Ⅱ. Ways of Developing Paragraphs

1. Planning a Paragraph

Paragraphs need to be planned. First, think of the topic or theme or main idea, and express it in a complete sentence (topic sentence). Then think of the details or examples or facts that may be used to support or explain the main idea. Arrange them in logical order, and you have a rough plan of the paragraph.
An outline may be helpful to beginners. Suppose you are to write a paragraph on philately, and your topic sentence is "Philately is an interesting hobby", you may have the following points:
(1) There are beautiful pictures on postage stamps;
(2) There are portraits of historical figures on them;
(3) It is always a delight to get a stamp I have never seen before;
(4) I can learn something by looking at the stamps I have collected.
On reading the four points again, you may find that the last point had better be made the first. Now you can begin to write. Here is a paragraph developed from the above outline:

    Philately is an interesting hobby. Every time I open my albums and look at the stamps I've collected over the years, I learn something new. On many of them are printed drawings or pictures of rare birds, animals, trees or flowers. Under a magnifying glass they look very beautiful, and they help to increase my knowledge of nature. On other stamps there are portraits of historical figures, such as Qu Yuan and Dr. Sun Yatsen, George Washington and Chester W. Nimits. Whenever I see an unfamiliar name, I will try to find some information about the person by consulting an encyclopaedia. In this way I have come to know something about quite a few people who are famous for one reason or another. Some of my friends and relatives who know I am interested in stamps often show me used envelopes. If I see a stamp which I have never seen before or I haven't got yet, I will ask them to give it to me, and it seems that they are always kind enough to oblige me. It is always a delight to add a new stamp to my collection, and the more stamps I have, the more interested I am in philately.

- Student

In this paragraph a statement is given first and it is followed by some explanations. The statement expresses the effect and the rest of the paragraph explains the causes. This is one of the many possible methods for developing a paragraph.

2. Development by Time

In telling a story or recounting an event, the easiest and clearest way is to describe things in order of time: earlier things are mentioned before later things, the first thing first and the last thing last. This method is also called chronological sequencing.

    James Murray was born in Scotland in 1873, the son of a village tailor. He went to a parish school, but he left at 14 and he educated himself with pertinacity. He loved knowledge and he loved to impart it. He became a schoolmaster; he learned language after language and was alive to geology, archeology and phonetics, as well as to local politics. He had to leave Scotland because of the illness of his first wife, and he became a bank clerk in London. By sheer energy of scholarship, and without benefit of any university education, he made himself indispensable to the other remarkable philologists of his day. He returned to school-teaching and lived a 72-hour day for the rest of his life. For the invitation to edit what became the O.E.D. was one that he could not refuse. At first he combined it with his school work; later he moved to Oxford and dedicated himself to building the best sort of monument - best in that it was not a monument to himself, and best in that it was not a monument to something dead but rather to something living: the English language.

- Christopher Ricks

    My heart gave a leap when I heard the announcement that our train would soon arrive at its destination - Beijing. Like other passengers, I began to collect my things and put my mug, towel, atlas, apples, and other things into my bag. To the tune of a beautiful song the train pulled into the station and gently stopped by a platform. I walked out of the train and was carried forward by the stream of people into an underground passage and then into a big hall. As I stepped out of the station, I was dazzled by the bright autumn skies of Beijing. Though I had been on the train for more than thirty hours and spent an sleepless night, I didn't feel tired at all, and I believed my days in Beijing would be as sunny as the skies.

- Student

These two paragraphs, one telling the story of a person's life, the other describing an event that took place in a few minutes, follow a chronological arrangement, and it is easy for the reader to understand what is told in them.

3. Development by Process

When you have to explain how something is done, you usually follow a chronological sequence and give a step-by-step description. As the steps must occur one after another, the exact order in which they are carried out is most important. In giving instructions, imperative sentences and sentences with the indefinite pronoun you as the subject are often used. The present tense should be used if the instructions are still applicable.

    Once you encounter a person who has stopped breathing, you should begin immediately to do mouth-to-mouth breathing. First, place the victim on his back and remove any foreign matter from his mouth with your fingers. Then tilt his head backwards, so that his chin is pointing up. Next, pull his mouth open and his jaw forward, pinch his nostrils shut to prevent the air which you blow into his mouth from escaping through his nose. Then place your mouth tightly over the victim's. Blow into his mouth until you see his chest rise. Then turn your head to the side and listen for the outrush of air which indicates an air exchange. Repeat the process....

