, I still get C’s,” I have the urge to correct the speaker. It’s really surprising that more people don’t clean up their language act.

Valerie Sonntag, student EXERCISE From a magazine or newspaper article, select four paragraphs that illustrate different patterns of organization. Identify the topic sentence in each case;

or if it is implied, state it in your own words. Point out the organization of each paragraph.

Coherence

Coherent writing flows smoothly and easily from one sentence and paragraph to another, clarifying the relationships among ideas and thus allowing the reader to grasp connections. Because incoherent writing fails to do this, it confuses, and sometimes even irritates, the reader.

Here is a paragraph that lacks coherence:

I woke up late. I had been so tired the night before that I had forgotten to set the alarm. All I could think of was the report I had stayed up until 3 a.m. typing, and how I could possibly get twenty copies ready for next morning’s 9 o’clock sales meeting. I panicked and ran out the door. My bus was so crowded I had to stand.

Jumping off the bus, I raced back up the street. The meeting was already under way.

Mr. Jackson gestured for me to come into the conference room. Inserting the first page of the report into the copier, I set the dial for twenty copies and pressed the print button. The sign started flashing CALL KEY OPERATOR. The machine was out of order. Mr. Jackson asked whether the report was ready. I pointed to the flash-ing red words. Mr. Jackson nodded grimly without sayflash-ing anythflash-ing. He left me alone with the broken machine.

This paragraph has some degree of unity: most of its sentences relate to the writer’s disastrous experience with the sales report. Unfortunately, though, its many gaps in logic create rather than answer questions, and in very bumpy prose, at that. Note the gap between the third and fourth sentences. Did the writer jump out of bed and rush right out the door? Of course not, but the reader has no real clue to the actual sequence of events. Another gap occurs between the next two sentences, leaving the reader to wonder why the writer had to race up the street upon leaving the bus. And who is Mr. Jackson? The paragraph never tells, but the reader will want to know.

5.5

Achieve coherence in your paragraphs.

95 Coherence Now read this rewritten version, additions highlighted:

I woke up late because I had been so tired the night before that I had forgotten to set the alarm. All I could think of was the report I had stayed up until 3 a.m. typ-ing, and how I could possibly get twenty copies ready for next morning’s 9 o’clock sales meeting. When I realized it was 8:30, I panicked. Jumping out of bed, I threw on some clothes, grabbed the report, and ran out the door. My bus was so crowded I had to stand and could not see out the window. Two blocks beyond my stop, I real-ized I should have gotten off. “Stop!” I cried and, jumping off the bus, raced back up the street. When I reached the office, it was 9:15, and the meeting was already under way. Mr. Jackson, the sales manager, saw me and gestured for me to come into the conference room. “One moment,” I said as calmly as I could and hurried to the copier. Inserting the first page of the report into it, I set the dial for twenty cop-ies and pressed the print button. Immediately, the sign started flashing CALL KEY OPERATOR. The machine was out of order. The next thing I knew, Mr. Jackson was at my side asking whether the report was ready. I pointed to the flashing red words, and Mr. Jackson nodded grimly without saying anything. Turning on his heel, he walked away and left me alone with the broken machine.

As this example shows, correcting an incoherent paragraph may call for any-thing from a single word to a whole sentence or more.

Coherence derives from a sufficient supply of supporting details and your firm sense of the way your ideas go together. If you brainstorm your topic thor-oughly and think carefully about the relationships between sentences, incoher-ence isn’t likely to haunt your paragraphs.

As you write, and especially when you revise, signal connections to the reader by using transitions—devices that link sentences to one another. These are the most common transitional devices:

1. Connecting words and phrases 2. Repeated key words

3. Pronouns and demonstrative adjectives 4. Parallelism

You can use them to furnish links both within and between paragraphs.

Connecting Words and Phrases Connectors clarify relationships between sentences. The following list groups them according to function:

Showing similarity: in like manner, likewise, moreover, similarly

Showing contrast: at the same time, but, even so, however, in contrast, instead, nevertheless, still, on the contrary, on the other hand, otherwise, yet Showing results or effects: accordingly, as a result, because, consequently,

hence, since, therefore, thus

Adding ideas together: also, besides, first (second, third …), furthermore, in addition, in the first place, likewise, moreover, similarly, too

Drawing conclusions: as a result, finally, in brief, in conclusion, in short, to summarize

Pointing out examples: for example, for instance, to illustrate

Showing emphasis and clarity: above all, after all, again, as a matter of fact, besides, in fact, in other words, indeed, nonetheless, that is

Indicating time: at times, after, afterward, from then on, immediately, later, meanwhile, next, now, once, previously, subsequently, then, until, while

Conceding a point: granted that, of course, to be sure, admittedly

Don’t overload your paper with connectors. In well-planned prose, your message flows clearly with only an occasional assist from them.

In the following excerpt, which clarifies the difference between workers and workaholics, the connectors are highlighted:

My efforts to define workaholism and to distinguish workaholics from other hard workers proved difficult. While workaholics do work hard, not all hard workers are workaholics. Moonlighters, for example, may work 16 hours a day to make ends meet, but most of them will stop working when their financial circumstances permit.

Accountants, too, seem to work nonstop, but many slow down after the April 15 tax deadline. Workaholics, on the other hand, always devote more time and thought to their work than their situation demands. Even in the absence of deadlines to meet, mortgages to pay, promotions to earn, or bosses to please, workaholics still work hard. What sets them apart is their attitude toward work, not the number of hours they work.

Marilyn Machlowitz, “Workaholism: What’s Wrong with Being Married to Your Work?”