UC101

CONTENTS

Foreword
Basic Exposition
Types of Discourse
narration
description
argumentation
exposition
Organization
Title
Introductory Paragraph (complete with thesis statement)
Developmental Pattern
Conclusion
Appendix
Sentence Fragments
Pronoun-antecedent (dis)agreement

Dr. Dowling G. Campbell is an associate professor of English at Northern Arizona University. His experience in teaching writing ranges from composition to technical writing. His experience in teaching literature ranges from Classic to Southwest, contemporary, and popular literature. He is currently completing a book on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Foreword

An overwhelming number of writing books list emphasis as a major key to successful writing. Those same books point out how writers create emphasis by building unity. Unity relies heavily upon paragraph organization and development.

The subject matter of almost any area of study can be organized in a consistent, effective manner. The organizational prescription of WORKING WORDS guarantees emphasis through unity. Followed accurately, the pattern of description-example-analysis-opinion paragraphs per thesis item assures an organized paper.

One of many writing paradigms, this particular pattern has found a widely receptive audience among college students who want to write well controlled expository papers.

ACKNLOWEDGEMENT

I am particularly grateful to Alison Phillips, who has kindly consented to permit me to use her theme on the conch as a symbol in Lord of the Flies as a sample for this study.
Copyright 2000

WHAT IS BASIC EXPOSITION?

Basic exposition is writing which tells as quickly and clearly as possible exactly what the point of the writing is. Basic exposition is one of the four types of discourse (based on a 1949 text titled Modern Rhetoric by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks). While rhetoricians, linguists, and other language experts have developed many other newer specialized approaches to discourse, these four types can serve as a useful way to understand the type of writing you undertake when you write an expository paper. The four types of discourse are: narration, description, argumentation, and exposition.

Narration is telling a story. Henry James perhaps best defined the novel when he called it a good story well told.

Description is describing, sometimes using merely descriptive words ("flowery" descriptions are usually weak attempts at writing), often using analogy, metaphor, and effective imagery. (Note the word "effective." Try to decide when imagery is effective and when ineffective, to avoid mixing metaphors—such as "This has all the earmarks of an eyesore," or "up against a vicious stone wall"--, and to use valid illustrations.)

Argumentation is persuasion, trying to get someone to change their* [*for a justification of using singular pronoun with plural antecedent, see end of manuscript, p. 16] minds or come over to your way of thinking. (Often considered "preaching.") When argumentation goes on without proof, the result is weak, frequently purposefully propagandistic writing, and may reflect "begging the question." Have a look at "logical fallacies," in almost any writing book.

Exposition is exposing, explaining, clarifying, proving, illustrating. Its purpose differs from that of narration and description, which is often far more alluring or charming or shocking or spell-binding. A notable difference between exposition and narration is that while exposition is designed to reveal its message as quickly and clearly as possible, narration often may not reveal its purpose for many, many pages. A mystery novel, in fact, usually won’t reveal "who dunnit" until the end. Exposition’s purpose also differs from argumentation, which is to persuade, convince, to change another’s viewpoint or opinion or thinking, often to yours.

Analysis - Team action.

Narration and description work as a team. They rarely involve argumentation or exposition. If a narration lapses into argumentation, a writer too easily becomes a preacher. Most writers of any integrity do not want that to happen. They want to write art rather than sermons. On the other hand, argumentation and exposition almost always involve bits and pieces of narration and description. If we define narration as telling a story and argumentation as preaching, then we can illustrate the point by saying that story tellers rarely preach, but preachers frequently tell stories.

Narration. As children we get a taste of the narrative impulse with the phrase, "Once upon a time…." Novels, short stories, tales by the campfire, any form of telling a story is narration. Christ’s parables and Mohammed’s tales are narration. Many poems are narration, especially the epic. While we traditionally conceive of narrative as prose, it also includes an important classification of poetry. Epics are book-length poems that tell stories about heroes, national events, and the founding of nations. Poetry is, in fact, often divided into three general categories: narrative, dramatic, and lyric.

Narration is considered by many to be the most exalted or highest calling of literary art. Time was when most literary specialists accepted a clear cut difference between "creative" writing and the other types, including expository writing. More and more teachers of writing acknowledge that this difference does not exist, and never really did—that exposition is just as creative as poetry, drama, or fiction. Nowadays such courses as "creative exposition" or "creative nonfiction" are taught.

Description does just that—it describes. The description may be natural, it may be emotional, it may be surrealistic and weird. One of the most common items to describe is a sunset. Effective description involves more than just hues and colors, reaching emotional and spiritual levels with words.

Description is also important in science. To many, geological strata and microbes and blood cells can be as appealing and powerful as love and turmoil. Descriptive writing tells not only the what but sometimes helps resolve the how and why. How do these feelings, how does this rock layer, affect me? Why do I feel a different sense of time or being when looking at tonight’s sunset or through this microscope?