- A handbook

    It is necessary for a person to know how to post a parcel, since almost everyone has relatives and friends living far away and he may like to send them something. Different objects are packed in different ways. Things like bottles of medicine and watches should be put into wooden boxes to avoid breakage. After you have packed the objects, put down your address and that of the addressee on the wrapping. Give the parcel to the postal clerk for him to check. He will then give you a form to fill in. Having filled in the form, you give it together with the parcel to the clerk. He will weigh the parcel and tell you how much you should pay. You pay the money and get a receipt. Be sure to keep your receipt until you are sure that the addressee has received the parcel. If anything wrong should happen to your parcel, you can show the receipt to the clerk and ask to be reimbursed.

- Student

4. Development by Space

Before we begin to describe a place, whether it is a large country or a small room, we have to decide on the order in which to name the different parts or details. For this we should find out the space relationships between them and arrange our description accordingly. It would only confuse the reader to mention them in a haphazard way.

    In the middle of the rectangular-shaped courtyard stood three magnolia trees, all in full bloom. A little girl was hopping among them, now gazing at a bud, now collecting fallen petals. Under one of the trees stood her parents, who, while keeping an eye on her, were examining the milkwhite blossoms with great interest and admiration. In front of another tree a young couple, fresh and bright as the flowers, were posing for a picture. At one end of the courtyard a group of youngsters had gathered behind an artist painting a flourishing limb, which looked so charming and real that a boy stooped to sniff at a half-open flower. At the opposite end a few elderly men and women stood admiring the leafless flowering trees and the people looking at them.

- Student

Here the writer starts from the trees in the middle of the courtyard, or the centre of the scene. Then he describes the people under and around the trees (the girl, her parents and the young couple), and after that the people farther from the trees at both ends of the courtyard (the artist and the youngsters behind him, and the elderly men and women). In short, he moves his camera from the center to the surrounding areas.

    Mr. Cook, a renowned American historian, arranges the books on his bookshelves in a unique way. In the upper right hand corner, there are books about the development of the early colonies in New England and the War of Independence. Right under them can be found books on the slave trade, the plantation system and the growth of the southern states. The left side of the shelf contains hundreds of books concerning subjects of the Westward Movement, Indian culture, the cowboys' contributions to American society and the Gold Rush in California. From the description above, one can see that Mr. Cook regards his bookshelves as a map of the U.S. and arranges his history books accordingly. It is odd, but it is convenient.

- Student

This paragraph, which describes the arrangement of books, is simple and clear. The positions of the books are described in order that is easy to follow: first from the upper right to the lower right, and then to the left.

5. Development by Example or Generalization

Supporting a topic sentence with examples or illustrations makes a general statement specific and easy to understand. An illustration is a case, a specimen, an instance. Vivid illustrations light up abstract ideas and make them clear, interesting, memorable, or convincing.
Illustrations may be a single example or a series of examples.

    This term several useful and interesting courses have been offered. An Introduction to European Culture, for instance, gives us a lot of background knowledge of the history of European philosophy, literature, and arts. From time to time we see slide shows of famous paintings and hear tapes of famous pieces of music, and they make the lectures all the more interesting. American Society and Culture is another course that attracts a large audience. The teacher, who visited the United States not long ago, discusses new trends and changes in American life as well as American history and traditions. We like these and other courses very much, because they help us not only to improve our English but also to broaden our vision.

- Student

In this paragraph there are two examples that explain why certain courses are "useful and interesting" as is said in the first sentence.
The following paragraph develops its controlling sentence with a series of facts involving well-known people. These enable the writer to make the abstract key idea, "persistent investigation," concrete. They also add dramatic qualities that make the information interesting. You may notice that it is not always necessary to say "for example" or "for instance" when an example is given.

    Knowledge often results only after persistent investigation. Albert Einstein, after a lengthy examination of the characteristics of matter and energy, formulated his famous Theory of Relativity, which now acts as a basis for further research in nuclear physics. Using plaster casts of footprints, fingerprints, and stray strands of hair, a detective pertinaciously pursues the criminal. After years of work Annie Jump Cannon perfected the classification of the spectra of some 350,000 stars. Investigations into the causes of polio have provided us with the means for prevention and cure of this dreaded disease only after many years of research. As students, we too are determined in our investigation to find, retain, and contribute to the store of human knowledge.

