Exercise 11

The following subjects are too broad. Study them and suggest more specific tittles that
may be derived from each subject.

Model:
Subject: Trees

Improved Titles:
The Aguho Trees Lifts Its Arms in Prayer
The Oldest Tree at the Plaza
Under the Shade of the Mango Tree

1. Faces 8. Hobbies
2. Animals 9. Friends
3. Vacation 10. Cards
4. Pets 11. Camping
5. Books 12. TV Programs
6. Flowers 13. Space Travel
7. Houses 14. Heroes

Exercise 12

Rearrange the garbled outline below into main headings and subdivisions. Be consistent in the
kind of outline you follow (topic or sentence).

Subject: My First Dog

1. I heard a soft whimper from a ditch.
2. What he looked like
3. I saw a little brown – and – white
dog
4. He was cold and hungry.
5. How I found him
6. He was evidently lost.
7. I took him camping with him
8. He had the droopy ears of a spaniel
9. I saw him running after a bird
10. How I lost him
11. I whistled for him.
12. I looked for him everywhere.
13. He wore an old collar on his neck.
14. I lost sight of him when he entered
the forest.
15. I followed the soft whimpering
sound.

Exercise 13

Direction: Here are parts of a simple outline. Rearrange the items under the main heads.
Determine the subheads.

1. Results 11. Saw

2. Assembling parts 12. Tools needed
3. Materials needed 13. Construction
4. Preparation 14. Blueprint or plant
5. Choice of design 15. Sawing the lumber
6. Decorative piece of furniture 16. Nails
7. Tape measure 17. Boards
8. Measuring the lumber 18. Hammer
9. Satisfaction from accomplishment 19. Ruler
10. Pencil 20. A beautiful piece of furniture
Exercise 14
Rearrange these items in an outline, fitting them into logical main heads and subheads.

Title: Biological Warfare

1. Use of vaccines. 7. Contaminated food

2. Means of spreading bacteria and
viruses
3. Use of disease germs against man
4. Use of antitoxins
5. Pollution of water supply
6. Definition of biological warfare
8. Possible preventive measures
9. Uses of viruses against human food
supply
10. Disease – bearing insects
11. General sanitation
12. Planes to scatter germs

Exercise 14
Complete the following definitions.
1. Astronomy is__________________________________________________________
2. A volcano is__________________________________________________________
3. An aviary is___________________________________________________________
4. A calculator is_________________________________________________________
5. A tape recorder is ______________________________________________________
6. An irrigation dam is ____________________________________________________
7. A microscope is________________________________________________________
8. A telescope is_________________________________________________________

Exercise 15
Write two different how you became interested in the subject.
1. We should Read Lots of Books
2. Wanted: A Dance Partner
3. An Unusual Hobby
4. Getting Up for the Dawn Mass
5. Late Again!

Determining How Paragraphs Are Related

Read the following selection carefully and point out how each paragraph is related to the
preceding one.

Exercise 16
 In greeting each other, Englishmen shake hands; Frenchmen in exalted moments embrace
and kiss on oh cheeks; a polite Austrian salutes a lady’s hand with his lips; and Polynesians press
noses. Each of these different codes of manners seems reasonable to those who practice it, but to
those do not, it is looked upon with amusement or ridicule.
In much of India and the Muslim world women still veil the face as well as the body; in
Europe they cover the body but expose the face; in many parts of Africa and the South Seas they
leave the breasts bare, and in some regions they go entirely naked. In each case, no shame is felt by
the people themselves, though we think veiling the face is stupid and baring the body improper.
When Chinese and Eskimo women wear trouser, we think it quaint, yet it Europe women may wear
them for sports or work because they are more practical.
Differences in more fundamental sex relation arouse our deep emotions. In Western
civilization monogamy is the ideal form of marriage, enforced by the lay and the Church.
Elsewhere, polygamy, often common, is thought disgusting and immoral, though some countries
allow it by their religion, and others justify it for economic reasons or for the preservation of the
health of the growing child. In Europe again, the moral code upholds chastity for both sexes before
marriage, though in practice it is relaxed for men and is now less strict than sex relations are
expected of young people. They hold that in formerly for women. In many native communities
premarital these matters experience teaches, while we feel that in reference to this, a little learning
is a dangerous thing.