Argumentation is closely related to persuasion. Ideally argumentation contains examples and illustrations and proof. When it does not contain these items, argumentation shrivels to mere propaganda. When you argue, you are usually trying to convince somebody of something (in writing, for our purposes). Responsible argument involves logic, common sense, appeal to kindness and fair play and justice and the healthy side of things. Emotion is always involved. Listing facts, statistics, data, and reporting observation drifts toward and usually results in explanation (an important part of exposition). When you season data with opinion and emotional appeal, you merge into argumentation. When you leave out some data, or change it, you merge into propaganda and deception. Unless you have an audience you know is already prepared for your message, to be convincing you need a careful balance between facts and desire, what we call common sense. There are many who argue from a standpoint of emotion alone. Preaching is considered by many as spoken argumentation.

Exposition could in some ways be considered argumentation without emotion, without the purpose of persuading. Simply explaining, and letting the reader take their choice. If you charge your writing with strong emotion, you have not committed any sin or broken any law or any kind of writing "rules"; you have simply merged from exposition into argumentation. An important part of developing your writing skill is maintaining awareness when you are moving from one type of discourse into another, from narration into description, from exposition into argumentation. These shifts can take place in the middle of a sentence!

Exposition, or explanation, involves analyzing, clarifying, evaluating; most written attempts to understand, to explain rather than to sell something, are explanatory in nature and function. This is the type of writing most college students find themselves engaged in, whether they like it or not. A key to this type is organization. If you evaluate or discuss causes of the Civil War, if you analyze the "recorder" image in Hamlet or the symbolism of "The Pit and the Pendulum," if you explain where the "temple butte" strata appears in the Grand Canyon, if you analyze symbolism in William Golding’s shattering novel Lord of the Flies, you are writing explanation. If you try to reason why, or which one is better than the other, you may easily lapse into argumentation.

As you can see, the two discourse pairs, 1. narration and description, and 2. argumentation and exposition, have a specialized relationship with one another, the first pair generally eschewing [don’t be afraid to look this word up if you need to] the second, and the second employing the first like a favored member of the family.

For better writing, it is helpful to understand the interrelationships of these four discourse functions in a little more detail. Narration and description work together. Their proportions slide about within a manuscript, with narration dominating at one time or for one writer, while description dominates for another time and author. Writers decide for themselves how much narration and how much description to use when and where.

Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad represent extremities; in his short story "Hills Like White Elephants," Hemingway uses very little description. Almost the entire story is composed of action and dialogue. The story, like his hills, are barren of all but the harshest details. That is, in fact, why they look like white elephants. Conrad’s short story "The Lagoon," on the other hand, is so heavily descriptive that the jungle almost becomes a character. No rules exist--no writer with any self respect would ever want to try to make such rules--which tell when and how much narration and/or description to use. The two processes flow at each writer’s command--an important part of the art. One of the most fun ways to read a story, in fact, is to try to realize when a writer is narrating and when they are describing. These processes do not happen by accident.

Argumentation and exposition can also work together, and both utilize narration and description. Argument, however, relies on exposition more heavily than exposition relies on argument. Argument uses explanation as an important process, but it often lapses into emotional appeal as well. Explaining can function easily without argument. How a rotary engine operates, or seven basic steps to a happier relationship. Exposition without argument can be a means of persuading, convincing a reader that your idea or approach or opinion is better by telling or reasoning how it operates.

Explaining objectively, without argument, without trying to get someone to agree or spend money or vote a certain way, is closer to "pure" exposition. A handbook on how to operate a lawnmower would be an example. Nobody’s trying to tell you why to operate a lawnmower. If you are reading the handbook, you’ve probably bought it and you’ve decided why to operate it. In literary analysis, at the report writing level of most college students, you are learning to balance preference, emotional reason, and choice with objective analysis, weighing elements such as imagery, plot, appeal, deciding both whether a book is worth reading and why it is worth reading.

The most important point here is not to oversimplify. Writing flows in many directions at once. There are many things to consider at all times. A fun challenge of writing is to control that flow in many terms--in ideas, imagery, sensibility, proof, sticking to a topic, divulging, how much to say, how much to imply. The world of writing is so rich with possibilities that the best any pedagogue (i.e. "teacher" or "facilitator"—don’t be afraid to look this up either—or any words you don’t know, for that matter) can do is give some general guidelines for certain control tactics. It will help to remember Alexander Pope’s famous lines from his Essay on Criticism--a poetic essay on "how to write" (patterned after the French writer and rhetorician and thinker Boileau). After Pope has established lengthy and elaborately illustrated "rules" for writing, he reserves special praise for any innovative writer who can "snatch a grace beyond the reach of art." In other words, break the rules. Like George Orwell ends his list of rules in one of the most important essays on writing ever written, "Politics and the English Language," "break any of the above rules rather than write something outright barbarous."

