Rhetorical Strategies for Essay Writing

BY: GODIVA CASSANDRA A. BARANUELO

1.Exemplification: Provide examples or cases in point. Are there examples - facts, statistics, cases in point, personal experiences, interview quotations - that you could add to help you achieve the purpose of your essay?
2.Description: Detail sensory perceptions of a person, place, or thing. Does a person, place, or object play a prominent role in your essay? Would the tone, pacing, or overall purpose of your essay benefit from sensory details?
3.Narration: Recount an event. Are you trying to report or recount an anecdote, an experience, or an event? Does any part of your essay include the telling of a story (either something that happened to you or to a person you include in your essay)?
4.Process analysis: Explain how to do something or how something happens. Would any portion of your essay be more clear if you included concrete directions about a certain process? Are there any processes that readers would like to understand better? Are you evaluating any processes?
5.Comparison and contrast: Discuss similarities and differences. Does your essay contain two or more related subjects? Are you evaluating or analyzing two or more people, places, processes, events, or things? Do you need to establish the similarities and differences between two or more elements?
6.Division and classification: Divide a whole into parts or sort related items into categories. Are you trying to explain a broad and complicated subject? Would it benefit your essay to reduce this subject to more manageable parts to focus your discussion?
7.Definition: Provide the meaning of terms you use. Who is your audience? Does your essay focus on any abstract, specialized, or new terms that need further explanation so your readers understand your point? Does any important word in your essay have many meanings and need to be need to be clarified?
8.Cause and effect analysis: Analyze why something happens and describe the consequences of a string of events. Are you examining past events or their outcomes? Is your purpose to inform, speculate, or argue about why an identifiable fact happens the way it does?
9.Argumentation: Convince others through reasoning. Are you trying to explain aspects of a particular subject, and are you trying to advocate a specific opinion on this subject or issue in your essay?

graphic organizer

Graphic organizer

- Is an instructional tool used to illustrate a student or class's prior knowledge about a topic or section of text; specific examples include the K-W-L-H Technique and the Anticipation/Reaction Guide. Other organizers include the:

Spider Map

Used to describe a central idea: a thing (a geographic region), process (meiosis), concept (altruism), or proposition with support (experimental drugs should be available to AIDS victims). Key frame questions: What is the central idea? What are its attributes? What are its functions?

Series of Events Chain

Used to describe the stages of something (the life cycle of a primate); the steps in a linear procedure (how to neutralize an acid); a sequence of events (how feudalism led to the formation of nation states); or the goals, actions, and outcomes of a historical figure or character in a novel (the rise and fall of Napoleon). Key frame questions: What is the object, procedure, or initiating event? What are the stages or steps? How do they lead to one another? What is the final outcome?

Continuum Scale

Used for time lines showing historical events or ages (grade levels in school), degrees of something (weight), shades of meaning (Likert scales), or ratings scales (achievement in school). Key frame questions: What is being scaled? What are the end points?

Compare/Contrast Matrix

	Name 1	Name 2
Attribute 1
Attribute 2
Attribute 3

Used to show similarities and differences between two things (people, places, events, ideas, etc.). Key frame question: What things are being compared? How are they similar? How are they different?

Problem/Solution Outline

Used to represent a problem, attempted solutions, and results (the national debt). Key frame questions: What was the problem? Who had the problem? Why was it a problem? What attempts were made to solve the problem? Did those attempts succeed?

Sample note card Exercise#3 By: Rey G. Panesa

Creating Note Cards:
What did I Find?

When you have determined that a source contains material that is reliable and useful, you will want to take notes on it. There are three types of notes: summary, paraphrase, and quotation. Regardless of which type of notes you use, remember to cite the source.

SUMMARY NOTE CARD: This type of note card is used if you want to record only the general idea of large amounts of material. This is usually done either in outline or bulleted form. Even though you are not using the author’s exact words, the ideas you are using are not yours and therefore must be cited.

PARAPHRASE NOTE CARD: This type of note card is used if you require detailed notes on specific sentences and passages but do not need the exact wording. In other words, you are restating the material by rephrasing it in your own words. This requires that you alter not just the vocabulary used, but also the entire grammatical structure of the sentences. However, because the ideas you are using are not your own (even if the words are yours), you must cite the source of the information.

QUOTATION NOTE CARD: This type of note card is used when you believe that a sentence or a passage in its original form might make an effective addition to your paper. You should transcribe that material exactly as it appears, word for word, comma for comma, enclosing it in quotation marks to distinguish the quotation from summary and paraphrase notes. Try to use direct quotations sparingly in your paper, saving them for special emphasis. Again, you must cite the source.

