The Expository Paragraph

 

Paragraphing is based on the principle that things that belong together are kept together: a single focus. Your purpose when you write an expository paragraph, is to promote an understanding of its subject. Like other kinds of paragraphs, an expository paragraph has three parts - a beginning, a middle, and an end. Its beginning usually announces, in a topic sentence, the subject of the paragraph. The middle, or body, provides information that helps to explain the topic sentence. The conclusion adds emphasis to what has been said. In addition, transitions (words or phrases) are used to connect one idea to the next. 

 

Please read the following expository paragraph carefully. Be prepared, in our group discussion, to identify these items:

 

Topic Sentence:

Reason 1:

Details that develop reason 1:

Reason 2:

Details that develop reason 2:

Reason 3:

Details that develop reason 3:

Concluding Sentence:

 

Listing Order transitions used (3):

 

Starting college at the age of twenty-nine was not easy for me. For one thing, I did not have much support from my parents or friends. My father asked, "Didn't you get dumped on enough in high school? Why go back for more?" My mother worried, "Where's the money going to come from?" My friends seemed threatened. "Hey, there's the college man," they would say when I approached. Another reason that starting college was difficult was that I had bad memories of school. I had spent years of my life sitting in classrooms completely bored, watching clocks tick ever so slowly toward the final bell. When I was not bored, I was afraid of being embarrassed. Once a teacher called on me and then said, "Ah forget it, Callahan," when he realized I did not know that answer. Finally, I soon learned that college would give me little time with my family. After work every day, I have just an hour and ten minutes to eat and spend time with my wife and daughter before going off to class. When I get back, my daughter is in bed, and my wife and I have only a little time together. Then the time on the weekends goes quickly, with all the homework I have to do. But I am going to persist because I believe a better life awaits me with a college degree.

 

If you need it, here's a little more information on the expository paragraph.

 

There are a number of other examples of expository paragraphs below. Please read at least two of them. This will help to reinforce the expository form, generate possible topic ideas, and give you a sense of different writing styles.

 

1.  Hollywood and history do not always agree on the facts. How many movies have you seen with dinosaurs chasing people? Actually, dinosaurs were a vanished species long before people were available to be chased. How many films have shown Romans riding their chariots roughshod over their enemies in the heat of battle? Actually, the Romans used chariots for cargo, pleasure and sporting events, but not for battle. How often have you seen King Arthur and his knights at the Round Table when actually there is very little proof of either? Despite the differences over facts between Hollywood and history, the films keep happily rolling on. 

 

2.  Prefer concrete words to abstract words. Avoid wherever possible words that evoke no response from the reader's sense of sight, sound, smell, touch. The curse of media writing is that abstract words spread like crabgrass: as quickly as we eradicate an old patch, a new one springs up. Take the word pollution. Pollution is a word of negative connotation ("bad vibes," as the vernacular has it), but to our senses it is not meaningful. "A broken beer bottle" we can visualize. "The rotten-egg stench of a pulp mill" twangs the olfactory nerve. Our fingers can feel the fragility of "the egg-shell of the eagle sterilized by DDT." Obviously we cannot always refer to the specific, the concrete. But when we use a collective abstraction such as pollution, we should remember that it produces the knee-jerk reaction of intellectual disapproval, but nothing whatever of the gut response to the living, breathing, painfully wheezing world the reader is part of. (Eric Nicol)

 

3.  The present-day unwillingness of people to get involved in helping another human being in distress is frightening. In Chicago, sixty persons ignored a uniformed policeman's cries for assistance as he battled two youths. In Santa Clara, California, several motorists saw a taxicab driver being robbed, but none even summoned the police. In San Pedro, California, other motorists drove by two policemen struggling to prevent a man from jumping off a 185-foot bridge. "We were hanging on for dear life and trying to get someone to stop. But they all drove on like they didn't want to be bothered or get involved." Back in New York City, a Broadway crowd stood by while eight men stomped one to death; a Bronx crowd would not rescue a naked girl from a rapist's attack, and bystanders fled from a nineteen year old college student who had just been stabbed by a gang of toughs. "I went over to a car that had stopped to watch and asked them to help me to a hospital. They just rolled up their window and drove away. I went to another car, but they did the same thing." Why didn't people care?  

 

4.  Writing is a more demanding skill than speaking; yet it is, in its own way, more rewarding. Words, once spoken, cannot be unsaid. But writing can be revised. It can be 'seen again' - the meaning of revision - and it can be fine-tuned until our written words are an exact reflection of our thoughts. What is more, writing defies time. How many of us can remember exactly what was said a week ago, or even yesterday? Yet hundreds of years later we can turn the pages of books in our libraries and read the scientific theories of Francis Bacon or the radical ideas of Voltaire or John Milton's immortal defence of freedom of speech. Our libraries, public and private, are a testament to the power and permanence of the written word.

 

5.  Our new neighbours, the Korhonens, were Finns. And being a Finn, I'd been told, meant something very specific. A Finn would give you the shirt off his back, a Finn was as honest as the day is long, a Finn could drink anybody under the table and beat up half a dozen Germans and Irishmen without trying, a Finn was not afraid of work, a Finn kept a house so clean you could eat off the floors. I knew all these things before ever meeting our neighbours but as soon as I had met them I was able to add a couple more generalization of my own to the catalogue: Finnish girls were blonde and beautiful and flirtatious, and Finnish boys were strong, brave, and incredibly intelligent. (Jack Hodgin's)

 

 

                                                                                 Now it's your turn. You will write an expository paragraph on a topic of your choice. Begin                                                                                        with Prewriting to Generate Ideas. Do some brainstorming to come up with topics that                                                                                        you can illustrate with specific, detailed examples. My topic ideas included the impact of                                                                                    the hot weather this summer on our community, why my cell phone has become                                                                                                        indispensable, and how my dog, Ruffles, improves my quality of life.

 

                                                                                 Okay. I've decided to go with the cell phone. I will need to narrow my topic in order to have a

                                                                                 focused paragraph, so even though I'd also like to talk about the impact of my iPhone on my                                                                                    mental health, and how much entertainment it provides me with, I will need to focus solely                                                                                      on physical health.  

 

 

Topic Sentence: My cell phone has become an indispensable tool in improving my physical health.

Reason 1: helps me to stay physically active

Details that develop reason 1: running and Zumba apps for cardiovascular health - strength training and stretching or yoga videos  

Reason 2: improved nutrition

Details that develop reason 2: access articles, find healthy recipes, create shopping lists, plan meals

Reason 3: tracking

Details that develop reason 3: monitor nutrition, track weight and fitness minutes 

Concluding Sentence: My phone helps me to stay on the path of physical health. It is a virtual trainer and nutritionist in my pocket.

 

Make sure that you plan before you write your paragraph. Include transitions to help your ideas flow. Carefully edit your work before you share it with me on Google Docs. 

 

  What am I looking for? Your paragraph will be marked on a six point scale using the following criteria:

 

Expository Paragraph Criteria

 

IDEAS

• main theme (significant idea or topic)

• relevant, strong supporting detail

 

ORGANIZATION

• topic sentence

• supporting details

• strong concluding sentence

 

EXPRESSION

• transitions

• effective word choice

• variety of sentence types

• voice

 

MECHANICS

• correct spelling/homonym use

• proper punctuation