TOTAL SCORE: 31/38

METHODS OF PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT

An understanding of different methods of development and when to use them can save you valuable time in
starting and organizing your essay.

I. Narration

oldest and best-known form of verbal communication

“narrare” (Latin) – to account or tell

Sixteen is a prideful age when a young man needs respect, not charity. One day, I found myself in the
General Store making purchases on credit for my father. I was hesitant because I had seen friends ask
for credit and then stand heads bowed, as the storeowner questioned whether they were “good for it.”
Mr. David, the storeowner, was standing behind the cash register, talking to a middle-aged farmer.
When I brought my purchases to the counter, I said sheepishly, “I need to put them on credit, Mr.
David.” The farmer threw me an amused, cynical look. But Mr. David’s face didn’t change a bit. “Sure,”
he said with a firm nod of his head. “Your daddy has always been ‘good for it’,” he continued, as he
turned to the farmer. “This is one of Mr. Sotero Garcia’s sons,” he added. The farmer gave me a long
look, then nodded in a friendly way. I was filled with pride. Sotero Garcia’s son! Those words opened the
door to an adult’s respect and trust.

Types :
• History • Autobiograp
• Character sketch hy
• Anecdote • Travelogue
• Biography • Adventure
• Short story

Some Important Guidelines

A. A good narration is told to make a point:
• To make us laugh
• To make us understand
• To change our attitudes

>>>The point of the narration helps us carefully choose the details we need to put in our narrative.

A narrative without a point:

First, I had to shovel before I could leave for work because it snowed during the night. Then I had trouble
starting my car, and to make matters worse, my daughter wasn’t feeling well. When I arrived in school, I was
twenty minutes late. Soon I found out the secretary had forgotten to type the exam I was supposed to give my
class. I had to make another plan. When I was about to go home, there I met my final defeat. In my hurry to
park the car in the morning, I had left my parking lights on. My battery was dead.

A narrative illustrating a point:

I took my family to a summer vacation in my hometown. During the first couple of days, my son, Matt,
seemed to misbehave often so I kept constantly rebuking and correcting him. “No son of mine is going to act
that way,” I made it clear to him emphatically. One day later that week, Matt tried especially hard to live up
to my standards. In fact, he hadn’t done anything that called for correcting, nor reprimanding. After he had
said his prayers and jumped to bed, Matt’s lower lip began to quiver. “What’s the matter, buddy?” I asked.
He was barely able to speak when he looked at me with his glassy eyes and asked, “Daddy, haven’t I been a
good boy today?” Those words cut through my parental arrogance like a knife. I had been quick to
criticize and correct his misbehavior but failed to comment and appreciate his attempt to please me.

Exercise 1. Complete each sentence by providing a controlling idea that could be the point for the story:
SCORE: 3/3
1. After going to the movies every Saturday for many years, I discovered _that going alone could be
quite peaceful_.
2. When my best friend got married, I began to see that _genuine happiness can come in many
forms__.
3. Since my family is so large, I have had to learn to _be extra thoughtful in decisions that involves
money_.

B. Work for Coherence: Place details in time sequence

• Tell what happened first, then next, and next, until you get to the end of the story.
• Events may have taken place in a matter of minutes or over a period of many years.

After a full day of splitting firewood, my husband took a hot bath, downed a couple of aspirin tablets but
still felt muscle soreness. Tossing and turning in bed during that night, he crawled out of it to fetch an
ice pack. A few seconds later, I heard him rummaging through our freezer where I kept several premade
ice packs for such occasions. Then he went back to bed and drifted off to sleep. The next morning, while
making our bed, I noticed something odd. Resting on his pillow was a completely thawed freezer bag of
leftover chicken noodle soup.

Sequence of Events/ Timeline:

1. My husband spent a full day of splitting firewood.
The whole day (what happened first)
2. He took a hot bath, downed a couple of aspirin tablets but still felt muscle soreness.
Happened after a full day of splitting firewood. (2)
3. He crawled out of it to fetch an ice pack.
Happened later when he is in bed attempting to sleep. (3)
4. I heard him rummaging through our freezer where I kept several pre-made ice packs for such
occasions.
What he did when he was fetching an ice pack. (4)
5. He went back to bed and drifted off to sleep.
Happened after he go what he needed from the freezer. (5)
6. I noticed something odd - a completely thawed freezer bag of leftover chicken noodle soup.
Final thing that happened.

