50 Essays: A Portable Anthology - Samuel Cohen 2017

Glossary of writing terms

Allusion

A reference to an artistic work, person, place, or event about which readers are assumed to already know. The relevance of the reference is also not usually explained: Readers are assumed to understand the connection between the writer’s subject and the thing referred to. As a result of these assumptions, allusion is an economical way of making a point, as it crams a lot of information into a few words. When Judith Ortiz Cofer, in “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” (p. 103), refers to popular songs (as she does in her title, to a song from the musical West Side Story), she is making allusions — assuming that we will be familiar with her references and that we will understand the connections she is trying to make between popular songs and stereotypes.

Analogy

An extended comparison. An analogy explains features of one thing by reference to features shared with something more commonly known and understood. In “A Modest Proposal” (p. 353), Jonathan Swift makes an analogy between the treatment of the poor in Ireland and a hypothetical, imagined treatment that would be unthinkable and impossible, but, if considered in a certain way, is not far from what is actually happening to them. Swift presents the analogy indirectly — it may not be until you are far into the essay until you realize what he’s doing — but the power of the connection is the greater for it.

Argument

Writing that attempts to prove a point through reasoning. Argument presses its case by using logic and by supporting its logic with examples and evidence. When Thomas Jefferson, in “The Declaration of Independence” (p. 193), makes his case for why the American colonies should be given their independence, he introduces his list like this: “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world” (par. 6). Making a claim and then making the transition to supporting examples, Jefferson’s writing is argument.

Audience

As actors have audiences who can see and hear them, writers have readers. Having a sense of audience is important in writing because we write differently depending on who we think will be reading our work. If the audience is specific, we write in such a way that will appeal to a small group; if it is general, we write in such a way that as many people as possible will listen to, and be able to hear, what we have to say. It is especially easy to see considerations of audience in speeches, as in public documents such as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (p. 193), but it can also be seen in works in which writers are trying to explain their experiences to readers who might not have had such experiences themselves, as in Brent Staples’s “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” (p. 339).

Cause and effect

Analysis of events or situations in which reasons are sought and effects are considered. Writers tracing the chain of events leading to a present situation or arguing the consequences of a future decision are doing cause and effect writing. In “Why Don’t We Complain?” (p. 72), William F. Buckley Jr. makes his focus on cause and effect explicit: he is asking what the cause of a particular phenomenon is — “why” it exists. Over the course of his essay, he describes the phenomenon, offers examples of it, and attempts to venture some possible explanations of the cause of it, as many cause and effect essays do. In this case, the cause of a behavior — failure or reluctance to complain — is explained by a larger cultural development: an increased sense of helplessness. He then goes on to explain that phenomenon as the product of even larger historical developments: technologization and centralization of political and economic power. To take exception to Buckley’s argument, one thus has to refute at least two layers of cause and effect explanations.

Claim

What an argument tries to prove; often called a thesis. In “The Paranoid Style of American Policing” (p. 99), Ta-Nehisi Coates makes an argument that police violence against the community delegitimizes the police force in the eyes of the people. His claim is straightforward: when citizens cannot trust the police, the system is broken. Supporting that claim requires evidence and the well-reasoned addressing of opposing viewpoint, but the claim itself remains simple and clear.

Classification and division

The sorting out of elements into classes or groups, or the separation of something into its parts. Classification and division are used when a writer wants to break something down into its elements or group a number of things in order to analyze them. When Mike Rose talks about different kinds of teachers and students in “ ’I Just Wanna Be Average’ ” (p. 313), he is classifying; when Amy Tan in “Mother Tongue” (p. 362) breaks down her language use into the various Englishes she uses, she is dividing.

Cliché

An old, tired expression that writers should avoid like the plague. “Like the plague” is an example of cliché. When drafting and especially when revising, writers scan their work for words and phrases that have that less-than-fresh feeling and strike them out. “Like the plague,” for example, can be replaced with a new, concrete image, which “like the plague” must have been at one time (closer to the time of the plague itself, perhaps). The uniqueness of a writer’s voice comes in part from the words chosen. Using well-worn, often-chosen phrases can be thought of, then, as a lost opportunity.

Comparison and contrast

Examination of similarities and differences. One usually but not always appears with the other. Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America” (p. 267) shows in its first sentence that differences often arise between similar things, and so that comparison and contrast often go together: “This is a tale of two sisters from Calcutta, Mira and Bharati, who have lived in the United States for some 35 years, but who find themselves on different sides in the current debate over the status of immigrants” (par. 1).

Conclusion

The ending of an essay, which should bring the writer’s point home in a few sentences or even a paragraph or two. Good conclusions do more than repeat a thesis, and they can even sometimes point the way to extensions of the thesis, but they should not introduce entirely new thoughts. Conclusions can also be funny, as when Swift, at the end of “A Modest Proposal” (p. 353), insists he has no personal interest at stake in his ironic proposal that the people of Ireland eat their infants as, in his words, “I have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past childbearing” (par. 33).

