DetailsClearing Things Up

Objectives

• Understand the types of details

• Develop techniques to use details

• Explain how details can be used

• Use imagery to enhance details

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Use of Details

• Details explain ideas

• Details give life to writing

• Details are selected to meet the purpose of the essay

• Imagery is a detail which use the senses

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Abstract vs. Concrete

He was happyHe smiled broadly

The smile on his face was a large as the grill on a 1950’s Buick.

The dress was prettyThe dress had a nice pattern The dress was blue with light yellow checks.

The alarm clock rangThe alarm clock woke me with a start. The alarm clock was a klaxon shattering

sweet repose

FlowerRose Yellow Rose

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Abstract/Concrete Exercise

Read each of the following words and decide where the example is on the concrete/abstract scale

• Maple tree are pretty trees in the fall.

• Sunday afternoon is a fun day.

• He was a graceful man: tall, thin and elegant.

• Lana wants success in her life.

• Everyone knows the dangers of global warming.

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Abstract Concrete

Abstract Concrete

Abstract Concrete

Abstract Concrete

Abstract Concrete

Abstract vs. Concrete Basic

Galileo was too sick to observe with the newly invented telescope the three comets of 1618.

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Abstract vs. Concrete DetailsA small comet glowed in the skies over Florence that September of 1618. Though unspectacular, as comets go, it was nevertheless the first comet to appear since the birth of the telescope. Other astronomers took to their rooftops with instruments of Galileo’s design, but Galileo himself remained indoors an invalid. Then another comet arrived in mid-November, while Galileo unfortunately fared no better than before. And even by the end of November, when a truly brilliant third comet burst on the scene to garner the attention of observers all over Europe, Galileo still could not stand among them. Galileo’s Daughter – Dava Sobel

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Senses

• Sight

• Sound

• Smell

• Taste

• Touch

Rev 2/2010 8Allegory of the Five Senses -- 1668

Using Senses

• Sense words can increase the details in writing

• She smelled nice.

• She smelled of roses freshly budded on a dewy morning.

• It was hard work.

• When I finally pushed the print button on the computer, a wave of satisfaction filled me because I knew that I had finally finished the paper.

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Clear Sentences

• Avoid sentences overly long and complicated

• Avoid sentences that are difficult to understand

During my research on this project, which covers an important topic that everyone should be aware of and concerned with, I discovered that my long held beliefs on this subject were naïve and fuzzy.

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Types of Details

• Examples

• Anecdotes

• Fables and tales

• Facts

• Statistics

• Metaphors and similes

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Examples

• Relevant

• Unified

• Answers questions the reader might have

Mr. Cabot smoked cigarettes since he was fourteen. At the age of fifty, he died of slow suffocation because 36 years of Lucky Strikes turned his lungs to beef jerky.

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Anecdotes

• Anecdotes are usually longer than examples

• They can be several paragraphs

• They make good introductory paragraphs

In high school Mary hid with her friends behind the school’s gym to be hip and smoke their cigarettes. When she turned twenty-five she cut back from three packs a day to two. At fifty, though most thought she was over sixty, Mary stopped dancing, going shopping, and playing with her grandchild. She just got too winded to do more than just sit beside her full ashtray.

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Fables and Tales

• Fables usually have animals do human activities for the purpose of a moral

• Tales a usually made up anecdotes

• Fables and tales are seldom used in a research paper

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A Fable

he tortoise and the hare decided to have a rematch several decades after the hare lost to the tortoise.

The day of the big event arrived, and the hare was again boasting between puffs of her cigarette that she had learned her lesson not to be over confident. This time she was running as fast as she could regardless of the pace of the tortoise.

The pair were out of the starting gate like a bullet from a gun and a boulder from a slingshot. The tortoise saw nothing but the dust the hare left behind.

But soon the tortoise caught up to the hare, who was panting and wheezing beside a large oak tree. Although the tortoises speed would hardly kick up dust, he crossed the finish line without seeing the hacking hare again.