- Earl Rudolph

The following paragraph, which is mainly descriptive, contains many details. It starts with a topic sentence. Then details are given to back up the opening statement. This is the general-to-specific pattern.

    My little niece, a ten-month-old baby, is the most lovely child I have even seen. Her face is like a red apple and her eyes are like bright stars. When you carry her in your arms, she likes to put her arms around your neck. All the grownups in the family love her very much and often try to make her smile. But quite often it is she who makes us laugh. Once I winked at her and she smiled. When I did it again, she watched me attentively. Then she tried to imitate. While we closed one eye to wink, she had to close both eyes at the same time, and then quickly opened them again. And that was her way to wink. We all burst into laughter. When we looked at her again, she was staring at us, puzzled, as if she was asking: "What are you laughing at?"

- Student

Another possible arrangement of details (or examples) in a paragraph is from the specific to the general. The details are mentioned first, and the general statement, which may be the topic sentence, comes at the end of the paragraph, summarizing the main idea of the paragraph.

    Whether you do or do not open a gift in the presence of the giver; whether you should or should not turn the plate over to look at the maker's symbol on the back; whether you put your coat on before or after you leave the host's house; whether you eat as quietly or as noisily as possible; whether you carry on a conversation during a meal; whether you walk in front of or behind a seated person; whether it is a friendly or an offensive gesture to put your hand on the arm of the person with whom you are talking - these and a thousand other questions are matters of cultural definition. None of them is inherently right or wrong, and none is good or bad manners except as a society defines it so.

- Ina Corinne Brown

Details or examples are usually arranged in climactic order: the least important comes first, followed by others in order of increasing importance.

    It was a typical Russian winter. The first snowstorm had turned everything white. The wind was howling, swirling and tumbling over a vast land of ice and snow, freezing and destroying whatever stood in its way. A ragged, misshapen army was staggering and struggling desperately for survival, cold, hungry and decreasing in size every day. The year was 1812. The army was the remnants of Napoleon's expeditionary force which was withdrawing from Russia after receiving its worst defeat. The war with Russia turned out to be a fiasco for Napoleon and had a devastating effect on his career.

- Student

Such a climactic sequence is followed in paragraphs developed not only by details or examples but also by comparison and contrast, by cause and effect, etc.

6. Development by Comparison and Contrast

The method of comparison and contrast is often used. We compare the present and the past of China, the cultures of the East and the West, Chinese and English. By comparing and contrasting we may get a clearer picture of things.
Strictly speaking, a comparison points out the similarities between two or more persons or things of the same class, while a contrast, the differences between them. In practice, however, comparison and contrast often appear together, because people generally compare two things that are similar in certain ways and different in others.
There are two major ways of organizing paragraphs of comparison and contrast. One way is to examine one thing thoroughly and then examine the other. In this way, the aspects examined in the two things should be identical and in the same order. This method is called block comparison or block contrast. The other way is to examine two things at the same time, discussing them point by point. This method is called alternating comparison or alternating contrast.
The following paragraph is a good example of alternating comparison.

    The same qualities that make people good house guests make them good hospital patients. Good house guests can expect a reasonable amount of service and effort on their behalf, and hospital patients can also. Guests have to adjust to what is for them a change, and certainly hospital patients must do the same. No one appreciates a complaining, unpleasant, unappreciative house guest, and the hospital staff is no exception. House guests who expect vast changes to be made for their benefit are not popular for long. Certainly nurses and other personnel with their routines feel the same way about patients in their care. Just as house guests must make adjustments to enjoy their visits, so patients must make adjustments to make their stays reasonably pleasant and satisfying under the circumstances.

- Robert Friedman

Alternating contrast is used when you want to point out several differences between two things or people without discussing them in great detail. You merely point out a special feature of one item and then state how the other item differs from it in that aspect. The following paragraph is an example of this method.

