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Death to topic sentences: A divisive theory of paragraphing

Death to topic sentences: A divisive theory of paragraphing. Michael Hoey and Matthew Brook O’Donnell School of English University of Liverpool. An experiment in paragraphing…. An experiment in paragraphing….

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Death to topic sentences: A divisive theory of paragraphing

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  1. Death to topic sentences: A divisive theory of paragraphing Michael Hoey and Matthew Brook O’Donnell School of English University of Liverpool

  2. An experiment in paragraphing…

  3. An experiment in paragraphing… (1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal. (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want. (3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January. (5) He and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area. (6) Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot. (7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. (8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality. (9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. (10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. (11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12) It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system." (13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

  4. Prince Charles sacked by Sainsbury's (1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want. (3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January. (5) He and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area.

  5. (6) Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot. (7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. (8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality. (9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. (10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. (11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12) It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system." (13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. (14) It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

  6. Summary of previous experiments • Hoey (1985, 1997, 2005) reported an experiment on a de-paragraphed extract from a history monograph given to native speakers to add paragraphs, basedon an experiment by Young & Becker (1966) • The question investigated was: Is there structural integrity in paragraph units (topic sentence) or is paragraphing largely random? • He found neither position supported as respondent choices were neither random or entirely consistent • He concluded that there was one or more regulating principle influencing decisions • Hoey (2005) suggested a particular kind of lexical priming, namely textual colligation, as an explanation.

  7. AHRC Project - The textual priming of hard news stories Every word may be primed for us to occur at the beginning or end of an independently recognised ‘chunk’ of text, e.g. the paragraph, the whole text [textual colligation] (Hoey 2005)

  8. TEXT A: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) But the report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) But some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining at sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) The report stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) It urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

  9. TEXT B: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit it proposes would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) The report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) However, some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining what sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) It stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) The report urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

  10. TEXT B: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) The report^urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit it proposes would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) ^ The report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) However, some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining what sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) It stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) The report urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

  11. Results from 72 respondents for Texts A & B • We made no changes to sentences 7,8,9 & 12

  12. These results demonstrate that paragraph boundaries have nothing to do with content And therefore the topic sentence is a false concept unless defined in terms of wording rather than content We suggest that… In Taiwan this sent one poor chap right over the edge….

  13. Step 1: ‘Taking the PISC…’ Process each article and extract sentences into: TISC – first sentence of first paragraph PISC – first sentence of subsequent paragraphs NISC – all non paragraph-initial sentences

  14. Step 1. ‘Taking the PISC…’ Process each article and extract sentences into: TISC – first sentence of first paragraph PISC – first sentence of subsequent paragraphs NISC – all non paragraph-initial sentences SISC – sentences from single sentence paragraphs HISC – headline and subheadline material

  15. Anatomy of a news article HISC TISC text initial sentence SISC single instance sentence SISC single instance sentence NISC non-initial sentence PISC paragraph initial sent. SISC single instance sentence Prince Charles sacked by Sainsbury's (1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want. (3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4)They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January. (5) He and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area. (6) Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot.

  16. Anatomy of a news article PISC PISC NISC NISC NISC NISC PISC NISC (7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. (8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality. (9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. (10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. (11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12)It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system." (13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. (14) It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

  17. Summary of positional subcorpora Guardian Home News 1998-2004

  18. Returning now to our paragraphing experiment TEXT A….

  19. Occurrences of ‘unit’ in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 295 94.5 per mill PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 1763 140.8 per mill NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 1762 91.1 per mill Looking at the 3rd sentence… The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration.

  20. Occurrences of ‘unit’ in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 295 94.5 per mill PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 1763 140.8 per mill NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 1762 91.1 per mill Looking at the 3rd sentence… The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration.

  21. Guardian June 15, 2007 ‘Myth busting’ unit urged to quell migration fears (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday.(2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) But the report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) But some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration.

