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Chapter 3: General and Specific Sentences Work Together

From this chapter, you’ll learn• how general and specific sentences need each

other to create meaning.• how writers rely on readers to make

connections between general and specific sentences in paragraphs.

• about three common textbook templates or patterns.

Sentences cannot be considered general or specific in isolation. The two terms only make sense when sentences are used in context, or in relation to one another.

A Word to the Wise

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What Being “More General” Means When It Comes to Words

The words products, communication, entertainer, and sports are all more general because

• they increase the number of things that can be referred to, e.g., The word products can refer to bleach, laptops, and Oreos among numerous other things.

• the things referred to by these words are more different than similar, e.g., cookies, cleansers, and computers are all “products.”

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Making General Words More Specific

General Words• Sounds• Movement• Feeling• Object• Creature• Location• Product

More Specific Words• Whistle• Sprint• Passion• Guitar• Dragon• Chile• Sneakers

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Defining Terms

Like General Words, General Sentences

• combine, summarize, or comment on a number of different but related events, experiences, ideas, people, e.g., Many animals are capable of heroism.

• are broad in meaning and, therefore, provoke questions, e.g., What kinds of animals? What kinds of heroism?

• cover a lot of territory and therefore can be misunderstood, e.g., Think about the statement, “War is hell.” Would a Marine and an anti-war protestor interpret it in the same way?

Defining Terms

Like Specific Words, Specific Sentences• cover less ground than general ones.• focus on fewer events, ideas, experiences, and

people.• help explain or clarify general ones.• answer questions readers might raise about

general sentences.

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Examples of General Sentences

• Abstract expressionist painters changed the way Americans defined art.

• Television journalism is powered more by ratings than news.

• The Internet has revolutionized education.• Cell phones have had a dramatic effect on the

plots of romance novels.

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Examples of More Specific Sentences

• The American abstract expressionist Willem DeKooning created a series of paintings about women, but the women looked like no female ever seen on planet Earth.

• Television anchors are no longer seasoned reporters; what counts is their audience appeal, not their experience.

• Each year, more courses are partially or fully taught online.• Lovers can no longer miss each other at the airport and fail

to discover that the beloved was actually waiting on another floor; in a novel set in the present, readers would wonder why the idiots didn’t use their cell phones.

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Just So You Know

The abstract expressionists were a group ofAmerican artists, who, in the fifties, put the United States in the forefront of the art world. They rejected traditional realism and focused instead on line, color, and shape. Probably the most famous members of the group were Willem DeKooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

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Understanding General and Specific Sentences in Context

Of the two sentences that follow, which is morespecific?

• Love is blind.

• People in the grip of love usually find it extremely difficult to accurately evaluate those they love.

Understanding General and Specific Sentences in Context

What happens, though, when you put that samesentence in a different context?

1. People in the grip of love usually find it extremely difficult to accurately evaluate those they love.

2. Because they love their children, parents are often blind to their flaws.

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General and Specific Sentences in Writing

Particularly in textbooks, writers frequently

• describe how a number of different events or experiences turned out, e.g., “During World War II, propaganda became a powerful tool.”

• summarize a prevailing point of view,for instance, “President Lyndon Johnson’s supporters turned against him over the Vietnam War.”

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© Laraine Flemming. All rights reserved. No distribution allowed without express authorization.

General and Specific Sentences in WritingTo make sure readers understand the general statements in the text, writers offer more specific statements that• explain.• illustrate.• convince.• define.

General and Specific Sentences inReadingReaders have to make connections between the general and specific statements. Among other things, they need to recognize how• illustrations clarify generalizations.• reasons support claims.• events lead up to outcomes.• causes produce consequences.• similarities and differences create comparisons.

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© Laraine Flemming. All rights reserved. No distribution allowed without express authorization.

When General Sentences Become Topic Sentences

General sentences that sum up the point of the paragraph are called Topic Sentences.Topic Sentences do two things:1. Refer to the topic of the paragraph.2. Tell you, in broad terms, what the author wants

to say about the topic. In other words, they give you the main idea.