  The television western of several years ago differs greatly from the western of today. Ten years ago, for example, the swindler or bank robber in a western could be identified not by the crimes he committed so much as by the color of the clothing he wore - which was black. Today the television western reveals the villain by mannerisms and personality. At one time, every western had a superhuman, invincible "good guy" with whom the viewers could identify because he too lived out on the farm. Currently, the central figures of the west are average people who may live on a middleclass street in any part of the country. They are characters like the bus drivers, mailclerks and accountants who live next door to you in suburbia. At night they come in off the horses to ride the television range. They become persons who respect others, drink and smoke only just a bit, and are able not only to outshoot the "bad guy", but also to outsmart him with good common sense.

- Ron Sengal

Block comparison is suitable when the writer wants to treat points of similarity in depth. In this way each point is drawn out and its relationship to another point is made clear. This type of comparison is often used when the points of similarity discussed are not many but complex, and require much explanation.
Here is a paragraph that first points out all of the characteristics that the writer wants to name about Ulysses S. Grant, and then mentions all the parallel items in the life of Robert E. Lee.

Although Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee were fierce adversaries during the Civil War, their lives, both military and nonmilitary, had a great deal in common. Grant descended from a family whose members participated in the American Revolution. He received his commission of second lieutenant from West Point and served in the Spanish-American War. He was later summoned by President Lincoln to assume command of the Union Forces during the Civil War. After the Civil War, Grant suffered financial problems and was forced to declare bankruptcy. Lee also descended from a family which engaged in the American Revolution. He, too, received his commission from West Point and later fought in Mexico during the Spanish-American War. His fame as a military strategist during the Civil War, when he was the commander of the Confederate armies, is well known. Although it is not always pointed out by historians, he, like Grant, had financial difficulties after the Civil War and was compelled to declare bankruptcy. By securing a post as president of Washington College, he was able to avoid additional poverty.

- Gordon Sacris

The method used in the above paragraph can also be applied to a paragraph of contrast.

    There is an essential difference between a news story, as understood by a newspaperman or a wire-service writer, and the newsmagazine story. The chief purpose of the conventional news story is to tell what happened. It starts with the most important information and continues into increasingly inconsequential details, not only because the reader may not read beyond the first paragraph but because an editor working on galley proofs a few minutes before press time likes to be able to cut freely from the end of the story. A news magazine is very different. It is written to be read consecutively from beginning to end, and each of its stories is designed, following the critical theories of Edgar Allen Poe, to create one emotional effect. The news, what happened that week, may be told in the beginning, the middle, or the end; for the purpose is not to throw information at the reader but to seduce him into reading the whole story, and into accepting the dramatic (and often political) point being made.

- Otto Friedrich

There is a special form of comparison - analogy. Analogy is tracing a striking likeness between unlike things.

    Electricity is transferred from one place to another in much the same manner as water. A water pipe performs the same function as a length of wire. The pipe carries water to its point of use in the same manner as wire carries electricity to its point of use. A blown fuse results from the same thing as a burst water pipe. Both give out due to extreme pressure applied to the walls of the carrier. A switch is to electricity what a faucet is to water. Both of them control the flow of the substance. Since electricity and water have some common properties, understanding the job of the plumber will help understanding the work of the electrician.

- John Brower

Analogies are especially helpful in explaining abstract ideas, for they relate ideas that cannot be experienced through the senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, or taste, to a sense experience, thus making the ideas easy to understand.

    Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death ... The best way to overcome it - so at least it seems to me - is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river - small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue....

- Bertrand Russell

Here Bertrand Russell draws an analogy between a person's life and a river, which are entirely different things. He is trying to explain something difficult to understand - an individual human existence - in terms of something familiar - a river, and the analogy makes his explanation interesting and impressive.

7. Development by Cause and Effect

In our daily conversation, questions with why are often asked and answered. This shows that causal analysis is very common; it is something we are familiar with.
Sound reasoning or logic is naturally the most important quality of any causal analysis. But it is not always easy to explain causes and effects clearly and logically. One reason for this is that an effect may have many causes and a cause may have many effects. So we must be thorough in our discussion and careful in our selection of details.
There are two basic ways of organizing paragraphs developed by cause and effect.
The first method is to state an effect and devote the rest of the paragraph to examining the causes. For example, the topic sentence is: "In the past few years, higher education has become less important to young people than it was previously." This is an effect. It should be followed by a discussion of the causes of this effect, such as the pressure of fierce competition, better opportunities in the job market, much of the knowledge taught in universities and colleges being out-dated, and so forth.
The second method is to state a cause and then mention or predict the effects. Suppose the topic sentence is: "More and more fertile land in China is taken up by new buildings." In the rest of the paragraph the effects of this development should be mentioned, such as the reduction of the grain output, increasing environmental problems, too many peasants moving into the cities, etc.

