Posts Tagged ‘music’
Break it up, Break it Down: Paragraphing Strategies for College Essays
Some of us fill a page with a wall of words, with no paragraph indentations, no transitions, and no clearly defined topic sentences. Some of us have the appropriate indentations, but within each paragraph our sentences are out of order. Francis Christensen [1] devised a brilliant trick for paragraphing, one you can use at (and not before) the revising stage:
First, let’s imagine we are creating a couple of “outlines” for paragraphs about places in the world. [2] Fill in the blanks for the two paragraphs below, by pretending each word or phrase is a sentence, with the first word (1) the topic sentence:
(1) WORLD
…..(2) COUNTRY___USA______ (2) COUNTRY____________
……..(3) CITY___San Francisco__ (3) CITY_____________
……….(4) STREET__Haight______ (4) STREET___________
………….(5) BUSINESS_Amoeba Music_ (5) BUSINESS______
For this paragraph, we can see how each entry (sentence) refers back to (1), but is also a more specific reference to the place directly before it. So the sequence is tight/orderly.
But what if we tried to put another (2) next in this sequence, after the (5)? Would bringing in another country in the city, on the street, and at the business there work logically for our reader? Or would it throw our reader?
It would throw our reader.
So we need to start a new paragraph, a new (1), an ALSO/BESIDES/IN ADDITION…. For, this paragraph is of the kind Christensen calls the SUBORDINATE PARAGRAPH, and it must have an order and sub order of 1, 2, 3, 4, …. It cannot have 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, and it cannot have a 1, 5, 2, 3, 4 order.
***** SUBORDINATE paragraphs are good for telling stories, showing a process (or how-to) order, or moving from general to specific descriptions. They are one of three types of paragraphs in the writing world.*****
This brings us, then, to the next type of paragraphing. Fill in each of the blanks below with a phrase:
(1) What is truth?
(2) Truth is_____________________________________.
(2) It is________________________________________.
(2) It is________________________________________.
For this kind of paragraph, called a COORDINATE PARAGRAPH, each sentence that follows the topic sentence–the (1)–cooperates with the others to define and redefine a term or terms. Once you complete your own statements defining truth, note how musical, poetic, or symmetrical (matching) the paragraph is because of the effective repetition.
***** COORDINATE paragraphs are good for–as you likely guessed–definitions, reinforcing meaning in a delivered point, and re-defining a topic.*****
This brings us to the last of the paragraphing types, called the MIXED PARAGRAPH. This includes all other logical and reinforcing paragraphs that contain a combination of the SUBORDINATE and the COORDINATE, while it still keeps order. That is, for example, it can be a 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, pattern, but should not have a new 1 thrown in or an oddly placed sentence like another 2 after the 3, 3, 3, part.
To clarify and to try the numbering on already written paragraphs (if, for example, you draft first and then check order second), let’s look at the following. Try to decipher the numbering pattern in each:
A
___I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. ___I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered; and only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. ___I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder. –from Dr. Martin Luther King’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1964 [3]
The above is a sample of a _____________________paragraph.
B
___There’s nothing quite so risky as a parody movie. ___Some of them work out wonderfully, and examples like “Blazing Saddles” and “Airplane!” are two of the funniest movies ever made. ___On the other hand, sometimes you get examples like “High School High,” the new film starring Jon Lovitz and Tia Carrere. ___It’s supposed to be a spoof of the “Dangerous Minds” type of movie, where a teacher comes into an inner city high school and changes everything around. ___Lovitz plays a teacher named Richard Clark — get it, Dick Clark? — who quits his job at a posh private school and takes a position at the worst public high school in the district, Marion Berry High. ___He meets the beautiful administrative assistant, played by Carrere, and the hard-nosed principal, played by Louise Fletcher. ___Yes, former Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher. Can you say, “tragic waste of talent”? I knew you could…. –from Alex Lau’s Movie Magazine International review, October, 1996
The above is a sample of a _____________________paragraph.
C
___Technically, Carlito’s Way is a combination of the innovative and the banal. ___The camerawork is invigorating, if sometimes too exotic. ___DePalma makes good use of the steadicam during the chase sequences, and this heightens whatever tension is present. ___Jellybean Benitez, a former DJ and club manager, is the music supervisor, and his choice of about a dozen mid-seventies hits helps to establish the time-frame. ___Patrick Doyle’s score, however, is horribly out-of-place…. –from James Berardinelli’s Colossus review, 1993
The above is a sample of a _____________________paragraph.