The general rule of thumb for a note card is: one source + one topic = one note card.

*In addition to your actual notes, a note card should include:

1. A subheading

2. Enough information to enable you to locate the source easily in your working
bibliography.

This information should be the same as any parenthetical citation (author’s last name and page number).

Example of a Summary Note card:

Children and Sports Leonard 140 I. Sports A. Cause children emotional stress B. Cause children fear and anxiety II. Scanlan and Passer’s Study A. Of preadolescent soccer males 1. Shows losing players had post-game anxiety 2. Shows anxiety caused more problems a. Avoid failure b. Shy away from active participation c. Won’t try new things

Example of a Paraphrase Note Card:

Children and sports Leonard 140 Stress and anxiety on the playing field can result in children backing away from participating in sports because they fear rejection if they perform poorly. This anxiety and stress is a result of the child’s fears of being hurt or not being good enough. A study by Scanlan and Passer, showing that boys who lose in soccer have more anxiety after losing a game than boys who win, confirms these findings.

Example of a Quotation Note Card:

Children and sports Leonard 140 “...(in organized sports) children may be subject to intense emotional stress caused by fear and anxiety ...concern about physical safety, and doubts about performance and outcome. This anxiety may emerge if children are ignored, chastised, or made to feel that they are no good. Scanlan and Passer’s study of preadolescent male soccer players showed that losing players evidenced more post-game anxiety than winning players. Children who experience anxiety in sport competition may try to avoid failure by shying away from active participation by developing excuses or by refusing to try new things.”

Note Card Tips

Note cards are a very necessary part of the research process. Once you have written a bibliography card for the source that your are using, you will begin writing note cards from that source. There are several important facts to remember about notecards.

1. Each note card should contain a title from the preliminary outline.

2. Each note card should also contain a letter in the top right-hand corner that tells which reference it came from. (This letter is the same letter that is on the bibliography card for the source you are using.)

3. Each note card should contain at least one sentence on it.

4. Each note card should contain paraphrased information that is summarized (in your own words).

5. The numbers on the note cards should go in consecutive order (1,2,3, etc.) even if the letter on the note card changes.

6. Each note card should contain a page number on the bottom. (This is helpful if you need to go back to the source.)


Examples:
Let's say that your preliminary outline looks like the one below.
Bowling

I. History of the Sport

II. Health benefits

III. Risks involved

IV. Cost of equipment

V. Famous bowlers

How to Write Note Cards

Back to Survival WebQuest

Information from Rockwood School District Research Paper Guide, 2004

Parts of a NOTE CARD -

TOPIC SOURCE

Using a direct quote, summary, or paraphrase,

write only one piece of information written on one side of the card.

(AUTHOR'S LAST NAME AND PAGE NUMBER, if applicable)

SAMPLE NOTE CARD with information directly written from source

-info must be reworded for assignment

PREPARATION www.worstcasescenarios.com/mainpage.htm

"Avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight hours,

when sharks are most active and have a competitive sensory advantage."

(Joshua Piven)

SAMPLE NOTE CARD with information put into student's own words

PREPARATION www.worstcasescenarios.com/mainpage.htm

When it's dark, sharks can sense things well and are very active;

stay out of the water in the dark.

(Joshua Piven)

Rhetorical Strategies for Essay Writing Exercise#2 By: Rey G. Panesa

There are several rhetorical strategies you can use to make your writing more powerful. It is often a good idea to use several of these strategies in combination, although not every strategy will be applicable to every essay or topic you are discussing.

1. Exemplification: Provide examples or cases in point. Are there examples - facts, statistics, cases in point, personal experiences, interview quotations - that you could add to help you achieve the purpose of your essay?
2. Description: Detail sensory perceptions of a person, place, or thing. Does a person, place, or object play a prominent role in your essay? Would the tone, pacing, or overall purpose of your essay benefit from sensory details?
3. Narration: Recount an event. Are you trying to report or recount an anecdote, an experience, or an event? Does any part of your essay include the telling of a story (either something that happened to you or to a person you include in your essay)?
4. Process analysis: Explain how to do something or how something happens. Would any portion of your essay be more clear if you included concrete directions about a certain process? Are there any processes that readers would like to understand better? Are you evaluating any processes?
5. Comparison and contrast: Discuss similarities and differences. Does your essay contain two or more related subjects? Are you evaluating or analyzing two or more people, places, processes, events, or things? Do you need to establish the similarities and differences between two or more elements?
6. Division and classification: Divide a whole into parts or sort related items into categories. Are you trying to explain a broad and complicated subject? Would it benefit your essay to reduce this subject to more manageable parts to focus your discussion?
7. Definition: Provide the meaning of terms you use. Who is your audience? Does your essay focus on any abstract, specialized, or new terms that need further explanation so your readers understand your point? Does any important word in your essay have many meanings and need to be need to be clarified?
8. Cause and effect analysis: Analyze why something happens and describe the consequences of a string of events. Are you examining past events or their outcomes? Is your purpose to inform, speculate, or argue about why an identifiable fact happens the way it does?
9. Argumentation: Convince others through reasoning. Are you trying to explain aspects of a particular subject, and are you trying to advocate a specific opinion on this subject or issue in your essay?

