Academic writing

Terrific explanation of a stand-alone paragraph


WHITE LINE BREAK
THE PARAGRAPH:
Gold, a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics. First of all, gold has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion. Therefore, it is suitable for jewelry, coins, and ornamental purposes. Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever. For example, a Macedonian coin remains as untarnished today as the day it was minted twenty-three centuries ago. Another important characteristic of gold is its usefulness to industry and science. For many years, it has been used in hundreds of industrial applications. The most recent use of gold is in astronauts’ suits. Astronauts wear gold-plated heat shields for protection outside the spaceship. In conclusion, gold is treasured not only for its beauty but also its utility.

In the table below, I’ve analyzed this paragraph in terms of the “TEE” approach to writing paragraphs.

T = Topic (or Topic sentence)
E = Explanation or elaboration (or discussion)
E = Example or evidence

Don’t worry about the difference between example/evidence or explanation/elaboration. Inside a paragraph, evidence and examples serve roughly the same purpose, as do explanation and elaboration:

  • Explanation and elaboration tell your reader ‘more’ about the topic. (“Say a lot about a little, not a little about a lot.“)
  • Evidence and examples give the reader specific details that “support” your topic — that “prove” your claim about the topic is true.

Don’t think of “TEE” as a rule. “TEE” is a guide, not a rule.

the
TEE
paragraph		 T = Topic
E = Examples or Evidence
E = Explanation or Elaboration
Topic
sentence		 Gold, a precious metal, is prized for two important characteristics.
Elaboration First of all, gold has a lustrous beauty that is resistant to corrosion.
Elaboration Therefore, it is suitable for jewelry, coins, and ornamental purposes.
Evidence Gold never needs to be polished and will remain beautiful forever.
Example For example, a Macedonian coin remains as untarnished today as the day it was minted twenty-three centuries ago.
Elaboration Another important characteristic of gold is its usefulness to industry and science.
Evidence For many years, it has been used in hundreds of industrial applications.
Example The most recent use of gold is in astronauts’ suits.
Explanation Astronauts wear gold-plated heat shields for protection outside the spaceship.
  In conclusion, gold is treasured not only for its beauty but also its utility.

AND SEE:
• The TEE formula for paragraphs & the exit exam
• NV’s perfect paragraph

How many sentence fragments do professional writers use?

Excerpt from “A Fresh Look at Sentence Fragments” by Edgar H. Schuster”:

Sentence fragments have long been a form that most teachers try to eradicate from student writing. However well intentioned this may be, does it help students become better writers of nonfiction? Partly to answer this question, I examined the fifty essays reprinted in The Best American Essays 2001 (Norris and Atwan) and The Best American Essays, 2003 (Fadiman and Atwan).

It was exciting to observe the range of the syntactic resources these writers called on and used effectively. They include some things we English teachers commonly teach against, such as comma splices, single-sentence paragraphs, even occasional rambling sentences. But what struck me far more forcefully was the extent to which these essayists used sentence fragments. At the outset, it should be said that the backbone of virtually every essay in these collections is the complete, well-formed English sentence. Nevertheless, I found 505 sentence fragments in the fifty essays.

Schuster, Edgar H. “A Fresh Look at Sentence Fragments.” The English Journal 95.5 (2006). Print. (78-83).

Concession words in Ben Bernanke’s speech

As of July, the unemployment rate had fallen to 8.3 percent from … 10 percent and payrolls had risen by 4 million jobs from their low point. And despite periodic concerns about deflation risks, on the one hand, and repeated warnings that [the Federal Reserve] would ignite inflation, on the other hand, inflation … has remained near the Committee’s 2 percent objective and inflation expectations have remained stable. Key sectors such as manufacturing, housing, and international trade have strengthened, firms’ investment in equipment and software has rebounded, and conditions in financial and credit markets have improved.

Notwithstanding these positive signs, the economic situation is obviously far from satisfactory.

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
At the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
August 31, 2012
Monetary Policy since the Onset of the Crisis

AND SEE:
• The reader over your shoulder
• Concession words

Using “on the other hand” to concede a point

Advice for lawyers writing legal briefs:

[In legal writing,] weak arguments are risky: “[A] weak argument does more than merely dilute your brief. It speaks poorly of your judgment and thus reduces confidence in your other points.”… On the other hand, the law is what a majority of judges say it is — so an argument you consider weak may provide a basis for forming a majority.

Persuasive Legal Writing by Daniel U. Smith

In this passage, Daniel Smith makes two somewhat contradictory claims:

  1. Strong arguments are better than weak arguments.
  2. A weak argument may win the case if the judge happens to agree with it.