Exercise 2. Put the events in order according to time sequence:

SCORE: 5/5

A Fight in My Apartment Building

o Meanwhile, some of the neighbors became so frightened that they
called the police. (3)
o Suddenly, the man and the woman began to fight around six o’clock. (1)
o After a little while, when the police came, they found the couple struggling in the kitchen. (4)
o Then, the neighbors heard the man’s voice shouting angrily. (2)
o Finally, there were no arrests, but the police warned both individuals not to disturb the peace
again. (5)

C. Use Transition Markers

• Soon afterward • Then
• At once • Meanwhile
• Suddenly • Later, later on
• Immediately • At the same time
• Now, by now • Finally
 • After a little while

Exercie 3. Scrutinize the following paragraph by identifying its main point, figuring out its sequence of events,
and spotting its transitional markers:

SCORE: 12/13

The morning after my teacher came, she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind
children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it, but I did not know this
until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the
word “d-o-l-l.” I was at once interested in this finger play I tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded
in making letters correctly, I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my
mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or
even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that
followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup,
and a few verbs like sit, stand, and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I
understood that everything has a name.

Main Point: From a blind (also possibly mute) person’s perspective, the author realizes that everything has a
name.

Sequence of Events:

 The author is met by a teacher for blind children and seems to have brought an object alien to the
author.
 The teacher, Miss Sullivan, spelled out the word ‘doll’ in her hand to introduce the name of the alien
object.
 She learns the word by imitating it, after succeeding, the author goes to its mother and shares the joy it
felt from learning it.
 She marvels at the discovery of words and how everything has a name.
 She proceeds to learn more about the names of the objects around her.

Transitional Markers:

 Afterward..
 At once..
 When..
 In the days that followed..

II. Description
- attempts to put into words the picture or image of an object, person, place, or scene
In describing,
• The writer becomes a painter who colors his subjects with descriptive words.
• He uses words that appeal to the five senses (sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste).
• He applies his imagination to re-create the past or to create new ones.
• He chooses fresh, specific and concrete words to arouse special feelings and avoids generic term like
“nice” and “good.”

Some Guidelines:

A. The use of sensory details will determine whether or not your reader will be able to imagine what
you are describing.

Descriptive or Non-Descriptive?
 1) My boss acts like a jerk.
None-descriptive
2) My boss took a stance that staggered his feet one in front of the other, giving him a leaning,
aggressive posture; looking as if he could lunge over the desk towards me with one swift push
from the points of his fake leather shoes. Most days, he would place his bony fingers on my
desk and lean down to look me square in the eye. But today, he chose to keep his position
above mine and actually look down upon me as if to silently affirm his feelings of superiority.
Descriptive
1) It was morning in Marabut.
Non-descriptive

2) As thick fog rolled down the hills and into the sleepy village of Marabut, the early morning
chirping of the birds and the calls of one lone bull fell strangely silent.
Descriptive
1) His cologne smelled disgusting.
(In this example, disgusting is our adjective. And while this does use a descriptive word to let
the readers know what you think, they may wonder if your opinion has merit).
Non-descriptive
2) His cologne smelled like the spray of a skunk.
(The spray of a skunk is a noun because it is a thing, not just a descriptive word such as
disgusting).

Descriptive

Exercise 4. Identify the physical sense the writer appeals to when a sensory image is used:

SCORE: 2/5

1. A large refrigerator case against one wall was always humming loudly from the effort of keeping
milk, cream, and several cases of soda and beer cool at all times.
Hearing
2. Stacked on top of the counter were baskets of fresh rolls and breads which gave off an aroma
that contained a mixture of onion, sesame seeds, and black pepper.

Smelling

Recognize sensory images:

My first apartment was a third floor walk-up on a busy street in downtown Vancouver. The building was
a faded brown characterless box. My apartment was down a dimly-lit narrow hallway covered in worn
fifties style dark green carpeting. When I say apartment, I really mean room, because there was just one
small square room with a tiny bathroom. The air was humid and musty. One small window provided a
perfect view of the brown stucco wall of the building next door. A small "avocado" colored stove and
fridge highlighted the kitchen which consisted of a few shabby painted wood cupboards that projected
into the room. Along one wall was an older pale blue sofa, which was also my bed. A small red card table
with two chairs served as my kitchen and dining room table. A few feet away, several large cardboard
moving boxes contained all of my clothes and personal possessions. The one bright spot was a large
poster of a winter mountain scene which I had hung on the dull gray wall. It helped me survive the eight
months I called this dump home.
B. Effective writing also gives the reader a definite sense that the details have been chosen to produce
an overall impression.
>>>Too many images, or images not carefully chosen, will greatly weaken the writing.
>>>The dominant impression is the overall impression often summed up by one word or phrase in
the topic sentence.
Topic sentence without a dominant impression: It was morning in Marabut.
Topic sentence with a dominant impression: Early morning in Marabut was eerie.
Exercise 5. Spot vague impressions:

