When you begin to write a paper, you discover and develop ideas using an invention tool. You might use Pikes's tagmemics to sort ideas into categories and sub categories that he calls particle, wave, and field to generate questions that will help you fill in the details of your idea. Burke's Pentad provides another tool that will do the same thing, but he uses questions like a reporter would ask when on a newspaper assignment. Who is the actor? What did she do? When did she do it? How did it happen? Why did it happen? What was the result? You can even look as far back as Aristotle for invention tools and find his Topics, which rely on time and size to generate ideas. These are all good tools and they help you narrow and define exactly what it is that you will write about in an informed way. In fact, they help you think by helping you recognize what you already know and what you need to find out!
But what do you do with all the information that you develop using one of these processes? Well, of course, you begin to write so that you can complete your assignment. But how do you plan and organize it? One way is to recognize how developed writing contains elements of the techniques you have heard about in your writing classes. Writers organize and present their ideas by
- Defining exactly what they mean by a word or an idea
- Describing what their subject looked like or how it felt
- Showing how one action caused another
- Telling stories that illustrate ideas
- Revealing how a process works
- Classifying ideas or things into similar categories
- Explaining how their topic is the same or different than other things
- Demonstrating how their idea works with examples and facts
You might have used these techniques before in assignments, but never thought about them as things that appear in different parts of a long paper. In fact, understanding how to weave these ideas together gives you a set of tools that you can use in everything that you write. Just like a mechanic would not be able to successfully repair a car using only a screwdriver, a writer cannot write a good document using only one tool.
Let's analyze a piece of writing by looking at a few sentences that most people think are superior writing by exploring how the writer used his different tools. Here is Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address":
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Definition and Description:
Definition explores the meaning or purpose of something, and description provides an explanation of what it looks like. Lincoln begins his speech with a definition and description sentence telling us exactly how he defines America:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
As you can see, combining different writing tools can be very effective in creating memorable sentences. Actually, definition and description often are used together, but as you can see they are not the same thing.
He bases his definition in those greater invention principles discussed earlier:
- Tagmemic: this is a field defining the whole nation
- Topic: this satisfies the idea of past upon which present and future will be built
- Pentad: this answers the question of "what" by situating things that will come
Cause and Effect and Narration
Cause and effect establishes that something is true because some other thing happened. Often, writers use chains of events or stories to establish how one thing causes another to happen. The purpose of both cause and effect and narrative writing is to establish the reason behind a change of circumstances. Lincoln tells people that there is a reason for them being in this place:
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
In other words, the death of brave soldiers has caused people to want to come together and remember them. If the soldiers had not died, this action would not take place. He uses the principles of narration when writes in present tense, relating what is happening.
Again, he bases his cause and effect idea in the greater invention ideas:
- Tagmemics: relates the field (the nation) to the wave (a specific place)
- Topic: explores the idea of what happened (past) and what might be (future)
- Pentad: answers the question "why" by establishing a cause for being there
Lincoln might as easily have said: "We need to build a cemetery for people who died in a battle," but no one would still be reading his words if he had. Instead, he uses descriptive language and concentrates on the idea of life instead of death. In this sentence, Lincoln successfully states that the people who died gave their life for a purpose that will help end the war, and therefore save lives.
Classification and Compare/Contrast:
The purpose of classifying things in your writing is to give the reader an idea of how things are related to one another, but yet different. Lincoln uses these principles also when he writes:
The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
People are clearly compared and divided here into three classifications: living soldiers, dead soldiers, and non-soldiers. These divisions might remind you of the techniques of clustering ideas that you can sometimes use when you are developing your topic. He then explains the difference between soldiers and non-soldiers by contrasting what they can and cannot do. Soldiers can consecrate the cemetery by their actions, and non-soldiers do not have that power. In fact, they don't even have the power to change things!
Again, the over all invention principles are reflected in this sentence:
- Tagmemics: represents the level of particle because the sentence explains a specific place and action that is part of a larger whole.
- Topics: allow Lincoln to explore the present in the terms of what we can and cannot do.
- Pentad: answers the question "who" and "what" because it describes who the actors are and what the actors are doing
In this sentence, you can again see that descriptive language makes the words interesting and compelling. Would you be moved by this idea if Lincoln had written "The soldiers did their work and now we want to build a cemetery for them"? Probably not. By dividing the people into classes, Lincoln lets his readers fit themselves into a category and understand the feelings he expresses on a more personal level.
Exemplification and Process
As the names suggest, exemplification means to use examples to show your reader what you mean and process shows them step by set how something works, or should work. These are a little harder to see in the Gettysburg Address, but they are present:. Let's look at Lincoln's final sentence:
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Let's look first at exemplification. Often when you write, you use transitional phrases such as "for example" or "for instance," which is fine, but Lincoln does not do this. Instead, Lincoln is giving people an example of how they should react to the battle at Gettysburg when he says when he says "we take increased devotion." Did you notice that he sets this example off using dashes? He does this because it does not really fit in the process that he describes: (1) recognize that brave men died, (2) honor them with a fine burial place, and (3) become stronger from the experience. You can see from this piece of writing that Lincoln moves his audience through these steps in logical order that in writing, we call arrangement.
Here too, you will find evidence of the overall invention process:
- Tagmemics - This sentence moves us from the specific (particle) of individuals at the battlefield to the general (wave) affects of the battle on the group of people who participate and then expands to the whole nation (form).
- Topics - In the sense of Topics, you can see here that this passage moves through the past, present, and into an ideal future.
- Pentad - This very long sentence represents most of the categories in Burke's pentad also. You can see that is discusses who participates (the actors), what they should do, and how they should do it!
Did you notice that the last words of the Gettysburg Address have become what Aristotle would call a commonplace? They are words that will inspire a patriotic feeling in most Americans without explaining or labeling them with a citation. In this final sentence, Lincoln does not explain himself. He explains again his purpose, gives an example to justify his reasoning, and leaves the reader with a strong thought about his specific vision of how things should be.
Summary
Being able to apply these writing tools in a variety of situations will help you think of how to express the ideas that you develop in the invention step of your writing process. In a way, they are like the bigger invention process because you will be looking for the right tools to accomplish a particular writing task.
Description and definition will probably occur throughout any paper that you write because you will want readers to understand exactly what you want to say. On the other hand, narration is often used in the introductions of longer papers to help the audience get interested in the subject. Likewise, classification and compare and contrast ideas often are used early in a paper to narrow your subject for the reader. Readers always want to know exactly what you are thinking about before you start describing your experiences or opinion and reasoning. In the body of most papers, writers rely on process, cause and effect, and logic to establish that one thing causes another to happen, and they use examples to help the reader follow along with their ideas.
Each of these tools has its own pattern of organization that fits into the overall organization of your paper. This pattern becomes the organization for most papers and adds to the persuasive element; that is, the pattern convinces readers agree with whatever the writer is expressing. Using arrangement of ideas to help inform and convince readers is a technique that uses a combination of writers' tools, and it is the most powerful element of a convincing document.
The next lessons in this section will give you hints and tips about how to develop the ability to use these tools in a way that will strengthen your writing.
  
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