Moral – cigarettes can take the zip out of you.

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T

Facts

• Facts carry weight

• Be certain facts are correct

• Be certain facts are from a reputable source

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Facts

• More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. each year are from smoking-related illnesses. Smoking greatly increases your risks for lung cancer and many other cancers

• Among infants to 18 months of age, secondhand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year.

• Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to deliver babies whose weights are too low for the babies' good health. If all women quit smoking during pregnancy, about 4,000 new babies would not die each year.

Facts About Smoking National Institutes of Health,National Cancer Institute, & American Cancer Society http://dccps.nci.nih.gov/tcrb/smoking_facts/facts.html

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Statistics

• Statistics are similar to facts except are based on probability analysis

• Understand the scope and methods used• Look for bias

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Statistics

• The Tobacco Industry kills more people in North America from Monday to Thursday of each week than the terrorists murdered in total on Sept. 11, 2001

• 90% of lung cancer occurs in those who have smoked. Each package delivers the equivalent of one chest x-ray.

• Chemicals contained in second hand smoke are not even allowed in most city landfills

• When it comes right down to it, aren't you tired of being a slave to cigarettes?

Quit Smoking Right Now. (2008) http://www.quitsmokingrightnow.com/

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Similes and Metaphors

• Compare unlike things

• Similes uses like or as in the comparison

– Nobody should smoke cigarettes - and smoking with an ulcer is like pouring gasoline on a burning house. -- Dr. Sara Murray Jordan

• Metaphor is a direct comparison

– She was cigarette thin and just as deadly.

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Cliché

A cliché is imagery that has been over used and is no longer vibrant

– He smoked like a chimney.

– Hungry as a bear

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Grammar

• Like and as– Like is a preposition used with nouns and

pronouns

• She sang like a bird.

– As is a conjunction and is used with clauses

• She sang as though she were a bird.

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Filler Words

• Avoid filler words. Usually these word mean little except to add words.– Bill has a lot of money.

• What is a lot?

– Ginger studied very hard. • How much time did she

spend studying?

• Really

• A lot

• Very

• Many

• There are

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Haiku

Is a short poem of Japanese origin which

• Usually has 3 lines

• Has 5 – 7 –5 syllables to a lines

• Includes nature and personal emotion

• Uses imagery to convey insight into reality.

Basho 1644-1694

The most famous Japanese practitioner of haiku

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Old Age

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Now I see her face,

The old woman abandoned,

The moon her only companion.

Nature

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With plum blossom scent,

This sudden sun emerges

Along a mountain trail.

Talent

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Seen in plain daylight

The firefly’s nothing but a

Simple brown insect.

Fame

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Ungraciously, under

A great soldier’s empty helmet,

A cricket sings.

Ezra Pound 1885-1972

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In a Station of the Metro

The apparitions of these faces in the crowd

Petals on a wet, black bough.

Write Your Own Haiku

• Write a haiku for extra credit.

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Summary

• Details support the writer's key ideas

• Details help the reader’s understanding the key ideas

• Details enhance the reader’s experience

• Details are necessary

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Resources

• Using statistics owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ print/research/PDFs/r_stats.pdf

• Elementary Concepts in Statisticshttp://www.statsoftinc.com/textbook/esc1.html

• Writing for Success http://www.writing-for-success-online.com/anecdotes-write-about-people.html(anecdotes)

• Aesop’s Fables – On linehttp://www.pacificnet.net/~johnr/aesop/

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Basic Statistical Terms

• Percent – ratio between a whole category and a part

• Average – generic term for 3 ways to average– Mean – statistical term for average

– Median – middle number (used to eliminate wide extremes)

– Mode – most frequently occurring

• 25% = ¼ = 1:4

• (2+3+8+9+73)/5 = 19

• 2,3,8,9,73 = 8

• 2,5,3,2,3,3 = 3

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