SCORE: 7/7

I had a typical day. The weather was nice and my job was interesting. The food for lunch was okay;
supper was really good. After supper I saw my girlfriend, who is really beautiful. That’s when my day
became really fun.

C. Put the supporting details into spatial order.

>>>Details can be given as one’s eyes might move, for example, from top to bottom, left to right,
outside to inside, or around in a circle.

Exercise 6. Trace the direction the writer takes in arranging his details:

SCORE: 3/5

The floor was of large square bricks worn smooth and of grey mortar between. The ceiling was the
underside of the tile resting on beams that pointed from back to front. Families who had lived there
before had left a helter-skelter of nails, bolts, and pegs driven into the walls. The kerosene lamp
hung from a hook on the center beam.

Answer: The direction the writer took was bottom to top.

III. Comparison and Contrast

Nearly every one compares and contrasts many times a day like in choosing viand at the fast-food counter, in
deciding what to wear to school, in selecting a boarding house or a friend of career.

Three General Purposes:

1. He may be equally interested in both subjects, heightening the features of one by juxtaposition with
another.
2. More often, his primary focus is with only one of the terms of comparison or contrast; he brings in the
other because it helps to sharpen the features of his main subject.
3. He may be mainly interested, not in any of the particular subjects he is comparing or contrasting, but in
some general principle or central idea that is revealed when we compare the objects .

2 Main Kinds of Comparison and Contrast:

Logical - made only between those which are members of the same class/category Rhetorical
– analogy
Two Basic Patterns of Comparison
1. Opposing pattern
• one presents all the information on the two subjects, one subject at a time, and summarizes by
combining their most important similarities and differences.
• may be desirable if there are few points to compare, or if the individual points are less important
than the overall picture they present.
Your skeleton outline might look like this:
I. Education in high school
A. Teacher
B. Classes
C. Activities
II. Education in college
A. Teacher
B. Classes
C. Activities
 2. Alternating pattern
• preferred if there are several points of comparison to be considered or if the points are of
individual importance.
Your skeleton outline then looks like this:
I. Teacher
A. High School
B. College
II. Classes
A. High School
B. College
III. Activities
A. High School
B. College

Guidelines:
1. Choose two things as your subject.
2. Choose two things which are alike but different.
3. Make your treatment of the two things similar.
4. In any basic use of comparison, the important thing is to have a plan suited to the purpose and
materials.

IV. Analogy
-explains something abstract or difficult by showing its similarity to something concrete or easy
to understand
-gives added force to the explanations

Keep in mind the following:

1. Choose something relatively familiar and simple.
2. Don’t confuse the analogy and literal comparisons.
3. Don’t mistake a figure of speech for an analogy.
4. Beware of the false analogy.

The living language is like a “cowpath;” it is the creation of the cows themselves, who having
created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or needs. From daily use, the path
undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make,
following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be
handicapped if she didn’t know where it was and where it led to. Children obviously do not depend
for communication on knowledge of grammar; they rely on their ear, which mostly is sharp and
quick. But we have yet to see the child who hasn’t profited from coming face to face with a relative
pronoun at an early age, and from reading books, which follow the paths of countries.

V. Classification and Division

• Use structural pattern for expository writing
• Involve taking into consideration every representative of that group and breaking down classes
into subclasses and so on
• Basically pursue the basic process of outlining

Guidelines:
1. Set up classification systems whose classes are coordinate, mutually exclusive, non-overlapping and
complete.
2. Choose a limited group as your topic.
 3. Choose a group w/ 3 or more subgroups.
4. Consider a personal & original development.
5. Use a single principle of classification.
6. Introduce sub-classes if needed.
7. Decide on the arrangement.
8. Be careful not to make generalizations or stereotypes for your categories.
For example: Don’t state that all XU students are smart.
9. Be sure to include specific details that back up a useful and meaningful purpose to your classification
10. To put it simply- be fair, be valid and make sure the information you provide is necessary.

