Patterns of Development: The Rhetorical Modes

1. Patterns of Development: The Rhetorical Modes

2. Narration • To narrate means to tell a story (relate events in the order of occurrence) • It does not necessarily have to be a made-up story • Whether the events are imaginary or real, the narrative technique is more or less the same.

3. Description • A description is a word picture. • It is the writer’s attempt to capture with words the essence and flavor of a scene, person, or thing. • A description essay often takes a person or object and then describes that person or thing in great illustrative detail.

4. Process Analysis • An essay that gives instructions on how to do something or describes how something was done is developed by process analysis. • Many best-sellers have been written in this mode, all bearing such telltale how-to titles as How to Make a Million in Real Estate or How to Learn Spanish the Easy Way. • Process analysis presents information in chronological order, commonly in the form of instructions.

5. Illustration/Exemplification • To illustrate means to give examples that clarify what you are trying to say. • Short or long, illustrations are especially useful for embodying abstract ideas or sharpening ambiguous generalizations. • They might consist of one item or a list of items that exemplify something.

6. Definition • Definition means spelling out exactly what a word or phrase means. • Articles, essays, and entire books have been written for the sole purpose of defining some abstract or disputed word, term, or phrase.

7. Comparison/Contrast • To compare is to point out how two things are similar; to contrast is to stress how they are dissimilar. • Compare/contrast essays are common in college.

8. Division/classification • To write a division/classification essay means to break down a subject into its constituent types. • If you write a paragraph on the kinds of books in your library, the types of cars in your miniature car collection, or the varieties of humor in Mark Twain’s works, you are classifying. • The prime purpose of division/classification is to discover the nature of a subject by a study of its parts and their relationship to the larger whole.

9. Causal Analysis (Cause and Effect) • Causal analysis focuses specifically on explanations that show a connection between a situation and its cause or effect. • It either answers the question “Why did this happen?” or “What will this do?” • An answer to the first question will result in an explanation of cause; an answer to the second, a prediction of effect.