Paragraph Development - Specifics
Comparison and Contrast
The purpose of any comparison and contrast is to make clear the superiority of one thing over another or to explain something unfamiliar by comparing it to something familiar. A comparison-contrast takes one of two basic patterns: AA/BB or AB/ AB. In the first pattern all the characteristics of A are presented, followed by all the characteristics of B. In the second pattern one characteristic of A is compared or contrasted with its counterpart in B, the next characteristic of A with its counterpart in B, and so forth. Use the AA/BB pattern if you think the reader can remember all the points of A while reading about B; if not, the AB/ AB pattern is probably a better choice.
In the following paragraph, the AA/BB pattern is used to compare the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is among the oldest police forces in Canada. It was established in 1872, and patrols the Newfoundland cities of St. John’s, Labrador City and Corner Brook. Its present strength is close to 375 officers. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was formed in 1873 as the North West Mounted Police. The RCMP presently polices all Canadian communities that don’t have their own police forces. The strength of the RCMP is approximately 15,600 officers.
In her essay on communicating with family and friends, Goodman uses the AB/ AB alternating pattern of development.
Sometimes I think the telephone call is as earthbound as daily dialogue, while a letter is an exchange of gifts. On the telephone you talk; in a letter you tell. There is a pace to letter writing and reading that doesn’t come from the telephone company but from our own inner rhythm. - Ellen Goodman, “Life in a Bundle of Letters”
An analogy is a special kind of comparison. It points out certain similarities between a difficult concept and another that is more familiar and concrete to enable the reader to understand the difficult one.
In the following paragraph, the game of hockey is described by using a war analogy.
Ice hockey is war - war on skates, maybe, or war on ice-but war nevertheless. From the time the puck is dropped at centre ice, the troops on both sides flash up and down the ice in their colourful uniforms, eliminating each other from the play with crushing body checks and intricate manoeuvres with skate and stick. The forwards, the front line troops, pressure the defenders into conceding territory, into abandoning the puck, into surrendering that one good shot on goal that will lead to victory. The general stands calmly behind the bench, directing his old war horses and green recruits, calling for the rearguards to tighten the line, sending in reinforcements to hold the trenches. Make no mistake, hockey may be only a game, but the only goal is the defeat of the enemy at the other end of the rink.
Classification
To classify is to categorize, to group people, ideas, facts-anything-on the basis of some system. The basis of classification is an integral part of the process. In the following paragraph, Cleary, a student, places all stereo buyers into four categories on the basis of why they buy. (In subsequent paragraphs he discusses each type in detail.)
As stereo equipment gets better and prices go down, stereo systems are becoming household necessities rather than luxuries. People are buying stereos by the thousands. During my year as a stereo salesman, I witnessed this boom firsthand. I dealt with hundreds of customers, and it didn’t take long for me to learn that people buy stereos for different reasons. Eventually, though, I was able to divide all the stereo buyers into four basic categories: the wattage buyer, the quality buyer, the price buyer, and the looks buyer. - Gerald Cleary, student
Cause and Effect
A cause-and-effect paragraph shows the relationship between events. The focus may be on cause by naming it in the topic sentence and following with its effects. Or the focus may be the other way around, with an effect given in the topic sentence followed by its causes.
The following paragraph on sleep begins with an effect, and follows with the reasons for it.
Why do students who get a good night’s sleep before a test or exam seem to do better than those who regularly pull “all-nighters”? The reason probably involves the fact that your brain is hard at work while you’re sleeping, even if you aren’t. Studies conducted by the Better Sleep Council in the United States indicate that the brain may actually be more active when you are asleep than when you are awake. Deep sleep and dreaming are reported to be important to learning and memory-the brain seems to store information acquired during waking hours and to organize it while you sleep. Canadian studies indicate that “all-nighters” don’t produce good results next day. So get a good night’s sleep before your next exam-but don’t forget to study.
Mixed Strategies
Often logic dictates that you use a combination of strategies to develop your topic sentence. In the paragraph that follows, Smith uses cause and effect, informational process analysis, statistics, and a hypothetical case in point (a kind of example) to develop her topic sentence, They [cockroaches] reproduce at a truly amazing rate.
Cockroaches give credence to the old adage that there is safety in numbers. They reproduce at a truly amazing rate. About two months after mating, a new generation of cockroaches is born. One cockroach can produce about two dozen offspring each time it mates. To get some idea of their reproductive power, imagine that you start with three pairs of cockroaches that mate. Approximately three weeks after mating the females lay their eggs, which hatch some forty-five days later. If we assume two dozen eggs from each female, the first generation would number seventy-two offspring. These roaches would continue to multiply geometrically so that by year’s end the colony’s population would total more than ten thousand cockroaches. Stopping the process is almost impossible because even if we annihilate the adult population, a new generation still in egg form would be in the making. - Courtney Smith, student