VI. Process Analysis

• explains how the steps of an operation lead to its completion
• explains a procedure that ends in specified results
• emphasizes an approach
• makes use of chronological order Direction-Giving Guidelines:
• Choose a suitable subject, something that you have actually done yourself.
• Give complete details. You are writing, not for those who already know, but to those who wish
to learn.
• Define special terms.
• Give reasons for the steps involved.
• Include negative directions.
• Use illustrative aids.
Information-Giving:
• For every process you will actually be trained to do by directions, there will be a dozen of which
you will merely be told by lecture or textbook (the operation of the law of supply and demand
or the procedures of a legislature).
• Your subject need not to be something you have done.
• You may choose a longer and a more involved process. Since your reader does not expect to be
able to repeat the procedure himself, he will be content with the main outline.

VII. Illustration and Example

“Illustrate” - derived from a Latin word meaning “to shed light to pointing to a particular instance of its
truth.”
“Example” - derived from a Latin word meaning “something chosen from a large group.”

• the most common and efficient type of exposition

• may be used as the basic means of development
• also frequently assists other basic techniques of exposition

3 Principal Functions:
A. Illustration puts an abstract or vague idea into concrete and specific form.
B. Illustration adds interest to the topic.
Factors that elicit human attention:
(1)Action, (2) Reality, (3) Proximity and Familiarity,
(4) Novelty, (5) Suspense and Conflict, and (6) Humor C.
Illustration proves something by citing examples.
➢ Open to the fallacy ab uno disce omnes

Where can you find apt illustration?

A. Your own experience - friends, places and events
B. The library - a fictional anecdote, an analogy, or perhaps a parable that demonstrates the general
idea
 Sample Paragraph:

Some people are so frightened by AIDS that they shun all homosexuals. Many customers have
changed hairdressers because they suspected that the ones they frequented were gay. They now
insist on women doing their hair. Actresses have refused to be made up by men who might be
homosexual. One couple visiting New Orleans was so concerned about the numerous gay waiters in
the French Quarter restaurants that they stopped going out to eat. They bought food in
supermarkets and ate it in their hotel room. A woman who was given a book purchased at a
gaylesbian book store called the store and asked if she could safely open the package without
getting AIDS. All of these people were acting on unfounded fears.

VIII. Cause and Effect

You can argue three different ways when you’re setting up your thesis:
1. You can argue that it’s important to understand both the causes and effects in order to make an
informed choice on a stance or concept
Example: It is important to analyze both the causes and effects of abortion before voting for pro-choice
or pro-life.
2. You can argue that one event or reason is the main cause for a series of events
Example: September 11, 2001 created a series of changes in America that will alter the way Americans
live their day to day lives forever.
3. You can argue that one event or concept is the direct effect of a series of causes
Example: Terrorism in the world is caused by a variety of events and resentments that cannot be
undone or unraveled.
Guidelines:
1. Do not mistake a time connection for a causal one.
2. Do not settle for one cause if there are more.
3. Distinguish between immediate and remote causes.
4. Do not mistake a cause for an effect or an effect for a cause.

IX. Definition
How can I define something?
1. Define by example
Abstract ideas, concepts and subjects are difficult to explain if your audience does not understand
your terms in the same way you do. For instance, your audience’s perception of love might be based
on platonic adoration whereas your perception of love might be based on romance. Therefore, you
must use examples so they get a visual idea of your definition.
“Love sits up at night and holds your hair while you get sick.”
This example visually uses an example of an act of love with the use of personification.
2. Define by elimination
Much like defining abstract subjects by examples, defining by elimination welcomes creativity and vivid
language full of imagery. Defining by elimination is when you define a subject by what it is not, by what
it is opposite of and by showing a contrast
“A man is not a person who can put on lipstick and ask for directions while driving at the same time.”
This example explains the abstract concept of who a man is even though the physical aspect of man
is a concrete subject.
Guidelines:
1. Avoid defining with “is when” or “is where.”
2. Do not define by mere repetition.
3. Define a word in simpler and more familiar terms.
4. Keep your class small but adequate.
5. State the differentiating characteristics precisely and completely.
6. The extended or informal definition follows no set and formal pattern unlike the formal or dictionary
definition.