Graphic Organizer examples Exercise#1 Rey G. Panesa

Star	Spider	Fishbone	Cloud	Tree	Chain	Continuum	Cycle	Clocks	Flowchart
Venn	Chart/Matrix	Pie Chart/ Circle Graph	T-Chart	Y-Chart	PMI	KWHL	Semantic Feature Analysis	Cause and Effect	Decision Making
Fact/Opinion	Vocabulary	Paragraph	Persuasion	Main/Supporing Ideas	5 W's	Newspaper	Character Traits	Story Map/ Book Report	Non-Fiction Book Report
Plants	Animal Report	Geography Report	Native Americans	Biography	Astronomy Report	Math	Scientific Method

Paragraphs and Topic Sentences

A paragraph is a series of sentences that are organized and coherent, and are all related to a single topic. Almost every piece of writing you do that is longer than a few sentences should be organized into paragraphs. This is because paragraphs show a reader where the subdivisions of an essay begin and end, and thus help the reader see the organization of the essay and grasp its main points.

Paragraphs can contain many different kinds of information. A paragraph could contain a series of brief examples or a single long illustration of a general point. It might describe a place, character, or process; narrate a series of events; compare or contrast two or more things; classify items into categories; or describe causes and effects. Regardless of the kind of information they contain, all paragraphs share certain characteristics. One of the most important of these is a topic sentence.

TOPIC SENTENCES

A well-organized paragraph supports or develops a single controlling idea, which is expressed in a sentence called the topic sentence. A topic sentence has several important functions: it substantiates or supports an essay’s thesis statement; it unifies the content of a paragraph and directs the order of the sentences; and it advises the reader of the subject to be discussed and how the paragraph will discuss it. Readers generally look to the first few sentences in a paragraph to determine the subject and perspective of the paragraph. That’s why it’s often best to put the topic sentence at the very beginning of the paragraph. In some cases, however, it’s more effective to place another sentence before the topic sentence—for example, a sentence linking the current paragraph to the previous one, or one providing background information.

Although most paragraphs should have a topic sentence, there are a few situations when a paragraph might not need a topic sentence. For example, you might be able to omit a topic sentence in a paragraph that narrates a series of events, if a paragraph continues developing an idea that you introduced (with a topic sentence) in the previous paragraph, or if all the sentences and details in a paragraph clearly refer—perhaps indirectly—to a main point. The vast majority of your paragraphs, however, should have a topic sentence.

PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE

Most paragraphs in an essay have a three-part structure—introduction, body, and conclusion. You can see this structure in paragraphs whether they are narrating, describing, comparing, contrasting, or analyzing information. Each part of the paragraph plays an important role in communicating your meaning to your reader.

Introduction: the first section of a paragraph; should include the topic sentence and any other sentences at the beginning of the paragraph that give background information or provide a transition.

Body: follows the introduction; discusses the controlling idea, using facts, arguments, analysis, examples, and other information.

Conclusion: the final section; summarizes the connections between the information discussed in the body of the paragraph and the paragraph’s controlling idea.

The following paragraph illustrates this pattern of organization. In this paragraph the topic sentence and concluding sentence (CAPITALIZED) both help the reader keep the paragraph’s main point in mind.

SCIENTISTS HAVE LEARNED TO SUPPLEMENT THE SENSE OF SIGHT IN NUMEROUS WAYS. In front of the tiny pupil of the eye they put, on Mount Palomar, a great monocle 200 inches in diameter, and with it see 2000 times farther into the depths of space. Or they look through a small pair of lenses arranged as a microscope into a drop of water or blood, and magnify by as much as 2000 diameters the living creatures there, many of which are among man’s most dangerous enemies. Or, if we want to see distant happenings on earth, they use some of the previously wasted electromagnetic waves to carry television images which they re-create as light by whipping tiny crystals on a screen with electrons in a vacuum. Or they can bring happenings of long ago and far away as colored motion pictures, by arranging silver atoms and color-absorbing molecules to force light waves into the patterns of original reality. Or if we want to see into the center of a steel casting or the chest of an injured child, they send the information on a beam of penetrating short-wave X rays, and then convert it back into images we can see on a screen or photograph. THUS ALMOST EVERY TYPE OF ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION YET DISCOVERED HAS BEEN USED TO EXTEND OUR SENSE OF SIGHT IN SOME WAY.