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Topic Sentences in Textbooks

As readers, it helps to know how textbook authors are likely to distribute general and specific sentences, for instance:

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Three Common Topic Sentence Locations in Textbooks

1. Topic Sentence Opens the Paragraph.

2. An Introductory Sentence Opens the Paragraph and is Followed by the Topic Sentence.

3. Specific Sentences Build Up to the Topic Sentence which comes at the end.

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Explanatory Pattern 1: Starting with the Topic Sentence

All chile peppers—from the mildest green and red bell peppers to the hottest habaneros (peppers one author refers to as “thermonuclear”) have one ancestor in common. They all belong to the genus, or class, Capsicum. People in what is now South and Central America started growing chile peppers 10,000 years ago. Today, plant breeders grow hundreds of varieties of chile plants, virtually all belonging to just one species, Capisicum annum. Capisicum annum is the most widely spread plant species in the world, because chile peppers are the most widely used cooking spice.

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Explanatory Pattern 2: Starting with an Introduction

In the 1870s, pioneer photographer William Henry Jackson explored vast areas of the West with his camera, making Americans aware of the beauty to be found in places like the Colorado Rockies. Yet despite Jackson’s undisputed talent, his success as a photographer was the consequence of a broken heart rather than careful planning. When his sweetheart, Caroline Eastman, rejected his proposal of marriage, he picked up his camera and went West. In an effort to get Caroline out of his mind, he visited remote areas with the geologist Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. Jackson’s photos became the first published images of what would one day become Yellowstone National Park. He was also the first one to photograph prehistoric dwellings of Native-Americans in Mesa Verde, Colorado. But he never forgot Caroline. When he died at the age of ninety-nine, he still had her picture next to his heart.

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Explanatory Pattern 3: Ending with the Topic Sentence

In March of 1964, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was stabbed to death outside of her apartment for a period of twenty-five minutes. During that time, thirty-five people watched from the safety of their apartments as the killer returned twice to finish his attack, after being interrupted by someone shouting from a window. To this day, no one can fully explain why no one called the police during the attack. One theory is that every person watching thought someone else would make the call. What is known is that the attack on Catherine Genovese is one of the worst cases of shameless public apathy to ever go on record.

Finishing Up: General and Specific Sentences Work Together

You’ve previewed the major concepts and skills introduced in Chapter 3. Take this quick quiz to test your mastery of those skills and concepts, and you are ready to read the chapter.

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Finishing Up: General and Specific Sentences Work Together

1. True or False. The more general a sentence is, the more likely it will focus on a single experience or event.

2. True or False. Sentences can only be labeled general or specific in relation to one another.

3. True or False. General sentences need specific ones for clarification, but specific ones can stand alone.

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Answers 1-3• Answer 1: False The more general a sentence

is, the more likely it is to embrace numerous and very different individuals, events, and experiences.

• Answer 2: True A sentence that is specific in one context might be general in another.

• Answer 3: False Sometimes a sentence more specific than the topic sentence also needs clarification and is not completely clear on its own.

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Finishing Up: General and Specific Sentences Work Together

4. True or False. General sentences are more open to being misunderstood than specific ones are.

5. True or False. Writers need to think about the relationship between general and specific sentences, but readers don’t.

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Answers 4-5 Answer 4: True The more general a sentence is,

the more it refers to a greater number of events, individuals, and experiences, making it more open to misinterpretation.

Answer 5: False Readers need to think about general and specific sentences as much as writers do. They need to recognize general sentences to get the author’s point and specific sentences to make sure they understand it.

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Brain Teaser Challenge 1

Based on your understanding of what you’ve learned from the slides, how would you explain this quotation from the novelist Iris Murdoch?“We Tame the World by Generalizing.”

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Brain Teaser Challenge 2

What is the connection between the short story described here and the quote from Murdock?

“Funes, His Memory” is a short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. In the story, Funes is a teenage boy who survives a horse riding accident. After his accident, he remembers every detail of what he sees or hears. He can remember all the individual parts of things, but has great difficulty naming them. He is, as Borges says, “haunted by details.”