b. Poor pay
c. _____________________________________________________ 6. College is stressful for many people. a. Worry about grades
b. Worry about being accepted
c. _____________________________________________________ 7. My landlord adds to the stress in my life. a. Neglects repairs b. Ignores phone calls
c. ____________________________________________________ 8. Our neighborhood park is an unsafe place to visit. a. Aggressive dogs
b. Broken glass
c. _______________________________________________________ 9. Buying a used car is better than buying a new one. a. Used cars are less likely to be stolen than new cars.
b. Used cars don't lose their value as quickly as most new cars.
c. _______________________________________________________ 10. Many companies use annoying practices to increase sales. a. Junk mail b. Spam e-mail
c. _______________________________________________________
1. The Importance of Specific Details
Just as a thesis must be developed with three supporting points, each supporting point must be developed with specific details. Specific details are valuable in two key ways. First, details excite the reader's interest. They make writing a pleasure to read, for we all enjoy learning particulars about people, places, and things. Second, details serve to explain a writer's points. They give the evidence needed for us to see and understand general ideas.
All too often, the body paragraphs in essays contain only vague generalities, rather than the specific supporting details that are needed to engage and convince a reader. Here is what one of the paragraphs in \Hazards of Moviegoing\would have looked like if the writer had not detailed her supporting evidence vividly:
Some of the other patrons are even more of a problem than the theater
itself. Many people in the theater often show themselves to be inconsiderate. They make noises and create disturbances at their seats. Included are people in every age group, from the young to the old. Some act as if they were at home in their own living room watching the TV set. And people are often messy, so that you're constantly aware of all the food they're eating. People are also always moving around near you, creating a disturbance and interrupting your enjoyment of the movie.
The following box contrasts the vague support in the preceding paragraph with the specific support in the essay.
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Vague Support 1. Many people in the theater show themselves to be inconsiderate. They make noises and create disturbances at their seats. Included are people in every age group, from the young to the old. Some act as if they were at home in their own living room watching the TV set. Specific Support 1. Little kids race up and down the aisles, usually in giggling packs. Teenagers try to impress their friends by talking back to the screen, whistling, and making what they consider to be hilarious noises. Adults act as if they were at home in their own living room and comment loudly on the ages of the stars or why movies aren't as good anymore. 2. And people are often messy, so that you're constantly aware of all the food they're eating. 2. And people of all ages crinkle candy wrappers, stick gum on their seats, and drop popcorn tubs or cups of crushed ice and soda on the floor. 3. They also cough and burp. squirm endlessly in their seats, file out for repeated trips to the rest rooms or concession stand, and elbow you out of the armrest on either side of your seat. 3. People are also always moving around near you, creating a disturbance and interrupting your enjoyment of the movie.
The effective paragraph from the essay provides details that make vividly clear the statement that patrons are a problem in the theater. The writer specifies the exact age groups (little kids, teenagers, and adults) and the offenses of each (giggling, talking and whistling, and loud comments). She specifies the various food excesses (crinkled wrappers, gum on seats, dropped popcorn and soda containers). Finally, she provides concrete details that enable us to see and hear other disturbances (coughs and burps, squirming, constant trips to rest rooms, jostling for elbow room). The ineffective paragraph asks us to guess about these details; the effective paragraph describes the details in a specific and lively way.
In the strong paragraph, then, sharp details capture our interest and enable us to share the writer's experience. They provide pictures that make each of us feel, \also enable us to understand clearly the writer's point that patrons are a problem. Aim to make your own writing equally convincing by providing detailed support.
Exercise:
Write S in front of the two selections below that provide specific evidence to support the opening point. Write X in front of the two selections in which the opening point is followed by vague, general, wordy sentences.
1. The people who have moved in beside us are unpleasant neighbors. They barely say \when we're in our neighboring yards. When we invited them to a neighborhood barbecue, they said they were going to be busy. They sometimes turn loud music on late at night, and we have to close our window to shut out the noise. To top it off, they own a dog, which they let roam free in our street.
2. My mother was a harsh disciplinarian. When I did something wrong, no matter how small,
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she would inflict serious punishment. She had expectations that I was to live up to, and she never changed her attitude. When I did not behave as I should, I was dealt with severely. There were no exceptions as far as my mother was concerned.
3. Some things are worse when they're \ good cheesecake, for one thing, is perfect. It doesn't need pineapple, cherries, blueberries, or whipped cream smeared all over it. Plain old American blue jeans, the ones with five pockets and copper rivets, are perfect too. Manufacturers only made them worse when they added flared legs, took away the pockets, tightened the fit, and plastered white logos and designers' names all over them.
4. Pets can be more trouble than children. My dog, unlike my children, has never been completely housebroken. When he's excited or nervous, he still has an occasional problem. My dog, unlike my children, has never learned how to take care of himself when we're away, despite the fact that we've given him plenty of time to do so. We don't have to worry about our grown children anymore. However, we still have to hire a dog-sitter.
2. The Importance of Adequate Details
One of the most common and most serious problems in students' writing is inadequate development. You must provide enough specific details to fully support the point in a body paragraph of an essay. You could not, for example, include a paragraph about a friend's unreliability and provide only a one- or two-sentence example. You would have to extend the example or add several other examples showing your friend as an unreliable person. Without such additional support, your paragraph would be underdeveloped.
