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1、Chapter FourEssential Qualities of Paragraphs,Part Composing Peerless,Understanding Paragraph,Step1 Making the Topic Clear,Step 2 Maintaining Paragraph Unity,Step 3 Achieving Paragraph Coherence,Just as a sentence is a group of words conveying a complete thought,so a paragraph is a group of sentence
2、s that deals with the same topic,advancing the thought somewhat further.A paragraph is normally identified by having its first sentence indented a few spaces.This indentation tells a reader that the material in the paragraph represents a separate unit of thought.,Understanding Paragraph,Types of Par
3、agraphs,narrative:tells a story persuasive:tries to convince the audience descriptive:describes something expository or explanatory:gives information or explains something,Understanding Paragraph,Paragraph Components:topic sentences and supporting sentences,Understanding Paragraph,Example 2,Understa
4、nding Paragraph,Essential Qualities of Paragraphs,Unity,In composing a paragraph,a writer discusses only one topic or one aspect of a topic.This characteristic of a paragraph is known as unity or singleness of purpose.Because an English paragraph concentrates on a single idea,all the facts,examples,
5、and reasons used to develop that idea must be relevant.Every sentence in a paragraph should support the main idea expressed in the topic sentence.,Understanding Paragraph,Activity,Underline the three sentences which are not relevant to the main idea in the following paragraph.,The influenza virus is
6、 a single molecule built from many millions of single atoms.(2)Viruses are sometimes called“living molecules”.(3)Viruses are alive because they need warmth and light.(4)While bacteria can be considered as a type of plant,secreting poisonous substances into the body of the organism they attack,viruse
7、s are living organisms themselves.(5)The atomic structure is more complex than that of bacteria.(6)We may consider them as regular chemical,Understanding Paragraph,molecules,since they have a strictly defined atomic structure,but on the other hand we must also consider them as being alive,since they
8、 are able to multiply in unlimited quantities.(7)The atomic structure of viruses cannot be analyzed chemically.,Understanding Paragraph,Coherence in a Paragraph,The ideas in a paragraph which have a clear and logical relation to each other should stick to the point.Also,details or examples and incid
9、ents in a paragraph should be put in a logical order.,Below is a paragraph.In it,the italics indicate pronouns and repeated/restated key words,the bolded words indicate transitional words,and the underlining expressions indicate parallel structures.,Understanding Paragraph,Paragraph,The ancient Egyp
10、tians were masters of preserving dead peoples bodies by making mummies of them.In short,mummification consisted of removing the internal organs,applying natural preservatives inside and out,and then wrapping the body in layers of bandages.And the process was remarkably effective.Indeed,mummies sever
11、al thousand years old have been discovered nearly intact.Their skin,hair,teeth,fingernails and toenails,and facial features are still evident.Their diseases in life,such as smallpox,Understanding Paragraph,arthritis,and nutritional deficiencies,are still diagnosable.Even their fatal afflictions are
12、still apparent:a middle-aged king died from a blow on the head;a child king died from polio.,Comment:The paragraph is now much more coherent.The organization of the information and the links between sentences help readers move easily from one sentence to the next.Notice how this writer uses a variet
13、y of coherence devices,sometimes in combination,to achieve overall paragraph coherence.,Understanding Paragraph,A paragraph resembles a mini-essay in three important ways:It is unified,it is coherent,and it is developed and complete.A good example reflecting all the characteristics of a paragraph ru
14、ns as follows:,Paragraph,Some people really like chili,apparently,but nobody can agree how the stuff should be made.C.V.Wood,twice winner at Terlingua,uses flank steak,pork chops,chicken,and green chilies.My friend Hughes Rudd of CBS News,who imported five hundred pounds of chili powder into Russia
15、as a condition of accepting employment as Moscow correspondent,favors coarse-,Understanding Paragraph,ground beef.Isadore Bleckman,the cameraman I must live with on the road,insists upon one-inch cubes of stew beef and puts garlic in his chili,an Illinois affectation.An Indian of my acquaintance,Mr.
