CAUSA Y EFECTO

El método de CAUSA Y EFECTO es una forma de

exponer las razones para explicar eventos, problemas,
o asuntos y las consecuencias que resultan de ellos. El
escritor podrá explicar las causas, los efectos o ambos
pero siempre habrá una relación lógica entre las
partes. El patrón CAUSA-EFECTO siempre tendrá
envuelta la pregunta “¿porqué?” “why” de manera
explícita o implícita
EJEMPLO
In recent decades, cities have grown so large that now about 50% of the
Earth's population lives in urban areas. There are several reasons for this
occurrence. First, the increasing industrialization of the nineteenth
century resulted in the creation of many factory jobs, which tended to
be located in cities. These jobs, with their promise of a better material
life, attracted many people from rural areas. Second, there were many
schools established to educate the children of the new factory laborers.
The promise of a better education persuaded many families to leave
farming communities and move to the cities. Finally, as the cities grew,
people established places of leisure, entertainment, and culture, such as
sports stadiums, theaters, and museums. For many people, these
facilities made city life appear more interesting than life on the farm,
and therefore drew them away from rural communities.
-David Elkind, All Grown Up and No Place to Go
EFFECT CAUSES
 COMPARACIÓN Y CONTRASTE

La comparación se usa para ver semejanzas y el

contraste para discutir diferencias.
EJEMPLO
Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the
participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and
passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as
effectively postponed by becoming absorbed in a television program as
by going on a ''trip" induced by drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics
are only inchoately aware of their addiction, feeling that they control
their drinking more than they really do ("I can cut it out any time I
want—I just like to have three or four drinks before dinner"), people
similarly overestimate their control over television watching. Even as
they put off other activities to spend hour after hour watching
television, they feel they could easily resume living in a different, less
passive style. But somehow or other while the television set is present
in their homes, the click doesn't sound. With television pleasures
available, those other experiences seem less attractive, more difficult
somehow.
-Marie Winn, The Plug-In Drug
THINGS TO COMPARE FEATURES
 DESCRIPCION

En el modo descriptivo, el autor trata de mostrar

como se ve alguien o algo, o como se siente algo. El
propósito de quien escribe es pintar con palabras. A
menudo, la descripción se basa en sentimientos y
sensaciones. Generalmente no hay una idea principal,
sino más bien una impresión dominante:
EJEMPLO
Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by
a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long,
dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed
which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent
symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He
was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages;
and though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty
years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost
with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any
extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. "I incline to Cain's heresy," he used
to say quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way." In this character, it
was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good
influence in the lives of down going men. And to such as these, so long as they came
about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanor.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

expressions showing that this fragment is a description

 NARRACIÓN

Es el más fácil de reconocer. Lo que el autor hace es

simplemente, contar una historia. El autor usa el
modo narrativo para narrar eventos reales o
imaginarios en un orden cronológico, generalmente
para proporcionar evidencia de una verdad más
grande.
EJEMPLO
The Fox and the Grapes
One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he
came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been
trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench my thirst,” quoth
he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed
the bunch. Turning around again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up,
but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting
morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in
the air, saying, "I am sure they are sour."
It Is Easy to Despise What You Cannot Get,"
-Folk-Lore and Fable: Aesop, Grimm, Andersen

SETTING
EVENTS
END
 CLASIFICACION Y CATEGORIZACION

Generalmente Van juntos, aunque realmente tienen

métodos separados, su propósito es el mismo. El
autor toma una parte, describe sus características y la
relaciona con un todo.
EJEMPLO
There are many kinds of cannibalism. Revenge cannibalism—the gloating, triumphant
ingestion of a slain enemy's heart, liver, or other vital parts—is common at the
warring-chiefdom stage of social evolution. Emergency cannibalism was resorted to by
the Uruguayan soccer team whose plane crashed in the Andes. Ritual endocannibalism
is practiced by certain tribes like the Yanonamo of northern Amazonia, whose women
drink the pulverized ashes of slain kin mixed with banana gruel before their men go off
on a raiding party. In the Kindu region of Zaire there are to this day leopard men who
wear leopard skins, smear their bodies with leopard grease (which protects them even
from lions), chip their teeth to points, and attack and eat people. Among their victims
were some Italian soldiers who were part of the U.N. peace-keeping force during the
turbulence after independence in 1960. The rarest kind of cannibals are gustatory
cannibals— people who are actually partial to the taste of human flesh.

-Alex Shoumatoff, "The Emperor Who Ate His People,'' African Madness

ASPECT TO CLASSIFY FEATURES

 ARGUMENTACION

El autor trata de convencer al lector de que la idea

que él sostiene vale la pena. Mostrándole un punto
de vista con la intención de que el lector cambie su
punto de vista.
Naturalmente, y debido a que este tipo de párrafo
muestra el punto de vista subjetivo del autor, esta
forma de escribir se apoya más en opiniones que en
hechos.
EJEMPLO
If you want to trick yourself into Eating Less, buy smaller plates: It's all
about presentation: If you put the same amount of food on a smaller
plate, it'll look like a bigger serving. Simply switching from a 12.5" plate
to a 10.5" plate will make you unconsciously serve 20 percent less food.
"A smaller plate suggests what's called a smaller consumption norm,"
Wansink said. "It suggests a smaller amount of food that's normal,
typical and appropriate." A larger plate does the reverse; it suggests that
a big portion is normal. Similarly, if you repackage jumbo boxes of cereal
or spaghetti into smaller plastic containers or baggies, you'll cut down
on the amount of food you pour onto the plate in the first place,
according to Wansink.

-Tina Peng NEWSWEEK

AUTHOR’S IDEA ARGUMENTS