    One might wonder why, after the Norman Conquest, French did not become the national language, replacing English entirely. The reason is that the Conquest was not a national migration, as the earlier Anglo-Saxon invasion had been. Great numbers of Normans came to England, but they came as rulers and landlords. French became the language of the court, the language of the nobility, the language of polite society, the language of literature. But it did not replace English as the language of the people. There must always have been hundreds of towns and villages in which French was never heard except when visitors of high station passed through.

- Paul Roberts

In this paragraph, the opening sentence raises the question of why the Norman Conquest did not, as might have been expected, make England a French-speaking country. This sentence states an effect or result of the Conquest. The sentences that follow develop the controlling idea by explaining the causes.

    This surge of demand for oil will soon begin to send shock waves through the American economy and transportation system. The impact of these tremors can already be anticipated: to the consumer they signal the end of a long love affair with the car, and to Detroit they offer an early warning that its 1985 growth aims are dangerously unrealistic. Unless we exercise foresight and devise growth-limits policies for the auto industry, events will thrust us into a crisis that will lead to a substantial erosion of domestic oil supply as well as the independence it provides us with, and a level of petroleum imports that could cost as much as $20 to $30 billion per year. Moreover, we would still be depleting our remaining oil reserves at an unacceptable rate, and scrambling for petroleum substitutes, with enormous potential damage to the environment.

- Stewart Udall

In this paragraph, the topic sentence states a cause, and then the writer predicts what effects the surge of demand for oil will bring to American society.

8. Development by Classification

To classify is to sort things into categories according to their characteristics. We classify many things: trees, rivers, cities, companies, college students. We group things according to their similarities and differences. If we classify rivers, we separate them into wide ones, narrow ones, long ones, short ones, deep ones, shallow ones. Apples may be classified according to size, place of origin, color, price, or quality.
Essential to a good classification is parallelism. If we classify types of sports, we may speak of track and field events, swimming, ball games, gymnastics, etc. If we classified sports into jumping, ball games, running, floor exercise and backstroke, we would violate parallelism, for ball games should be considered a general category, while jumping and running are subcategories of the track and field events; gymnastics is a general category, and floor exercise a particular form of it. In short, in a good classification the parts must be parallel, and they should add up to the whole subject.
In the following paragraph, the author divides book owners into three main types and then describes each of them.

    There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best-sellers - unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books - a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many - every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.)

- Mortimer J. Adler

Now let's study two more paragraphs:

        According to Xiao Li, the fifteen students of his class fall into three groups. Seven of them work hard and study well. They always get good marks in examinations and are often praised by the teachers. Li calls them "good students." The monitor, the secretary of the Youth League branch, and the captain of the class volleyball team, are quick in finding out what their fellow students are interested in or what they should do as a collective. They always organize proper activities at the proper time, so Li calls them "good organizers." Four other students are very kind to their classmates, always ready to lend them a helping hand. They help to clean the classroom and the corridor even when they are not on duty. Li says that they are "good fellows." "What about yourself?" someone asks him. "I'm a group by myself - a good observer."

- Student

        Every educated person has at least two ways of speaking his mother tongue. The first is that which he employs in his family, among his familiar friends, and on ordinary occasions. The second is that which he uses in discoursing on more complicated subjects, and in addressing persons with whom he is less intimately acquainted. It is, in short, the language which he employs when he is 'on his dignity,' as he puts on evening dress when he is going to dine.

- J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge

The writer of the first paragraph is trying to be humorous. His way of classifying his classmates, though unscientific, is suited to his purpose. The second writer discusses two ways of speaking one's mother tongue, The phrase "at least" implies that there may be other ways.