Students may try to disguise unsupported paragraphs through repetition and generalities. Do not fall into this \paragraph has solid support.
Exercise 1:
Both of the following body paragraphs were written on the same topic, and each has a clear opening point. Which paragraph is adequately developed? Which one has only several particulars and uses mostly vague, general, wordy sentences to conceal the fact that it is starved for specific details?
Eternal Youth? — No, Thanks
I wouldn't want to be a teenager again, first of all, because I wouldn't want to worry about talking to girls. I still remember how scary it was to call up a girl and ask her out. My heart would race, my pulse would pound, and perspiration would trickle down my face, adding to my acne by the second. I never knew whether my voice would come out deep and masculine, like a television anchorman's, or squeaky, like a little boy's. Then there were the questions: Would she be at home? If she was, would she want to talk to me? And if she did, what would I say? The one time I did get up the nerve to take a girl in my homeroom to a movie, I was so tongue-tied that I stared silently at the box of popcorn in my lap until the feature finally started. Needless to say, I wasn't very interesting company.
Terrors of My Teenage Years
I wouldn't want to be a teenager again, first of all, because I wouldn't want to worry about talking to girls. Calling up a girl to ask her out was something that I
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completely dreaded. I didn't know what words to express or how to express them. I would have all the symptoms of nervousness when I got on the phone. I worried a great deal about how I would sound, and I had a lot of doubts about the girl's reaction. Once, I managed to call up a girl to go out, but the evening turned out to be a disaster. I was too unsure of myself to act in a confident way. I couldn't think of anything to say and just kept quiet. Now that I look back on it, I really made a fool of myself. Agonizing over my attempts at relationships with the opposite sex made adolescence a very uncomfortable time.
The first paragraph offers a series of well-detailed examples of the author's nerve-racking experiences, as a teenager, with girls. The second paragraph, on the other hand, is underdeveloped. For instance, the second paragraph makes only the general observation \would have all the symptoms of nervousness when I got on the phone\but the first paragraph states, \heart would race, my pulse would pound, and perspiration would trickle down my face.\
The second paragraph makes the general statement \sound,\but in the first paragraph the author wonders if his voice will \out deep and masculine, like a television anchorman's, or squeaky, like a little boy's.\And in the second paragraph, there is no specific description of the evening that turned into a disaster. In summary, the second paragraph lacks the full, detailed support needed to develop its opening point convincingly.
Exercise 2
Take a few minutes to write a paragraph supporting the point \you and your classmates, perhaps working in small groups, should read your paragraphs aloud. The best-received paragraphs are almost sure to be those with plenty of specific details.
III. Practice in Advancing and Supporting a Thesis
You now know the two most important steps in competent essay writing: (1) advancing a point, or thesis, and (2) supporting that thesis. The purpose of this section is to expand and strengthen your understanding of these two basic steps. You will first work through a series of activities on developing a thesis: 1. Identifying the parts of an essay 2. Evaluating thesis statements 3. Completing thesis statements 4.Writing a thesis statement
5. Limiting a topic and writing a thesis
You will then sharpen your understanding of how to support a thesis effectively by working through the following activities: 6. Providing specific evidence
7.Identifying adequate supporting evidence 8. Adding details to complete an essay
1. Identifying the Parts of an Essay Exercise 1:
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Each cluster below contains one topic, one thesis statement, and two supporting sentences. In the space provided, label each item as follows: T— topic
TH — thesis statement S — supporting sentence Group 1 a.
TV has forced politicians to focus more on appearance than substance.
b. Television has had a massive impact on politics in the United States.
c. The expense of producing and airing ads has made politicians worry more about fund-raising
than serving their public. d. Television Group 2
a. Community colleges are much more affordable than most four-year colleges.
b. There are several advantages to attending a community college instead of a four-year school. c. Community colleges
d. Community colleges typically offer more convenient and more flexible scheduling than traditional schools. Group 3
a. Medicine
b. Antibiotics have enabled doctors to control many diseases that were once fatal. c.
Organ transplants have prolonged the lives of tens of thousands of people. d. Advances in modern medicine have had great success in helping people. Group 4 a. Reading
b. There are steps parents can take to encourage their children to enjoy reading. c. The adults' own behavior can influence children to become readers.
d. Parents can make sure the physical environment of the home encourages reading. Group 5
a. Insects perform many helpful functions for human beings. b. Insects are essential to the growth of many important crops.
c. Insects
d. Insects protect the environment by removing wastes and controlling disease-causing germs. Exercise 2:
This activity will sharpen your sense of the parts of an essay. \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 for each of the three supporting paragraphs and the first sentence of the conclusion. Write the numbers of those sentences in the spaces provided at the end.
Coping with Old Age
1
I recently read about an area of the former Soviet Union where many people live
to be well over a hundred years old. 2Being 115 or even 125 isn't considered unusual there, and these old people continue to do productive work right up until they die. 3
The United States, however, isn't such a healthy place for older people. 4Since I
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