Definition

Explanation of the nature of a word, thing, or idea. Essays that define may use many other kinds of writing, such as description, exposition, and narration. Definition essays often are really redefinition essays: they attempt to make us understand something we thought we already understood. When Nancy Mairs writes, in “On Being a Cripple” (p. 226), “As a cripple, I swagger” (par. 2), she is embracing a label that others have tried not to use and she is redefining what it means.

Description

Depiction through sensory evidence. Description is not just visual: it can use details of touch, smell, taste, and hearing. These concrete details can support a specific argument, give the reader a sense of immediacy, or establish a mood. Description, while tied to the concrete, can also use metaphor, as when Richard Rodriguez writes in “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” (p. 289), “At one point his words slid together to form one word — sounds as confused as the threads of blue and green oil in the puddle next to my shoes” (par. 16).

Diction

Word choice. Diction can be characterized in terms of level of formality (formal or informal), concreteness (specific or abstract), and other choices that reflect a level appropriate to the writer’s subject and audience. Diction is a central vehicle by which a writer makes her meaning clear, and it is a major element of a writer’s style as well, and so of her tone. The Declaration of Independence (p. 193) is an excellent example of careful word choice. In this important document, Thomas Jefferson had to make every word count, and in his choice of words, some repeated, such as equal, usurpations, tyrant, and independent, Jefferson made his meaning very clear indeed.

Draft

An unfinished essay. A draft may have a conclusion, but it has not been completely revised, edited, and proofread. When still in the draft stage, writers can rethink not just the structure of their essay but their ideas as well.

Essay

A short nonfiction piece of writing. A writer should present one main idea in an essay. There are different kinds of essays — scholarly and personal, formal and informal — and many that mix these different kinds of writing.

Evidence

The facts that support an argument. Evidence takes different forms depending on the kind of writing in which it appears, but it generally is concrete, agreed-on information that can be pointed to as example or proof. In “Serving in Florida” (p. 136), Barbara Ehrenreich supports the narrative of her experiences living as a low-income worker with both a detailed survey of the living conditions of her coworkers and statistical support gleaned from research. Ehrenreich’s argument is strengthened by inclusion of these different kinds of evidence.

Exemplification

Providing specific instances in support of general ideas. In “On Compassion” (p. 40), Barbara Lazear Ascher tells a number of anecdotes that serve as examples of encounters between the less fortunate and those who offer help.

Exposition

Writing that explains. Rather than showing, as in narrative, exposition tells. A majority of essays contain some exposition because they need to convey information, give background, or tell how events occurred or processes work. Lars Eighner uses exposition in “On Dumpster Diving” (p. 146) to explain who scavenges from Dumpsters, how they do it, how things in Dumpsters get there, and many other things related to Dumpster diving.

Fallacy

A logical error. Fallacies weaken an argument. They include the making of false choices, the false assigning of cause (as in saying that because something happened after something else, the first event caused the second), the making of false generalizations, and many others.

Five-paragraph essay

You should be familiar with this format from high school. It is taught because it provides an easy template for composition: an introductory paragraph, which contains your thesis statement; three body paragraphs laying out three arguments, pieces of evidence, or other kinds of support for your thesis; and a final concluding paragraph restating the thesis and summarizing the material in the body. While it can be a useful tool for beginning writers, it is confining and tends to encourage uninspiring, unimaginative writing. You will notice that none of the authors in this book use that format, and you shouldn’t either. It is the cliché of writing essays, and, like actual clichés, should be avoided — like the plague.

Introduction

The beginning of an essay; it should generally state a writer’s main point. An introduction can include a thesis statement and can even begin to develop the thesis, but it can also simply pose a question, the answer to which will be the essay’s thesis, or it can begin with a story, out of which the thesis will come. William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Why Don’t We Complain?” (p. 72) is a good example of this kind of introduction.

Irony

Verbal irony is writing that says one thing while it means something else, often the opposite of what it says (sarcasm is one form of verbal irony). The difference between literal meaning and implicit meaning is often used to suggest the difference between what a situation or person seems or pretends to be and what it or he really is. This use of irony is the reason irony often appears in satirical writing (writing that mocks a situation or idea). Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (p. 353) is entirely ironic; the difficulty lies in figuring out what meaning Swift intends, since the literal meaning is certainly not his message. When something occurs that is counter to what is expected (what people often refer to when they say something is ironic), it is sometimes called situational irony. An example of this latter form of irony can be seen in the conclusion of Langston Hughes’s “Salvation” (p. 185).

Metaphor

Metaphor can be understood as a figure of speech (a nonliteral use of language) that says one thing is another or, in the form of simile, as a figure of speech that says one thing is like another. In both cases, the writer is trying to explain one thing by means of comparing it to another, more familiar thing. One example of the metaphor that makes a comparison by saying one thing is another comes from E. B. White’s “Once More to the Lake” (p. 404): “It took a cool nerve, because if you threw the switch a twentieth of a second too soon you would catch the flywheel when it still had speed enough to go up past center, and the boat would leap ahead, charging bull-fashion at the dock” (par. 10). Note that this metaphor does not say explicitly that the boat is a bull; rather it says that the boat would leap and charge bull-fashion.