George Harrison, “Faith and the Scientist”

COHERENCE

In a coherent paragraph, each sentence relates clearly to the topic sentence or controlling idea, but there is more to coherence than this. If a paragraph is coherent, each sentence flows smoothly into the next without obvious shifts or jumps. A coherent paragraph also highlights the ties between old information and new information to make the structure of ideas or arguments clear to the reader.

Along with the smooth flow of sentences, a paragraph’s coherence may also be related to its length. If you have written a very long paragraph, one that fills a double-spaced typed page, for example, you should check it carefully to see if it should start a new paragraph where the original paragraph wanders from its controlling idea. On the other hand, if a paragraph is very short (only one or two sentences, perhaps), you may need to develop its controlling idea more thoroughly, or combine it with another paragraph.

A number of other techniques that you can use to establish coherence in paragraphs are described below.

Repeat key words or phrases. Particularly in paragraphs in which you define or identify an important idea or theory, be consistent in how you refer to it. This consistency and repetition will bind the paragraph together and help your reader understand your definition or description.

Create parallel structures. Parallel structures are created by constructing two or more phrases or sentences that have the same grammatical structure and use the same parts of speech. By creating parallel structures you make your sentences clearer and easier to read. In addition, repeating a pattern in a series of consecutive sentences helps your reader see the connections between ideas. In the paragraph above about scientists and the sense of sight, several sentences in the body of the paragraph have been constructed in a parallel way. The parallel structures (which have been emphasized) help the reader see that the paragraph is organized as a set of examples of a general statement.

Be consistent in point of view, verb tense, and number. Consistency in point of view, verb tense, and number is a subtle but important aspect of coherence. If you shift from the more personal "you" to the impersonal “one,” from past to present tense, or from “a man” to “they,” for example, you make your paragraph less coherent. Such inconsistencies can also confuse your reader and make your argument more difficult to follow.

Use transition words or phrases between sentences and between paragraphs. Transitional expressions emphasize the relationships between ideas, so they help readers follow your train of thought or see connections that they might otherwise miss or misunderstand. The following paragraph shows how carefully chosen transitions (CAPITALIZED) lead the reader smoothly from the introduction to the conclusion of the paragraph.

I don’t wish to deny that the flattened, minuscule head of the large-bodied "stegosaurus" houses little brain from our subjective, top-heavy perspective, BUT I do wish to assert that we should not expect more of the beast. FIRST OF ALL, large animals have relatively smaller brains than related, small animals. The correlation of brain size with body size among kindred animals (all reptiles, all mammals, FOR EXAMPLE) is remarkably regular. AS we move from small to large animals, from mice to elephants or small lizards to Komodo dragons, brain size increases, BUT not so fast as body size. IN OTHER WORDS, bodies grow faster than brains, AND large animals have low ratios of brain weight to body weight. IN FACT, brains grow only about two-thirds as fast as bodies. SINCE we have no reason to believe that large animals are consistently stupider than their smaller relatives, we must conclude that large animals require relatively less brain to do as well as smaller animals. IF we do not recognize this relationship, we are likely to underestimate the mental power of very large animals, dinosaurs in particular.

Stephen Jay Gould, “Were Dinosaurs Dumb?”

SOME USEFUL TRANSITIONS

To show addition:

again, and, also, besides, equally important, first (second, etc.), further, furthermore, in addition, in the first place, moreover, next, too

To give examples:

for example, for instance, in fact, specifically, that is, to illustrate

To compare:

also, in the same manner, likewise, similarly

To contrast:

although, and yet, at the same time, but, despite, even though, however, in contrast, in spite of, nevertheless, on the contrary, on the other hand, still, though, yet

To summarize or conclude:

all in all, in conclusion, in other words, in short, in summary, on the whole, that is, therefore, to sum up

To show time:

after, afterward, as, as long as, as soon as, at last, before, during, earlier, finally, formerly, immediately, later, meanwhile, next, since, shortly, subsequently, then, thereafter, until, when, while

To show place or direction:

above, below, beyond, close, elsewhere, farther on, here, nearby, opposite, to the left (north, etc.)

To indicate logical relationship:

accordingly, as a result, because, consequently, for this reason, hence, if, otherwise, since, so.