9. Development by Definition

Sometimes, to avoid confusion or misunderstanding, we have to define a word, term, or concept which is unfamiliar to most readers or open to various interpretations.
There are three basic ways to define a word or term: to give a synonym, to use a sentence (often with an attributive clause), and to write a paragraph or even an essay. We are using the first method when we say, for instance, "To mend means to repair," or "A fellow is a man or a boy." Ink may be defined in a sentence: "Ink is colored water which we use for writing." But a synonym or a sentence cannot give a satisfactory definition of an abstract term whose meaning is complex. We have to write a paragraph or an essay with examples or negative examples (what the term does not mean), with analogies or comparisons, with classification or cause-and-effect analysis.
When we give a definition, we should observe certain principles.
First, we should avoid circular definitions. "Democracy is the democratic process" and "An astronomer is one who studies astronomy" are circular definitions. When words are defined in terms of themselves, no one's understanding is improved.
Second, we should avoid long lists of synonyms if the term to be defined is an abstract one. When a paragraph begins with "By imagination, I mean the power to form mental images of objects, the power to form new ideas, the gift of employing images in writing, and the tendency to attribute reality to unreal things, situations and states," the reader knows the writer is picking up words and expressions from a dictionary, indiscriminately blasting a load of abstract terms at the reader in the hope that one will hit.
Third, we should avoid loaded definitions. Loaded definitions do not explain terms but make an immediate appeal for emotional approval. A definition like "By state enterprise I mean high cost and poor efficiency" is loaded with pejorative emotional connotation. Conversely, "By state enterprise I mean one of the great blessings of democratic planning" is loaded with favorable emotional connotation. Such judgements can be vigorous conclusions to a discussion, but they lead to argument, not clarification, when offered as definitions.
The following paragraphs are good examples of clear and objective defition.

    A "liberated woman" is simply a woman who controls her own life, rather than allowing it to be controlled by other people, traditions, or expectations. A "liberated woman" can be found pursuing any line of work, including housework, or no work at all. She may or may not be married; she may or may not have borne children. She may belong to any race; she may have attained any age. She may be poor or wealthy, educated or illiterate. She need have only one trait in common with her "liberated sisters": she makes her own choices, whether they be the colors on her walls or the advanced degrees she seeks. She acts of her own volition, responsible to herself, and not out of fear of what her mother, lover, or neighbor might say.

- Klarner W. Harp

    A kachina doll is a small, carved, wooden, humanlike representation of the supernatural beings worshiped by the Hopi Indians. Kachinas are not gods: as their name denotes, Ka for respect and china for spirit, they are respected spirits of the dead, of mineral, plant, bird, animal, and human entities. Kachinas are not gods, but rather they are intermediaries or messengers to the gods. In the polytheistic Hopi society, all plants and animals, as well as some inanimate things, have spirits which the Hopi visualize in human form. When a Hopi goes to gather yucca roots to use as shampoo, he prays to the spirit of the first plant he finds and passes it by gathering the second one. When he goes hunting, he prays to the spirit of the game and apologizes for having to take its life. Thus the spirits of men, animals, and plants are the kachinas most often carved into kachina dolls.

- LaDean McConahay

10. Development by a Combination of Methods

We have discussed quite a few methods for developing paragraphs. Sometimes only one of them is used in a paragraph, but often two or three of them are used in the same paragraph. Writers may find it necessary to use a combination of methods in order to present their ideas in an impressive and convincing manner.

    Kin-tay often told Kizzy stories about himself. He said that he had been near his village in Africa, chopping wood to make a drum, when he had been set upon by four men, overwhelmed, and kidnapped into slavery. When Kizzy grew up and became a mother, she told her son these stories, and he in turn would tell his children. His granddaughter became my grandmother, and she pumped that saga into me as if it were plasma, until I knew by rote the story of the African, and the subsequent generational wending of our family through cotton and tobacco plantations into the Civil War and then freedom.

- Alex Haley

Two methods are clearly seen in this paragraph: development by time and development by cause and effect.

    The Eastern religious movements [in the United States] are made up almost exclusively of white, educated, middle- and upper-middle-class young people. Most have at least begun college, although some have dropped out after a year or two. Men and women seem to participate in fairly equal numbers, but men control the leadership groups. There is no predominance of any particular regional background, although more of the devotees seem to come from urban than from rural areas, probably because the movements are generally based in cities.

- Harvey Cox

This paragraph is mainly developed by means of detail: sentences 2-4 give some details explaining the first sentence, which is a general statement. At the same time, there is classification in the paragraph. The devotees are composed of young people studying at college and those who have dropped out, men and women, people from cities and people from rural areas.