D
___Describing Tupac…. ___Shit, he was real. ___I’ma be real for a minute, because I can’t describe someone so real without being real myself: [Tupac] was everything and nothing. ___He was dreamful, hopeful, a leader, a rebel, a thug, a friend, a role model. ___Just everything he did was, as Tupac once said, “a calculated step to bring me closer to my death.” ___He was the hip hop Jesus. –from Luis Camacho’s journal entry, June 16, 2004
The above is a sample of a _____________________paragraph.
What kind of paragraph do you find A is? If you see it as a COORDINATE, you are absolutely right!
How about B? Yep, a (well-written) SUBORDINATE.
My students are divided on C, with general consensus seeing it as either a COORDINATE, with each sentence after the first reinforcing the writer’s topic sentence or as a MIXED, with the final sentence (a 3)—or?possible a new 1?
And paragraph D? Looks like a rich MIX of details, doesn’t it? And the writer of D hadn’t yet done this paragraphing experiment!
End Notes
[1] Christensen, Francis. A Generative Rhetoric of the Paragraph. CCC 16 (October 1965).
[2] This part of the experiment is a modified version of that used in Graduate Composition Teaching courses taught by Deborah Swanson at SFSU.
[3] All paragraph samples taken from and/or modified for English 880, Skyline College, San Bruno, CA. Passage D is a selected piece written by a student who has granted his permission for my use of it here and elsewhere. RM.
N.H.-born prize-winning poet, creative nonfiction writer, memoirist, and award-winning Assoc. Prof. of English, Roxanne is also web content and freelance writer/founder of http://www.roxannewrites.com, a support site for academic, memoir, mental disability, and creative writers who need a nudge, a nod, or just ideas?of which Roxanne has 1,000s, so do stop in for a visit, as this sentence can’t possibly get any longer??.
Plastic Applied to the Picnic Table?
There are many styles of picnic tables on the market, but what kind of material is best for durability and safety? Powder coating has been an accepted coated finish for years and there are several reasons why. The coating look great, you can have most any color you want, they are friendly to the environment and efficient to produce. The powder is applied in liquid form so it goes on similar to painting. If you need to have flexibility and strength against impacts, this type of finish would no be the best. Some type of PVC coating is the finish of choice when flexibility is key.
A picnic table is a good example of needing strength and durability. These are left out in the elements probably all year. The corrosion from acid rain is only one issue faced by furniture left outdoors. Powder coating is safer for kids and adults because there is no chance of getting slivers you know where when sliding across the picnic bench. Parks and Recreation departments can’t take in the picnic tables every year so they are left outside. A consumer just leaves their picnic table outdoors because they are so heavy to haul into storage. Some set them up on their sides so the snow won’t accumulate on top, but they are still left exposed to the elements.
PVC coatings aren’t as environmentally friendly and the odor upon application is really strong. Some PVC coatings aren’t allowed into European countries which is also a problem when you are trying to sell your picnic tables or patio furniture in other countries. Thermoplastic coating is a good alternative to the PVC. It meets all the requirements demanded for the elements, and it is cleaner and healthier for the environment. These new coatings can also be shipped anywhere so your market isn’t limited. These new finishes also can be applied at a lower cost. That is music to the ear of any manufacturer. The product seems to last longer and the customers love it.
This coating can be applied in one layer instead of the traditional 3 layers so scratches just blend in and the application is half as thick as the old coating. The material itself is more expensive, but less is more in this case. The thermoplastic also weights less also decreasing the cost. This type of coating application is easy to maintain when it comes to quality control. That is a crucial element in manufacturing.
You will have unhappy clients and customers if there is no consistency to your products.
Another feature of the thermoplastic is that it can be reheated. This is a huge cost savings because there never has to be a rejected piece of patio furniture. If the finish does not meet quality control standards, just reheat it, melt off the plastic and go again. This also promotes other applications as well other than the patio furniture industry. The automotive industry has used this technology in car parts as well.
As the research is done on other coatings and applications, there is always a better more durable product just around the corner.
Bev Hlavka is a successful freelance writer offering guidance and suggestions for consumers buying patio furniture, gas grills, picnic tables and more.
Her many articles can be found at http://www.newsletterjournal.com.
She gives information and tips at http://www.newsletterjournal.com to help you save money and make informed buying decisions.