16、Fulton Batisse,who eats chili for breakfast when he can,uses buffalo meat and plays an Indian drum while its cooking.,Understanding Paragraph,In this paragraph the writer captures and focuses our attention by stating his central idea(sentence 1)and by supporting or illustrating the idea(sentences 2
17、through 5).By beginning each illustrative sentence with the sentence subject,the writer makes it easy for us to see how the sentences relate to each other.And we have no doubt about the writers attitude toward his subject(He has no particular fondness for chili.)and toward us,his readers(He assumes
18、we are his allies.).,Understanding Paragraph,Comment:The paragraph presents one thought:It is unified.All its parts relate clearly to each other:It is coherent.And its assertion is well supported by detailed examples:It is well developed.These qualities are the goals of paragraph writing and the top
19、ics of this part.,Understanding Paragraph,Ways to Write a Good Paragraph:,Step1 Making the Topic Clear,Making the Topic Clear,To write a good paragraph,you first need to decide in advance exactly what idea you are trying to communicate in each paragraph.Once you are sure of your idea,the next step i
20、s to make it clear to your reader by stating your idea in a topic sentence.The topic sentence tells what that mess of sentences is about;it unifies the ideas within the paragraph.Every idea,each detail,in the paragraph should then relate to the idea set forth in the topic sentence.Thus the topic sen
21、tence expresses a paragraphs central purpose.,Making the Topic Clear,Guidelines for Writing A Good Paragraph:,(1)Avoiding making a topic sentence too general,If a topic sentence is expressed in terms that are too general,it will be less likely to help to achieve unity.To prevent ourselves from intro
22、ducing unrelated material,we will want to try in most of our topic sentences to use a word or a group of words to express the chief point of a paragraph:its controlling idea.Occasionally the entire topic sentence will be needed to state this idea,but often it will appear in only a word or phrase.,Ac
23、tivity,Study the following examples of broad,general topic sentences and the revisions of them.Each revision makes the original sentence more specific by emphasizing a controlling idea.,Too general:2001:A Space Odyssey is an interesting movie.,Controlling idea added:2001:A Space Odyssey describes so
24、me of the problems of space travel.,Example 1,Making the Topic Clear,Too general:The Olympic Games are exciting.,Controlling idea added:In the Olympic Games the athletes of many nations compete intensely.,Example 2,Too general:Mahatma Ghandi was an inspiring leader.,Controlling idea added:Mahatma Gh
25、andi used passive resistance to reach his political goals.,Example 3,Making the Topic Clear,Too general:Music is enjoyable.,Controlling idea added:Music arouses many different emotions in listeners.,Example 4,Activity,Study the following paragraph to see how a topic sentence and controlling idea wor
26、k to a writers advantage.The topic sentence of the passage is the first one;the words Japanese women have changed express the controlling idea.,Making the Topic Clear,Japanese women have changed since the war.They have become prettier,brighter,more decisive,more outspoken.The young people certainly
27、are far more logical and far less sentimental than the prewar generations.Some regret this.They think women,in gaining their freedom,have lost their femininitytheir modesty,their warmth,their shy grace.They accuse women of being drawn to superficial things.A modern Japanese woman,they say,instead of
28、 trying to enrich her inner self,is in a mad scramble to ape anything that is new and foreign-fashions,cosmetics,hairdos,rock-and-roll.And there are many Japanese who say that a caricature of an up-to-date wife is one who sits beside a,Making the Topic Clear,washing machine in a house that has no ho
29、t running water.,Comment:Because the passage deals only with the subject of Japanese women,we can say that it is unified.If the writer had added information about Japanese manufacturing or Japanese transportation,though,the paragraph would not have been unified.Its second and third sentences develop
30、 the topic sentence through examples.The fourth sentence,Some regret this,allows the writer to narrow down his discussion from the main idea about Japanese women(They have changed.)to a subdivision of that idea(They have acquired some undesirable traits.).Thus,the paragraph is developed,Making the T
31、opic Clear,in a direct line from a topic sentence through a subdivision of the main idea to several concrete examples of the subdivision(fashion,cosmetics,rock-and-roll,washing machines).So it is coherent.,It should be known that the average paragraph runs from about 100 to 150 wordssomewhat longer
32、perhaps in formal writing,considerably shorter in newspaper stories where the small type in narrow columns requires frequent breaks to ease eyestrain.Some special kinds of paragraphslike introductions and conclusionsalso tend to be shorter than average.,Making the Topic Clear,Activity,Exercises for
33、Topicalization,Choose the most appropriate topic sentence from the list following each of these paragraphs.Explain why you reject the other three choices as topic sentences.,Nectar and pollen are sometimes scarce,and the landscape abounds with animals and people who think nothing of knocking over a
