Development
Of course it’s not just enough to state your focus, thesis, overall point—you need to show, illustrate, develop it. Strategies you might use to explore a topic may be the same you use to support points for your analysis, for example. For any kind of writing project you are working on, you will need to choose among the following development strategies depending on the discourse community, genre, and rhetorical situation.
Narration. When you narrate you are recounting events such as telling a story. Examples may include narrating an incident you observed, how you conducted an experiment, or a personal experience from your past.
Description. When you describe—possibly while narrating—you are including specific details for readers to more clearly understand and experience what you are writing about. When describing you may incorporate sensory details (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) as well as figurative language (see Chapter 1 for more details).
Definition and exemplification. Certainly when you define important concepts in your writing projects you quote from your sources; however, you may also wish to define for your readers specifically how you see these concepts—your perspective or angle on sources’ definitions—in order to serve your purpose. Along with defining, you may provide examples to illustrate or show such key concepts and ideas for your readers.
Process analysis. When you conduct a process analysis you are explaining to readers how to do something (or how something was done) or how something works. Often you’ll explain a process step by step.
Comparison and contrast. When you compare you are showing similarities and when you contrast you are showing differences between the concepts or ideas you are writing about. Either way, the function of this development strategy is to help readers see them in new ways, supporting your purpose.
Classification. When you classify you are breaking down items or subjects into categories to support your point and so readers better understand them.
Cause and effect. When you develop for cause and effect you are claiming a relationship among events or situations to try to understand why. For example, you may use the word because to show that an event caused something to happen, a result. Or, you may use an “if. . .then” construction to claim that if some condition is present, then something will result.
Argumentation. When you argue you are trying to persuade readers to take some action or adopt a particular point of view, such as interpreting evidence or results in a certain way. You may use this development strategy when an issue topic is debatable, which means there are multiple valid arguments, reasoned and supported by evidence.
It is important to draw on a variety of these development strategies to develop your ideas—showing reasons how and why the data/examples you provide support the points you are making for your thesis—your overall point. You can think of development strategies as the tools you can use to teach your readers, making sure we really understand what you’re telling us and that we get it.
TRY THIS to understand development strategies. Let’s look more closely at some of the development strategies by reviewing some examples. You’ll notice that the point and support (from the source) for each paragraph below remains the same, yet the development strategies are different. Match the development method/strategy with each example. Notice how specific words in each example serve to signal the relationships among ideas. These are transitions and we’ll discuss them further next in the organization section; transitions often signal writers’ development strategies for readers of texts.
After you’ve completed this activity, think to yourself, which one (well-developed paragraph) do you like best—which is most effective—and why? Know that you have a variety of development strategies to support your points—choose the most effective ones to use in your writing.
Development in Context
While in general the writing projects you write will need to have some sort of development, what that development looks like and how it works in the text will depend on the context. For example, whether or not you can narrate from personal experience, how subtle or direct to argue, and what to compare and contrast, all depend on the discourse community, genre, and your rhetorical situation.
TRY THIS to understand development in context. Review the following passages from various academic texts and complete the following:
- What can you say about what you think the discourse community, the genre, and the rhetorical situation are for the texts from which each passage is excerpted? Feel free to do a web search of the journal titles and authors to see what academic disciplines they are from.
- What do you notice about the concept of development when it comes to each text? For example, what development strategies can you identify in each passage? Compare and contrast as helpful to illustrate or show what you notice.
- If it were your job to identify the conventions or “rules” for development for each text’s discourse community, genre, and/or rhetorical situation, what would you say? For example, “in this discourse community and genre it seems that. . .”
After responding in your notes, click on each passage to check your responses.
Passage 1 From the article “The Effects of Stress on the Lives of Emerging Adult College Students: An Exploratory Analysis” by Justin W. Peer, Stephen B. Hillman, and Emma Van Hoet in the Adultspan Journal
From the “Procedure” subsection of the “Method” section:
“Upon receiving approval from the university’s internal review board, we recruited students through the university’s research participation system. Prior to their participation and the provision of a study packet, students were provided with information regarding this study. Each participant was given written directions, a demographic survey form, and the research questions to complete” (92).
From the “Sources of Stress” subsection of the “Results” section:
“Four categories were identified for this area: school, finances, family relationships, and personal relationships” (93).
From the “Implications for Counseling Practice” section:
“Given the importance of emerging adulthood as a period of life in which decisions are made about the future, the result of not being able to manage stress effectively could be very costly for emerging adult college students’ mental and physical health. Opportunities related to academic achievement and career development may be impaired or lost if stress is left unaddressed” (96).
Passage 2 From the article “Disciplinary Landscaping, or Contemporary Challenges in the History of Rhetoric” by Jacqueline Jones Royster in the journal Philosophy and Rhetoric
“Imagine that we have the privilege of viewing a terrain with its mountains, valleys, rivers, and streams, with its flora and fauna, with its creatures that fly, walk, swim, and slither. What does it mean to understand such a geographical space in a richly textured, full-bodied way and to recognize the many ways that we might appreciate and showcase dimensions of that view?. . .Using landscaping as a metaphor for disciplinary knowledge-making offers a mechanism for understanding two provocative challenges” (148).
Passage 3 From the article “Cloud Catcher” by Marissa Fessenden in Scientific American
“In the first week of November of last year, my colleague. . .and I traveled to Iceland. The overall goal of the trip was to find some fine-grained sediment smaller than 10 microns, which is material we think is going to get into the atmosphere, for later laboratory experimentation. Glacial erosion produces very fine sediments, and along the southern coast of Iceland these sediments are spread out on extensive floodplains. Iceland is an extremely windy place, where powerful winds meet broad glacial floodplains. Huge amounts of dust get lofted into the atmosphere. These dust plumes are so large they can be seen in satellite images, streaming for hundreds of kilometers off the coast. . .We’d hike out across pitch-black volcanic cobble and sand in search of deposits of fine sediments.”