The religions of the world, in spite of their many common elements, show equally deep -
seated differences of belief and practice. Philosophers and theologians may agree upon the
fundamentals of faith, but the ordinary man clings to his taboos in the conviction that they are
sensible and right. The strict Muslim may eat no pork, the strict Hindu, no beef; but the strict
Christian may eat both - except perhaps on Fridays. The Brahmanic bull of Hindu India swings
through the bazaars and eats his fill; the European sees in him a wasteful concession to religious
prejudice and thinks how much better he would be occupied in pulling a plough or converted into
steaks. The protest of the Hindu Orthodox groups of Northern India against public ox - roasting ,
proposed in 1937 to celebrate the coronation of their Majesties in Great Britain , must have seemed
comic to many Englishmen . A tradition of beef - eating, plus a religion deeply imbued with the
symbol ism of sacrifice and of communion through partaking of flesh and blood, finds it difficult to
appreciate the sincerity of a faith which believes in bloodless offerings and in the veneration of a
sacred animal. A cynical Hindu might say, on the other hand, that the only calf we venerate is a
golden one.

- Raymond Firth, Human Types

Exercise 17
Point out the topic sentence in each of the following paragraphs. Underline them.
1. All beautiful thoughts should really be expressed in poetry, but poetry is difficult to
create. It is not really created; it is a secretion of the mind. It is like the pearl found in the
oyster. It is a secretion which forms in the mind around some irritant, as the pearl forms
in the heart of the mother-of-pearl around some irritant the oyster has swallowed. Poetry
is a pearl which ex- presses the essence of beauty which lies dormant in the mind of the
poet who secretes it.
2. Science as applied to warfare is well on its way to shrivel up the nervous system of those
it does not kill. War has always driven some men mad; but not until modern science took
charge has there been such a malady as shell shock. Gone in battle are the virtues of
strength, determination, skill at arms-yes, even courage. A weak little man pushes a
button somewhere miles away, and the strength and skill and courage of men go
hundreds of feet into the air, together with fragments of arms and legs and viscera. Of the
millions killed and the millions wounded, how many received their wounds in hand-to-
hand combat? Probably not one percent; the ninety-nine percent were stricken by engines
of science.
3. Art, science, and thought are the most strenuous occupations of people. If you would
make good in any of these, you must scorn delights and live laborious days. To produce a
masterpiece in art, you must go lean for many days and the passersby will say of you as
they did of Dante, "This man has been in hell. In the sweat of thy brow, in the sweat of
thy surely brain shalt thou think, shalt thou achieve the great discoveries of science and
the great creations of art."
4. Your mind, like your body, is a thing whose powers are developed by effort. That is the
importance, as I see it, of hardwork in studies. Unless you train your body, you cannot be
an athlete; unless you train your mind, you cannot be much of a scholar. The miles a
runner covers in a loping pace is itself not the race; but the physical training is good for
him. So, a good part of what you learn by hard study may not be permanently retained
and may not seem to be of much final value, but your mind is a better and more powerful
instrument because you have used it. It is true that knowledge is power, but the faculty of
acquiring and using knowledge is the greater power. If you have a trained and powerful
mind, you are bound to have it stored with something, but its value is more in what it can
do, than in what it can grasp and Think of your mind as a muscle to be developed; think
of it as a searchlight that is to reveal the truth to you; don't cheat it or neglect it use.