34、beehive for its honey.The African honeybee(Apis mellifera adansonii)has evolved,therefore,with a hypersensitivity to disturbance and a tendency to launch disconcerting mass attacks against potential enemies who come too near its nests.,Making the Topic Clear,A.African bees are quite interesting.B.Li
35、fe in Africa is hard for a bee.C.Africa is full of killer bees.D.Killer bees in Africa should be exterminated.,(2)In fact,most of our food exports go to the wealthy areasEurope,Japan 1and Canada.We currently ship three times more agricultural products to Europe than to Latin America and Africa combi
36、ned.Of the ten leading U.S.agricultural exports,four-hides,tallow,cotton,and tobacco-are not edible at all,and of the remaining six,only two are high in protein-nonfat dry milk and soybeans.Most of the soybeans go to Japan,Western Europe and Canada,where they are fed to,Making the Topic Clear,livest
37、ock.As for the one million tons of protein imported annually by the rich nations from the poor nations,much if not most of it comes from the soil of the underdeveloped world and goes into the mouths of European livestock in the form of high-protein seed meals.Frances Moore Lappe,“A Vegetarian Manife
38、sto,”Ramparts,June 1973,A.Americas exports and imports are not balanced.B.America imports enough fish-meal from Chile and Peru to meet the protein requirements of the Peruvian population for an entire year.,Making the Topic Clear,C.While America absorbs protein from the underdeveloped countries,it d
39、oes not return it as protein-rich food.D.Colonialism is perpetuated in the pattern of Americas economic practices.,(3)The basic idea dates back at least to 1776.The countrys founders did not want the land to be held by a few very large and rich owners.Yet,despite the American Revolution and two cent
40、uries of strife,a few very large and rich owners still predominate.In rural counties,the top 20 landownersless than 1 percent of the peopleown 2050 percent of the land.They runfarms owned by corporations and other absentee,Making the Topic Clear,landlords.Twentyfour corporationsenergy companies and
41、railroadsown or control mineral rights to over 122 million acres,or about 1 out of every 16 acres in the continental U.S.Judith Strasser,“Grapes of Wrath:1977,”New Times,April 1，1977,A.The notion of land reform is not new.B.The small farmer is more American than the huge corporate farmer.C.Land in t
42、his country is too expensive for most people to buy.D.Urban dreams of the good country life have focused national attention on the“the country.”,Making the Topic Clear,2.The controlling idea of a topic sentence is the key word or a group of words that expresses its basic idea.List the word or words
43、containing the controlling idea in the following topic sentences.,Examples,Good study habits are useful to a college student.,Holiday ocean cruises attract four types of passengers.,1Censorship of films,television,and printed matter is a controversial issue in some countries.,Making the Topic Clear,
44、(1)In ancient times,three types of calendars were used.,(2)One of the busiest seasons for travel agents is the summer.,(3)Some people see electronic computers as a threat to modern man.,(4)Map-reading skills can be helpful in many school subjects.,(5)Two most unusual things were found in the city ap
45、artments.,Making the Topic Clear,(6)In 1930 marine biologists made a strange discovery off the coast of Africa.,(7)The noise level in large factories has caused problems for many manufacturers.,(8)Traveling by airplane has several advantages over traveling by train.,(9)Many automobile drivers have t
46、he habit of taking risks.,(10)The whooping crane is a very rare species of bird.,Making the Topic Clear,3.Revise these topic sentences to narrow the focus by stressing a controlling idea.,Original:The Porsche is a fine car.,Revised:Superior engine performance and beautiful design make the Porsche a
47、fine automobile.,Original:Today many young people have developed a culture of their own.,Revised:Long hair,colorful clothing,and new musical forms are part of the new culture of many of todays young people.,Examples,Making the Topic Clear,Original:Good cameras are manufactured in many countries.,Rev
48、ised:Good cameras are manufactured in Germany,Japan,and the United States.,(1)Participation in college athletics is beneficial.,(2)Motion pictures should be censored.,(3)People could make better use of their leisure time.,Making the Topic Clear,(4)Marriage for couples under twenty is foolish.,(5)The
49、 United Nations should take a stronger role in world affairs.,(6)Studying a foreign language is useful.,(7)A college education is becoming more important every year.,(8)Buddhism is popular.,Making the Topic Clear,4.Underline the topic sentence in each of the following paragraphs.,Those who have made
50、 thorough studies of the vocabularies of aboriginal languages have found that these languages have rich resources of available words.The Maya language of Yucatan has at least 20,000 words,the Aztec of central Mexico about 27,000,and the Zulu language of South Africa possesses more than 30,000.some o