Smith uses the phrase “on the other hand” to concede, or admit, that his first argument isn’t always true. First he makes a strong claim; then he qualifies his strong claim by conceding, or admitting, that there are exceptions to the rule.

This is a standard feature of academic writing, one that is important to master.

AND SEE:
• The reader over your shoulder
• Concession words

Conceding a point, part 2

Excerpt from a New Yorker post on the possibility that President Obama is “too cool” for ordinary Americans:

“Obama is cool,” Ron Lloyd, a commenter from Walla Walla, Washington, wrote at Politico. “The Sinatra of politics.”

[snip]

Notwithstanding [Mr. Lloyd’s positive review], it remains to be seen how Obama’s latest media appearances will go down in places like [Walla Walla]. For all his smarts, he needs to be a bit careful. Americans like having a funny, articulate, and modern President. But they don’t want somebody who is too cool for school.

April 30, 2012
MR. COOL: OBAMA AND THE HIPNESS FACTOR
Posted by John Cassidy

Writer’s argument: “Middle Americans” are likely to be put off by President Obama’s “cool.”
Point conceded: Some Americans from out-of-the-way places like President Obama’s cool.

Writer John Cassidy uses the word notwithstanding to concede, or acknowledge, the fact that his argument is not true of all Americans.

AND SEE:
• Concession words
• What is a concession relation?
• The reader over your shoulder

Conceding a point

The first 2 paragraphs of Why Trial Lawyers Say It Better by Adam Freedman:

“Does it sing?”

At my old law firm, that was code for “Is your brief finished?” Admittedly, if you’re not a lawyer, the prospect of a singing legal brief will probably leave you cold. But there’s truth to the musical metaphor. An elegant legal brief (a written argument submitted to a court) has all the harmony of great prose.

Here, Adam Freedman is conceding a point — or, more accurately, acknowledging an objection.

He is saying that he knows full well many of his readers are not going to think legal writing ever “sings” – he “admits” it!

Then he goes on to assert that in fact elegant legal writing does sing: elegant legal writing has the “harmony of great prose.”

Summing up:
Writer’s argument: Elegantly written legal briefs have the harmony of great prose.
Point conceded: A lot of people would disagree.

AND SEE:
• The reader over your shoulder
• Concession words

Concession words

Words we use to concede a point while making our case (I’ll link to examples as I come across them – complete list of concession-word posts here):

after all
although
although it is true that
at the same time
admittedly
alternatively
at any rate
besides
but still
conversely
granted
however
I concede that
in any case
in any event
in contrast
in spite of
instead
it is true, but
meanwhile
nevertheless
nonetheless
naturally
no doubt
notwithstanding
obviously
of course [it is true that]
on the one hand…on the other hand
otherwise
still
that said
to be sure
true, … but
yet

AND SEE:
• “The reader over your shoulder” | 4/29/212
• Conceding a point | 4/29/2012
• Conceding a point using notwithstanding | 5/1/2012
• Conceding a point using on the other hand | 8/25/2012
• MO’s paragraph expressing concession | 4/29/2012
• Concession words in Ben Bernanke’s speech | 8/31/2012
• Roddy Doyle uses “admittedly” to un-concede a point | 9/8/2012
• Helen Keller uses “although” to concede a point | 9/8/2012
• SI uses nevertheless to concede a point | 10/1/2012

M.O.’s paragraph using a transition that expressions ‘concession’

The Grimms made their tales more violent in the second edition. For example, they increased the punishing of evildoers: the step-sisters have to cut off their heels or toes to make the shoe fit. They also increased cartoon violence, with the step-sisters having their eyes taken out by birds. Although they increased cartoon violence and unrealistic violence, they reduced realistic violence, taking out the story of the starving children whose mother wants to eat them to survive.

AND SEE:
• The reader over your shoulder
• Concession words

“The reader over your shoulder”

On making concessions, a skill novice writers typically have yet to develop:

Although as writers it is important to construct a strong argumentative thesis and develop it over the course of an essay, it is equally important to avoid tunnel vision and to take into account positions on the issue in question that do not necessarily agree with our own. In a book called The Reader over Your Shoulder (1943) by Robert Graves and Alan Hodges, the authors urge that writers should always compose their argument as if they had a crowd of people reading over their shoulders and asking questions. In other words, writers should try to be cognizant of possible weaknesses or omissions in their logic and should anticipate what a “devil’s advocate” might point out about their argument. This approach to writing will encourage you to shore up your weaknesses and foresee any possible objections to your line of thinking.