Exercise 18
Copy one or two paragraphs from a book or magazine. Underline the topic sentence in each
paragraph. Then, be ready to ready our paragraphs to your classmates and let them identify each
topic sentence.
The Topic Sentence Implied
The topic sentence can also be implied-meaning that although it is not actually found in
the paragraph, the idea in it is so clearly presented that one can easily formulate it.

Exercise 19
Study the paragraphs below. Then, identify their topic sentences ifthey are expressed, and
formulate them if they are implied.
1. A few stars which are hardly bigger than the earth are known, but the majority of stars are
so large that hundreds and thou-sands of earths could be packed inside each and still
leave room to spare. Here and there we come upon a giant star large enough to contain
millions and millions of earths. And like the total number of grains of sand on all
seashores of the total number of stars in the universe is probably something world. Such
is the littleness of our house in space when measured against the total substance of the
universe.
2. We may distinguish two sorts of goods. There are which individual possession is
possible, and there are which all can share. The food and clothing of one person are
different from the food and clothing of another. If the supply is insufficient, what one
man has is obtained at the expense of another. This applies to material goods generally
and therefore to a greater part of the present economic life of the world. On the other
hand, mental and spiritual goods do not belong to the exclusion of another. If one is a
great artist and poet that does not prevent others from painting pictures or writing poems
but even helps to create the atmosphere in which such things are possible. If a person is
full of goodwill toward others that does not mean that there is less goodwill to be shared
among the rest. The more goodwill one is likely to share with others. Any increase
anywhere tends to produce an increase everywhere.
3. A tree is an underground creature with its tail in the air. All its intelligence is in its roots.
All its senses are in its leaves. Think what sagacity it shows in its quest for food and
drink! Some-how or another, the rootlets which are its tentacles find out that there is a
pool at a moderate distance from the trunk of the tree, and they make for it with all their
might. When spring and summer come, they let their tails grow, and they delight in
whisking them about in the wind or letting them be whisked by it; for these tails are poor,
passive things with very little will of their own and bend in whatever direction the wind
chooses to make them.
4. Science holds hope for the future; present conditions often seem desperate. Pessimists tell
us that society is disintegrating that the human race is degenerating, and that our
civilization is going the way of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. But though
nations have risen and fallen, though cultures have waxed and waned, the major
movements of history have been forward. After a civilization had once been attained, it
has never completely disappeared from the earth. The torch of culture was handed on
from Egypt and Greece to Rome and to us. One often hears of lost arts and civilizations,
but the best elements of any culture are immortal.
5. The only possible remedy for our present deplorable condition is not less but better
science and education. Science must recognize that the search for truth is the whole life,
that both scientific reality and religious ideality are necessary to normal, happy, useful
living. Science keeps our feet on the ground of facts but religion lifts our heads into the
atmosphere of ideals. From the earliest years, education must teach love rather than war,
service rather than selfishness. It must instill reverence not only for truth but also beauty
and righteousness.
6. Where there is no vision, a people perish. One cannot live by bread alone. One must have
ideals and aspirations; one must have faith and hope and love. In short, one must have
religion. The world has never needed a religion of high ideals and aspirations more than it
needs it now. Science has destroyed many old traditions and superstitions, but it has not
destroyed the foundations of ethics and religion. The universality of natural law has not
destroyed faith in God though it has modified many primitive concepts of the Deity. It is
 incredible to suppose that the system and order of nature, the evolution of matter and the
world, and the life and reality of spiritual ideals should be the results of chance. There is
evidence of some governance and plan in nature.
7. Vast multitudes of stars are wandering about in space. A few form groups which journey
in company, but the majority are solitary travelers. And they travel through a universe so
vast, so spacious that it is an event of almost unimaginable rarity for a star to come
anywhere near another star. For the most part, each voyage is in splendid isolation, like a
ship on a vast ocean. In scale model in which stars are ships, the average hip will be over
a million miles from its nearest neighbor. It is easy to understand why a ship seldom finds
another within hailing distance.

Exercise 20
Write good endings for each of the beginnings you wrote in Exercise 16.