Sometimes you’ll find that you need to support a general statement with a specific example to fully express what you mean. One way you can do this is with a brief story - an anecdote. Thus, you may include a small - scale narrative, or perhaps several, in a larger composition.
Here is an anecdote told about Jackie Robinson after his retirement from major league baseball. The writer uses it as an example to support his general statement about the character and strength of Jackie Robinson even in ill health.
He accepted the blindness and the limping with a courage born of beauty. At an old - timers’ game last season in Los Angeles, someone threw a baseball at him from the grandstands, ordering, “Hey, Robinson. Sign this”. The unseen baseball struck his forehead. He signed it.
An anecdote is a vivid way to back up a general statement. But you can’t count on always having one handy. And sometimes an anecdote just doesn’t seem to fit in. Then, rather than have your reader hang in the air with only a general statement, you should specify. You should back up your statement with an illustration. For instance, it isn’t enough to state; you need to go on from such a statement to illustrate what you mean, as this writer has done. (Karls J. / Szmanski R.120)
It happens all around us … It happened to me personally. My mother was from Poughkeepsie, New York, my mother from Marietta, Ohio, my stepmother from Washington, Pennsylvania. I was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, raised in Athens, Georgia, educated in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Ithaca, New York, and Baltimore, Maryland, and I know work in Rabun Gap, Georgia. I’ve learned a lot from all of that, but still I have no more idea of where I fit in space and time and community than if I had just landed inside a meteor from Pluto. I make my home where I am.
Narrating a Process
Narratives which are directions and explanations not only answer the questions “What happens? ” but also “How does it happen? ” These kinds of narratives follow the movement of the process from one stage to the next. You may narrate a how-to-do-it process in the first person or in the second person. For example, you may write, “I begin with a few simple breathing exercises" or “You should begin with a few simple breathing exercises”. Using the second person has the advantage of sounding as though you were talking directly to your reader, having a face-to-face conversation.
But whether you choose the first or second person, you should “walk through" the steps of your directions in your mind to make sure that they are in the right order and that nothing has been left out. You may even want to number the steps, as this writer has done in explaining how to replace a fuse.
When the fuse blows, grope your way over to the flash-light and unplug the offending appliance (usually the last one turned on before the blow).
Get your spare fuses and open the fuse box door.
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When you shine the flash on the fuses you will see one with its little glass window all black and burned looking. Replace this fuse…
Numbering the steps this way works well with brief, fairly simple directions, however, you may want to use transitional words like first, then, next, and finally as you move from step to step in the process. Also, you can use words like if, when and after to introduce the conditions required from the next step, as in “After the paint has dried, apply the second coat". (Karls J. / Szmanski R.124)
You may feel it necessary to illustrate your directions with diagrams or pictures. In that case, a word of warning. Do not depend on an illustration to make the meaning of your words clear. Write so that your reader can understand you even if there are not pictures or diagrams. Make sure your directions can stand alone.
Not every explanation of a process is a how-to-do-it. Often, you will need to tell how something happens - for example, how plants make food from sunshine. Such explanations are usually told in the third person. Sometimes, especially in explaining a process that is habitual, you will want to use the present tense, as this writer has done.
In warm weather the local thunderstorm takes its place as an important water producer. It comes chiefly as a result of temperature differences on the earth’s surface. There may be many causes for these differences. For example, the dark earth of a plowed field will absorb more heat than the surrounding forest, and over this warm field the air will rise. As it goes higher the moisture in the air begins to condense into water droplets, producing the towering cumulus clouds whose contours outline the movements of the rising air. Given the proper combination of heat, moisture and subsequent chilling, the cloud will at last build up to produce a thunderstorm.
Whether you are giving directions or providing an explanation, you may need to do some research to be sure of your facts - of the exact sequence of events, for example, and their cause-and-effect relationship, if any. And we must not forget the audience. If you are writing for someone completely unfamiliar with the process you are explaining, do not leave out a step assuming your reader can figure it out. Put it in, in the right place. You will also want to use the kind of detail and vocabulary appropriate for your audience. (Kharatyan M. / Vardanyan L.57)