Opposing Opinions and Making Concessions (password protected)

AND SEE:
• Concession words & examples

Martha Kolln explains cohesion in writing

Martha Kolln’s  three methods of achieving paragraph cohesion:

  1. The subject of all or most sentences in the paragraph is the same.
  2. In each two-sentence pair, information included in the predicate of the 1st sentence becomes the subject of the 2nd sentence. In other words, something in the end of Sentence 1 becomes the beginning of Sentence 2.
  3. In paragraphs of description, a list of details follows the topic sentence. In such paragraphs, you don’t need to use explicit transitions, although you certainly may if you wish. SEE: SM’s cohesive paragraph.

Note that in all three cases, “old” information comes before new information: sentences begin with something we ‘know’ (or have already read about, usually in the preceding sentence), then introduce something new in the predicate. This old-to-new principle is true with the paragraph of descriptive details because the reader knows the situation each detail refers to. The paragraph topic is old; each sentence in the list is new (see the example below).

EXAMPLES

1. Same subject – same subject

Despite the immense racial gulf separating them, Lincoln and Douglass had a lot in common. They were the two pre-eminent self-made men of their era. Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than a year of formal schooling and became one of the nation’s greatest Presidents. Douglass spent the first 20 years of his life as a slave, had no formal schooling–in fact, his masters forbade him to read or write–and became one of the nation’s greatest writers and activists. Though nine years younger, Douglass overshadowed Lincoln as a public figure during the 15 years before the Civil War. He published two best-selling autobiographies before the age of 40, edited his own newspaper beginning in 1847 and was a brilliant orator–even better than Lincoln–at a time when public speaking was a major source of entertainment and power.

2. Predicate becomes Subject

Thunderstorms can be categorized as single cell or multicell.

Basically, a single-cell thunderstorm is the lone thunderstorm that forms on a hot humid day. The heat and humidity of the day is the only trigger for the storm. This type of storm forms in an environment with little difference in the wind speed and direction—or wind shear—between the surface and cloud level.
– Joe Murgo (Centre Daily Times)

3. List of details in paragraph of description

Our trip to Florida for spring break turned out to be a disaster. The hotel room we rented was miserable—shabby and stuffy and downright depressing. The food we could afford made our dining hall remembrances from campus seem positively gourmet. The daily transportation to the beach we had been promised showed up only once and even then was an hour late.

Source: Kolln, Martha J. Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. 5th ed.  New York: Longman 2006. 69. Print.

AND SEE:
• Sentence Cohesion — excerpt from Rhetorical Grammar
• Coherent paragraphs & the bride on her wedding day

Jim Miller on talking vs. writing

Teaching English 109, I’m often struck by the fact that talking is easy, but writing is hard.* Why is that?

Here is linguist Jim Miller on the subject:

Many kinds of spoken language … have a syntax that is very different from the syntax of formal writing….[T]he differences exist not because spoken language is a degradation of written language but because any written language, whether English or Chinese, results from centuries of development and elaboration by a small number of users – clerics, administrators, lawyers and literary people. The process involves the development of complex syntactic constructions and complex vocabulary.

[snip]

The syntax of spontaneous spoken language has been ‘designed’ or ‘developed’ to suit the conditions of speech – little planning time, the possibility of transmitting information by loudness, pitch and general voice quality, and support from hand gestures, facial expressions and so on (what is known as ‘non-verbal communication’). …[T]he syntax of spontaneous speech overlaps with the syntax of formal writing; there is a common core of constructions. For instance, “The instructions are useless” could be spoken or written. However, many constructions occur in speech but not in writing, and vice versa. “She doesn’t say much – knows a lot though” is typical of speech, but typical of writing is “Although she does not say much, she knows a lot.”

The special syntax of spontaneous spoken language is not produced just by speakers with the minimum of formal education. One of the most detailed investigations of spoken syntax was carried out in Russia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The speakers recorded on tape in all sorts of informal situations were doctors, lawyers and academics, but their speech turned out to be very different in syntax from written Russian. Moreover, their syntax had general properties which have turned up in bodies of spontaneous spoken English, French and German.

[snip]

People learn the syntax and vocabulary of formal writing from books and in school in a process that lasts into the early twenties for university graduates and can continue much longer. In general, the more exposure speakers have to formal schooling, the more easily and frequently they use in speech the syntax and vocabulary that are typical of formal writing.

Miller, Jim. An Introduction to English Syntax. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002. xii-xiv. Print.

And see: a transcript of a conversation.

*Obviously, talking isn’t easy for everyone. People with autism have trouble talking; people who’ve had strokes may have trouble speaking; etc. And talking in a foreign language takes years of practice to do well.