Samples of Explaination Text HOW A TSUNAMI HAPPENS The term of tsunami comes from the Japanese which means

harbour ("tsu") and wave ("nami"). A tsunami is a series of waves generated when water in a lake or a sea is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. A tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Such large vertical movements of the earth's crust can occur at plate boundaries. Subduction of earthquakes are particularly effective in generating tsunami, and occur where denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates. As the displaced water mass moves under the influence of gravity to regain its equilibrium, it radiates across the ocean like ripples on a pond. Tsunami always bring great damage. Most of the damage is caused by the huge mass of water behind the initial wave front, as the height of the sea keeps rising fast and floods powerfully into the coastal area. HOW A CHOCOLATE IS MADE Have we wondered how we get chocolate from? Well this time we will enter the amazing world of chocolate so we can understand exactly we are eating. Chocolate starts a tree called cacao tree. This tree grows in equatorial regions, especially in place such as South America, Africa, and Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pine apple. In side the fruits are the tree's seeds. They are also known as coco beans. Next, the beans are fermented for about a week, dried in the sun. After that they are shipped to the chocolate maker. The chocolate maker starts by roasting the beans to bring out the flavour. Different beans from different places have different qualities and flavour. So they are often shorted and blended to produce a distinctive mix. The next process is winnowing. The roasted beans are winnowed to remove the meat nib of the cacao bean from its shell. Then the nibs are blended. The blended nibs are ground to make it a liquid. The liquid is called chocolate liquor. It tastes bitter. All seeds contain some amount of fat and cacao beans are not different. However, cacao beans are half fat, which is why the ground nibs from liquid. It is pure bitter chocolate. Note on the generic structure of this explanation sample. Every text genre has its special purpose or social function. However if we see the generic structure point, we will get the understanding which both the explanation and procedure text have similar purposes. Both explain how to make or form something. However the procedure text will explain how to form or make something completely by instruction way. That is why most of procedure text is composed in command sentences. In the other hand, explanation text will show a knowledge about how thing is formed. The above example of explanation text has the following generic structure: General statement; it is a statement which says about chocolate and how it is formed Sequenced explanation; it is a series of explanation on how chocolate is formed before we eat. First, the chocolate is coming from the cacao tree. Then it is fermented and ship to the chocolate producer. The cacao bean then are roasted and winnowed. HOW EARTHQUAKES HAPPEN Earthquake is one of the most destroying natural disasters. Unluckily it often happens in several regions. Recently a horrible earthquake has shaken West Sumatra. It has brought great damages. Why did it occur? Do you know how an earthquake happens? Earthquakes are usually caused when rock underground suddenly breaks along a fault. This sudden release of energy causes the seismic waves. It make the ground shake. When two blocks of rock or two plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little. They don't just slide smoothly. The rocks are 1

Samples of Explaination Text still pushing against each other, but not moving. After a while, the rocks break because of all the pressure that's built up. When the rocks break, the earthquake occurs. During the earthquake and afterward, the plates or blocks of rock start moving, and they continue to move until they get stuck again. The spot underground where the rock breaks is called the focus of the earthquake. The place right above the focus is called the epicenter of the earthquake.

WHY EIFFEL TOWER WAS BUILT If we talk about the Wonders of the World buildings, then we will see Eiffel Tower as one of them. However many of us do not know the towers past history on why it was build. Everything has the reasonable background, especially for the tower which is to be one of the most recognized buildings in the world. Primarily, the Eiffel Tower was built for the World Exhibition. It was called Paris Exposition in 1889. The exhibition was organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The purpose of building Eiffel Tower in such structure was to show to the world Frances advancement of technology and beauty. The Eiffel Tower was designed by Gustave Eiffel. It seemed that then the name of the tower was derived from the designers last name, Eiffel Another reason on why the tower was built was for scientific progress. Although few realized it, the Eiffel Tower would become the prominent structure in terms of science and technology. Many experiment with temperature, pressure and pendulums were performed atop the unique famous building. Additionally the Eiffel Tower was used for radio transmission tower. Many experiments were conducted atop the Eiffel Tower for radio transmission advancement. Once the Eiffel Tower was proposed to be demolished but it was spared because the tower had the promising future as a radio tower. Generic Structure of Explanation Text The best discourse on how and what is explanation text is answering the question word how and why. Such question words need detail explanation on it relates. However, explanation text is written in narrative style and not instructional. If it is written for the purpose of instruction, then the text genre will be labeled as PROCEDURE. From the above example of explanation text, we see that it has the generic structure as follow: General Statement; the introduction of the passage on why the Eiffel Tower was built. Sequenced Explanation; this is the main element of explanation text. This explanation is explored to answer the why or how question introduced in the general statement. From the example above, the text was written to explain why, not how, the Eiffel Tower was built. Then it elaborates the reasons. First is for the show case and the second is for scientific and technological purposes. HOW RAINBOW IS FORMED Rainbow is one of optic phenomena that happens in the atmosphere of the earth naturally. We can see it at mountin range, or when it is cloudy, or when it is raining and rising of sun. We have to be the other side for looking. We just can see it a half of circle form, but acctually the rainbow is a circle form. We can see it perfectly, if it is seen by standing in the high place. It is real that rainbow is a circle form not like parabola form. On the ground, we can not see perfectly, except if we are in the high place like in the air plane or standing on top of moutain. When we are looking at rainbows colors, we will see them that ordered of red is on the highest order, and purple is on the lowest order. Red is more dominant than another color caused by having biggest wave between others. Therefore the red one is in the highest order and purple one is in lowest order. How rainbow is formed? Try to watch it when light of sun concerns a 90-degree angle mirror or a glass prism side, or surface of soap foam. We can see colors on the light. The light is rayyed to be some wave lenght of light that it is 2

Samples of Explaination Text seen by our eyes as red, bright red, yellow, green, blue and purple. These colors are compnents of light that they are called visible light. The other component is invisible light such as infrared (red is in the right side), and ultraviolet (bright red is in the left side). So, we can see the beautiful rainbow because there are some processes to be beautiful rainbow that it appears in the sky. VOLCANO A volcano is a mountain topped with vents, holes, and craters. When the volcano erupts, lava, ash, cinders, dust, and hot gas can pour out the top. Magma (when its deep in the ground) or lava (when it reaches the earths surface) is very hot, liquid rock. When the lava cools down, it turns into hard rock. Ash is a gray powder that results from material being burned in the volcano. Ash can be carried in the air for many miles. Volcanoes occur when the Earths plates pull apart causing magma to rise to the surface. Volcanoes can also occur over hotspots and where one plate dives beneath another, forcing magma to rise to the surface. Plates diving under one another is known as subduction. As one goes deeper and deeper into the earth, there is increasing temperature with increasing depth. This is because radioactive elements deep within the earth are slowly disintegrating and producing heat. The rock in the earth insulates the heat, so that it accumulates and eventually liquefies the rock insulating it. Only slowly does this heat escape, which leads to the drastic differences of temperature with depth. This difference is referred to as the geothermal gradient. The average geothermal gradient is 2 to 3C per 100 meters of depth, indicating that heat is flowing outward from inside the earth. Volcanoes are vents for the explosive escape of some of this heat. Magma is a general term referring to a mass of completely or partly molten rock containing the volatile that it acquired at its origin in the upper mantle of the earth. These volatile elements are gases either dissolved in the melt or as bubbles of gas that escape when the rock reaches the surface and solidifies. Volcanoes erupt because magma is less dense than the solid rocks surrounding it in the mantle of the earth. As it nears the surface, the volatile gases expand and boil out of the rock, and this force of explosion propels lava from the vent.