  22. a/an the TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 131(44.7% of occs of unit) 114 (38.9% of occs of unit) PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 391 (22.8%) 1059 (61.9%) NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 464 (25.1%) 1014 (54.9%) Looking at the 3rd sentence… The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration. ‘a/an…unit’ vs ‘the…unit’ in subcorpora

  23. a/an the TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 131(44.7%of occs of unit) 114 (38.9% of occs of unit) PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 391 (22.8%) 1059 (61.9%) NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 464 (25.1%) 1014 (54.9%) Looking at the first sentence… A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. ‘a/an…unit’ vs ‘the…unit’ in subcorpora

  24. So a unit is primed for text-initial sentences and the unit is primed for paragraph-initial sentences which is exactly what happens in Text A

  25. Sentence 5 TEXT B (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. TEXT A (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. WHY?

  26. Sentence 5 TEXT B (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. TEXT A (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. WHY?

  27. Beginning of Paragraph 3 Occurrences of ‘set up’ in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 483 4.3 per 1000 sentences PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 2141 3.5 per 1000 sentences NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 2463 2.3 per 1000 sentences (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

  28. Beginning of Paragraph 3 Occurrences of *, set up by in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 2 17.7 per million sentences PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 52 85.6 per million sentences NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 28 26.3 per million sentences (5) The commission,set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

  29. Beginning of Paragraph 3 TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 1 PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 16 NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 5 (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. Occurrences of ‘commission, set up’ in subcorpora

  30. NOUN, set up PISC TISC NISC commission 16 1 5 committee 8 1 5 group 8 0 3 trust 6 0 0 council 5 0 0 fund 5 0 0 unit 5 0 5 inquiry 2 0 5

  31. Sentence 5 TEXT B (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. TEXT A (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. • WHY? • Removed a PISC pattern , set up and took PISC noun (commission) from front of sentence

  32. Sentence 5 TEXT B (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. TEXT A (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. • WHY? • Removed a PISC pattern , set up and took PISC noun (commission) from front of sentence

  33. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. WHY?

  34. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. WHY?

  35. Occurrences of ‘urged’ in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 428 3778 occ in a million sents PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 915 1507 occ in a million sents NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 990 930 occ in a million sents A Non-initial sentence: (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • In some ways this looks like a paragraph initial sentence

  36. Occurrences of ‘also’ in subcorpora TISC (Text Initial Sentences) 364 32 occ in a million sents PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences) 20154 331 occ in a million sents NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences) 31638 297 occ in a million sents A Non-initial sentence: (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • In some ways this looks like a paragraph initial sentence

  37. Overriders IT as the first word in sentence

  38. Overriders IT as the first word in sentence

  39. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • WHY is sentence in Text A not paragraph initial? • because It overrides paragraph initial associations for also and urged

  40. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • WHY is sentence in Text A not paragraph initial? • because It overrides paragraph initial associations for also and urged

  41. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • WHY does change in Text B increase likelihood of paragraph break by 30%? • because It overrider replaced by words with paragraph initial associations (also and urged)

  42. Sentence 2 TEXT A (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. TEXT B (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. • WHY does change in Text B increase likelihood of paragraph break by 30%? • because It overrider replaced by words with paragraph initial associations (report and urged)

  43. So what of the paragraph? Looking at experimental and corpus-based evidence it appears to be lexically driven Choice of lexis is important (cf. rapid rebuttal text)

  44. So what of the paragraph? Looking at experimental and corpus-based evidence it appears to be lexically driven Choice of lexis is important (cf. rapid rebuttal text)

  45. Results from today…

  46. Paragraph 1 (1) Sainsbury’s has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal.

  47. Paragraph 1 (text-initial key clusters) (1) Sainsbury’s has droppedthe... ..Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal.

  48. Paragraph 2 (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want.

  49. Paragraph 2 (paragraph-initial key clusters) (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want.

  50. Paragraph 3 (3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January.

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