A RECIPE FOR SUCCESSFUL EXPOSITION = ORGANIZATION

Ingredients:

ANALYSIS OF INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH:

Notice what the introduction does not do. It does not contain any quotes, any examples, any extended definitions or argument or analyses. Notice what it does do. It lists the work, author, and a valid argument in opening line. It makes an implied justification, paralleling today’s society—a generalization, to be sure, but a valid one. Finally, the introductory paragraph breaks the topic into three areas that are mutually exclusive, easy to understand, and easy to write about.

DESCRIPTION/THEORY PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1:

No proof. Not yet. Important as proof is, it is more important to describe to the reader what the proof will prove. The paragraph describes how the conch functions and how the boys react to it.

EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1:

Notice the quote does not being the paragraph. Most writing books advise against beginning or ending paragraphs with quotes. Use your own line, a kind of "in-line," to act as a shoehorn to slide the reader into the quote. This "in-line" could be a clause, as it is here, or it could be a complete sentence. But it should be there.

Also, notice the documentation of the quote. Use the new MAL style of documentation, which eschews footnotes. Footnotes have been obsolete as documentation elements for years now. It is your obligation as an aspiring writer to check any current handbook for the latest documentary practice. Also, it is smart to check that practice with your instructor or whoever is grading or evaluating your paper.

Finally, notice the analysis that follows the example. Reflect or repeat the idea of the quote and say something about it. A good tactic is to use an actual word from the quote in your analysis.

SECOND EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1: (The writer here has obviously chosen to write two example paragraphs)

[work in that pesky tense shift here somewhere.]

ANALYSIS OF SECOND EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1:

Note that the writer continues with an explanation after the quote. The quote does not end the paragraph; rather, the paragraph ends with the writer’s analysis. True, anyone who has read the book carefully knows the points the writer is making; but the writer makes the obvious points anyway to fit them into the argument. Often you need to say the obvious, to fit it into the context with your argument.

OPINION PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1:

ANALYSIS OF OPINION PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 1:

Note the use of first person. Decades ago Sheridan Baker in his excellent book The Complete Stylist recommended the use of occasional first person. Check the word "occasional." It is easy to overdo the use of first person, as almost happens in the above paragraph. But and occasional "I think" or "I believe" or "in my opinion" or "it seems to me" is not only acceptable but often desirable for effective writing.

Notice also how the writer picks up on a previous idea. It is important sometimes to reassert or repeat an idea for emphasis. The trick is not to become redundant with your repetition.

DESCRIPTION/THEORY PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2:

ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTION/THEORY PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2:

Always make sure your transition to thesis items is clear. You don’t always have to use transition words or phrases listed in writing books to make a clear transition. The transition from the discovery of the conch to the use of the conch is evident in the opening line of the paragraph above, particularly in the clause, "respect for the conch begins to fade."

One of the difficult questions to answer when writing a critical analysis of a story is how much of the story to tell. It is easy to fall into the trap of merely retelling a story rather than analyzing it. The writer here avoids that trap by making reference to the paper’s argument, showing how the boys are losing respect for the conch, a point not stated but clearly shown in the story.

EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2:

ANALYSIS OF EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2:

Once again, the quote is framed with the writer’s own words. Once again, the writer is explaining what she knows the reader knows; but that explanation is necessary to develop her example. Also, note the placement of the word "however." Books on writing generally agree that beginning a sentence with the word "however is weak; better to insert it after an opening phrase or two.

SECOND EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2: (Once again, the writer has felt the need for two example paragraphs.)

One of the most important distinctions in critical writing is between telling what happens and analyzing what happens. The first three sentences of the above tell what happens, reviewing for the reader and setting up the analysis. The writer then moves into explaining why. Notice how the writer continues to refer to ideas previously expressed, such as the inhibitions about breaking rules. This kind of reference helps build continuity and unity in your argument.

OPINION PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 2:

Try to avoid such words as "perfect," "greatest," and other irrational superlatives. The writer’s use of "excellent" does much better than "perfect" would do. A minor problem exists with this paragraph as an opinion paragraph, however, in that it contains more analysis than opinion. Still, it is an accurate paragraph, well written, and helps further the argument.

DESCRIPTION/THEORY PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 3:

Once again the transition is made clear without the use of cutsey poo transition words or phrases often recommended in writing books. This transition to the third thesis item begins with a statement of what’s happening in the story. By the second line, however, the writer has moved to the important phrase "destroyed," signaling the reader that the third part of the argument has arrived. The final line of this paragraph is a provocative set-up for the proof, analysis, and opinion that will follow. By now an astute reader has caught on to the pattern of the writer’s argument and is expecting these elements to follow.

EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 3:

Continuing to frame the quote in her own words, the writer uses words in her quotation which reinforce ideas already presented, such as "fragile" and "shining." She continues to explain how the conch functions, at least for Piggy.

SECOND EXAMPLE PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 3:

In this paragraph the writer shows how the destruction of the conch affects Ralph as ell as Piggy. She explains the consequences of the conch’s destruction, how it spells death not only for Piggy but for Ralph. She also explains how all the remaining boys are now affected. She could have gone into a short discussion about Sam’nEric with their final twinge of conscience; but what she has is valid and clear.

OPINION PARAGRAPH FOR THESIS ITEM # 3:

The writer here uses the word "skillful" instead of "perfect" or "great" or any other inane word. These is still some explaining going on, but the first sentence casts that explanation in the light of opinion rather than strict analysis.

CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH FOR PAPER:

ANALYSIS OF CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH:

For exposition, avoid "In conclusion…" or "In summary…" or similar phrases. These phrases are listed in nearly all writing books as trite, hackneyed, and ineffective. This is not to say that such phrases are wrong. In what many scholars consider to be the "soft" sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology, and other similar studies), such phrases are often recommended and required. In many scientific reports, the subtitle "CONCLUSION" is expected.

When a writer refers in the conclusion to many more examples, the reader gets the point that a detailed treatment of the three points in the thesis is over. Without using such trite phrases as "In conclusion" or "In summary," she has signaled her conclusion with clear rhetoric.

Notice also her use of the author’s last name in all references after the first one. The first time you refer to an author or critic or other outside referent, use their full name. After that, use last name only.

Keep quotes to a minimum in conclusion, and do not analyze such quotes. If you are still analyzing quotes, you are not yet ready to conclude your paper. The quotes in the conclusion above make a clear contrast and help frame the argument; but be careful of getting into additional arguments. The writer here almost gets into an additional argument or at least analysis when she uses the term "imagery." Probably would have been better to leave out the point about imagery, because that needs an entire paragraph, at least, to distinguish it from symbolism. So unless you are going to make that distinction, it’s probably best to avoid it.

Normally conclusions have four basic functions: 1) aesthetic, 2) summary, 3) generalization, 4) recommendation. The aesthetic function sends the message that you are ending the paper. The generalization helps clue the reader to the fact that you are ending by summarizing points made earlier in the paper. Generalization does the same thing without a summary. Recommendation can be powerful by projecting your argument into a persuasive level rather than mere analysis.

Recommendations can lend special energy to your argument. The recommendation factor of the above conclusion is implied rather than stated. When she says that the balance between order and chaos is delicate, our writer does not actually tell us we’d better be careful, but the implication is clear.

In writing your conclusions, you want to be aware of these functions and see which of them you utilize. Rarely will these functions appear by accident; conclusions take planning and sometimes rewriting just like the rest of the paper.

THREE ADDITIONAL POINTS ABOUT WRITING: 1) sentence fragments, 2) singular pronoun with plural antecedent, and 3) use of first person.

1) You may have noticed that I have used sentence fragments several times in this manuscript. On p. 3, "Letting the reader take their choice," or on p. 4 "When a writer is narrating and when they are describing," or on p. 6, "Simple and logical thought." More than a quarter of a century ago, an excellent grammar and writing book by Sheridan Baker titled The Complete Stylist recommended using occasional sentence fragments. "Like this." (Baker’s example.) Don’t overdo it. Just a few.

2) The first two examples also exhibit a plural antecedent agreeing with a singular pronoun. Such writing practices as sentence fragments and singular/plural disputes might be viewed as incorrect and even offensive by some grammatical "purists," but grammatical purity has never been an issue in or element of strong writing. There is no authority on what’s "good" and "bad" or "right" and "wrong" in the English language.

As the line from Lerner and Lowe’s "My Fair Lady" (that marvelous adaptation from Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion) put it, "There are places where English completely disappears. Why, in America they haven’t spoken it in years." Sounds better, of course, with Rex Harrison’s accent. As close as an authority that we have for "claiming" what’s write and wrong in our language is the CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), and they recommended using plural antecedent with singular pronoun rather than fall into the old sexist use of "his" years ago!

3) First person. In addition to using sentence fragments, Baker also suggests using occasional first person, such as "I think," or "in my opinion," or "it seems to me." Baker warns against using first person too often. Like salt on your eggs, just a flavoring helps your style, but too much can quickly ruin it.

You might want to have a look at Baker’s book. It probably in your local library. While you’re at it, why not through a couple more writing books. Even an eighth or ninth grade lever writing book can give you tips you may have forgot or possibly never really learned. And reading it free from the fear of not knowing something for a class can be a refreshing experience.

END OF MONOGRAPH

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