This document provides an overview of six methods for developing paragraphs: narration and description, definition, elaboration, comparison/contrast, summarization, and analysis. It defines each method and provides examples of how to apply each method using short excerpts from various texts. The document serves as a reference for effectively structuring paragraphs using different rhetorical techniques.

1. PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
Methods, with examples

2. THE METHODS
1. Narration and description
2. Definition
3. Elaboration
4. Comparison/contrast
5. Summarization
6. Analysis
 Classification (parts)
 Process (steps)
 Causation (causes and/or effects)

3. NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION

4. Narrate the
story of
anything that
unfolds in
time…
Eras
Events
Experiments
Universes
Romance

5. FROM BILL BRYSON’S A SHORT HISTORY OF
NEARLY EVERYTHING
In the first lively second [of the big bang] (a second that many
cosmologists will devote careers to shaving into ever-finer
wafers) is produced gravity and the other forces that govern
physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion
miles across and growing fast. There is a lot of heat now, ten
billion degrees of it, enough to begin the nuclear reactions that
create the lighter elements--principally hydrogen and
helium, with a dash (about one atom in a hundred million) of
lithium. In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or
will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a
place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and
beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to
make a sandwich.

6. DESCRIBE A PROCESS
Kennedy’s mistake, in technical terms, was that he failed to
keep his wings level. That was critical, because when a
plane banks to one side it begins to turn and its wings lose
some of their vertical lift. Left unchecked, this process
accelerates. The angle of the bank increases, the turn gets
sharper
and sharper,
and the plane starts
to dive toward the
ground in an ever –
narrowing cork screw.
Pilots call this
the graveyard spiral.

7. NARRATION & DESCRIPTION
IN ―SEEING IS NOT BELIEVING‖
Lance Corporal Ted ―Joey‖ Boudreaux Jr. was
bored. It was the summer of 2003 in Iraq […] and
you can joyride around the desert in a dusty
Humvee only so often. Loitering at the back gate of
his base, mingling with locals, Boudreaux says he
scribbled ―Welcome marines‖ on a piece of
cardboard and gave it to some kids, who then
posed with him, smiling, for a snapshot. He e-
mailed the picture to his mom, a cousin and a few
friends[….] That wasn’t the last of the
photo, though.
Steve Casimiro

8. SUMMARIZATION
Narrative condensed and denuded of detail, with a
more statement of or connection to theme.

9. FROM THE ART OF FAILURE – A SEGUEWAY
BETWEEN NARRATIVE & THEME
Human beings sometimes falter under pressure. Pilots
crash and divers drown. Under the glare of
competition, basketball players cannot find the basket and
golfers cannot find the pin. When that happens, we say
variously that people have ―panicked‖ or, to use the sports
colloquialism, ―choked.‖ (summary)
But what do those words mean? To choke or panic is
considered to be as bad as to quit. But are all forms of
failure equal? (intro of central comparison and theme)

10. SUMMARIZING THE HISTORY OF LOBSTER, FROM
CONSIDER THE LOBSTER
Up until sometime in the 1800s, though, lobster was
literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and
institutionalized. Even in the harsh penal
environment of early America, some colonies had
laws against feeding lobsters to inmates more than
once a week because it was thought to be cruel
and unusual, like making people eat rats.
Narrative would be: a particular person in a
particular prison scowling at the sight of, oh
no, lobster. Again.

11. Late 14c., "setting of boundaries," from O.Fr. definicion , from L.defi
nitionem , noun of action from definire . In logic, meaning "a stateme
nt of the essential nature of something" is
from late 14c.;
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/definition
DEFINITION
1. The act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.
2. Optics. Sharpness of the image formed by an optical system.

12. DEFINITION WITH DRIVE
Skill is the connection between life and tools, or life and
machines. Once, skill was defined in qualitative terms:
How well did a person work. But as machines grow
larger and more complex […] we tend to define skill
quantitatively: How speedily and cheaply can a person
work? And the more quantifiable skills become, the
easier they are to replace with machines.
Wendell Berry, ―The Un-
settling of America‖

13. STEREOTYPE
THREAT
Every heard of it?
It’s defined on page 91
of ―The Art of Failure‖
(after a summary
of a study)

14. ELABORATION
Describing the indescribable
Bringing in experts
Giving examples

15. WHAT IS DUENDE?
Definition: Duende is a difficult-to-define word used
in Spanish arts. Originally meaning
a fairy- or goblin-like creature. Loosely
translated as having soul, a heightened
state of emotion, expression and
authenticity, often connected with flamenco. Wikipedia
Elaboration with expert: The duende is a power and not a
construct, a struggle and not a concept. I heard an old
guitarist, a virtuoso, remark, ―The duende is not in the
throat, the duende comes from inside up, up from the very
soles of the feet.‖ That is to say, it’s not a question of
aptitude, but of blood. --Federico Garcia Lorca
example

16. WHAT IS LOBSTER: ELABORATION VIA NICELY
ORDERED FACTS
 Taxonomically speaking, a lobster is a marine
crustacean of the family Homaridae, characterized by
five pairs of jointed legs, the first pair terminating in large
pincerish claws used for subduing prey. Like many other
species of benthic carnivore, lobsters are both hunters
and scavengers. They have stalked eyes, gills on their
legs, and antennae. There are dozens of different kinds
worldwide, of which the relevant species here is the
Maine lobster, Homarus americanus. The name ―lobster‖
comes from the Old English loppestre, which is thought
to be a corrupt form of the Latin word for locust
combined with the Old English loppe, which meant
spider.

17. DEFINE OR ELABORATE WITH NEGATIVES
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with
breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured
bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with
death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

18. Enrique Chagoya
COMPARISON/CONTRAST

19. 1. COMPARE & CONTRAST IN ORDER TO
 Reveal unseen qualities/efficacy of A by analogy to
more familiar B.‖
Just as bullets are traced to a gun, photos may one
day reveal the camera that made them.
[B then A]
--―Can Digital Photos Be Trusted‖

20. COMPARISON STRUCTURES
Compare in blocks, in order: Axyz then Bxyz
(two paragraphs)
or
point by point: Ax Bx / Ay By / Az Bz
Panic […] is the opposite of choking. Choking is
about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too
little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is
reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but
they are worlds apart [….]

21. ANALYSIS
Classification – parts & their relationships
Process – mechanism and sequence
Causation – causes and/or effects

22. ANALYZING
PARTS

23. ANALYZING PROCESSES
 Consider what happens when you double the size
of an image in Photoshop. You start with a 100-by-
200-pixel image and enlarge it to 200 by 200.
Photoshop must create new pixels to make the
image bigger [….] Photoshop will ―look‖ at a whote
pixel and an adjoining black pixel and decide that
the best option for the new pizel being inserted is
gray. [a ―digital watermark‖]
-- Can Digital Photos be Trusted?
 With Narration assisting

24. ANALYZING CAUSATION
(CAUSES OR EFFECTS)
It won’t take long—if it hasn’t happened already—
before every image becomes potentially suspect.
So?
[A]s fakes proliferate, real evidence, such as the
photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib pruison in
Iraq, could be discounted as unreliable.
Doesn’t affect me
And then there’s the judicial system, in which altered
photos could harm the innocent, free the guilty, or
simply cause havoc.

25. GROUPWORK #3
 Assign a development method to each group member
• Narration and description
• Definition
• Elaboration
• Comparison/contrast
• Summarization
• Analysis
• Classification (break down by parts)
• Process (break down by steps)
• Causation (break down by causes and/or effects
 Then create a short essay with several well- developed
paragraphs on our chosen topic.