Narration

Telling a story, or giving an account of an event. Narration is a part of many different kinds of writing. Writers often tell an anecdote, or short narrative often told to make a point, as support for an argument. Some essays are almost entirely narration, but usually the events of the story lead to some kind of conclusion. George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” (p. 272) is largely narration and leads him to a very specific conclusion, as can be seen when he writes, of the story he tells, “It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism — the real motives for which despotic governments act” (par. 3).

Paragraph

A series of sentences, set off by an initial indentation or a blank line, that develop a main idea. Paragraphs often have topic sentences that state that main idea, followed by sentences that offer support.

Paraphrase

A rephrasing of a section of a work into one’s own words. A paraphrase is different from a summary in that it includes the details of a work and so is of similar length to the original; a paraphrase is similar to a summary in that both attempt to give some sense of another work without using its words.

Plagiarism

Using another person’s words or ideas in one’s own work without acknowledgment.

Point of view

The angle from which a writer sees his or her subject. No matter how objective or impartial a writer claims to be, he or she is always writing from a point of view influenced by age, race, gender, and economic and social status, to name just a few factors. In the personal essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (p. 188), Zora Neale Hurston acknowledges writing from her own point of view.

Prewriting

Writing that happens before drafting. Prewriting is an early stage in the writing process during which writers brainstorm, come up with topics and theses, and begin to work on ways to develop them.

Process analysis

Explaining how to do something, how others do it, or how certain things occur. Often process analysis supports another aim — to make a point or to tell one’s own story, for example. When Malcolm X tells the story of his self-education in “Learning to Read” (p. 240), for example, he explains the process he went through to teach himself to read and also describes how he learned about the history of Africa and African Americans.

Quotation

The inclusion of the words of another in one’s own work, indicated by surrounding quotation marks. Used to convey a sense of the person who wrote or spoke those words, or to reproduce a phrase or sentence or more that perfectly captures some meaning the writer wishes also to convey, or to borrow some authority from an expert or eyewitness. Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (p. 27) demonstrates a number of uses of quotation.

Revision

The stage in the process of writing after a first draft is written when writers reexamine their work and try to improve it. This improvement consists of more than editing and proofreading — it also includes reevaluating the structure, the supporting evidence, the thesis, and even the topic. All good writers revise their work.

Rhetoric

The effective use of language; also, the study of effective language use. The term can also be used negatively, as when it is said that a particular argument is really just using rhetoric, that is, using words persuasively (perhaps by making emotional appeals) without actually making a solid argument.

Story

A narrative. The term is used in a number of different senses — to indicate a narrative within a nonfiction piece, to label a news article in a newspaper or magazine, or to name the genre of short fiction. Many, perhaps most, effective essays tell some kind of story.

Style

The way a writer writes. Any of the choices writers make while writing — about diction, sentence length, structure, rhythm, and figures of speech — that make their work sound like them. The tone of a particular work can be due in part to a writer’s style. James Baldwin is known for his distinctive style, one aspect of which is the mixing of formal, sometimes biblical, language and an everyday, conversational style, as in this sentence from “Notes of a Native Son” (p. 44): “I had declined to believe in that apocalypse which had been central to my father’s vision; very well, life seemed to be saying, here is something that will certainly pass for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along” (par. 2).

Summary

A condensation, in one’s own words, of a work. Summaries consist of the main points of the work; supporting points, examples, and other kinds of support are left out.

Synthesis

The use of outside sources to gather information and opinions, in order to develop ideas, amass evidence, and support arguments. Synthesis enables writers to do more than simply express their opinion — it enables them to enter the conversation about their topic already being held in the wider world. It also allows them to complicate their ideas, to see more than one side, and to marshal information and logical arguments in the service of their position.

Thesis

The main idea in a piece of writing, which the work is trying to argue or explore. Also sometimes known as the claim, a term which also has a more specific meaning related to argumentation. The thesis can be explicit, as in essays that make an argument (as in Alan Burdick’s “The Truth about Invasive Species,” p. 79), or implicit or even secondary, as in some narrative essays (as in Cristina Henríquez’s “Lunch,” p. 182).

Thesis statement

A sentence or group of sentences, usually appearing early in a piece of writing, that announce the thesis. The thesis statement often states plainly what the work as a whole is to be about, but it can take many forms, as in the following from Stephanie Ericsson’s “The Ways We Lie” (p. 159), in which she makes an assertion and follows with a question: “We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutions. Like most people, I indulge in small falsehoods and still think of myself as an honest person. Sure I lie, but it doesn’t hurt anything. Or does it?” (par. 3).

Tone

Attitude toward subject, readers, and even the writer and work itself; also sometimes mood or atmosphere more generally. Achieved through style as well as content. In his indictment of King George III in the Declaration of Independence (p. 193), Thomas Jefferson writes, “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people” (pars. 20—21). His tone in this passage comes from his choice of words, the shape of his sentences, and his imagery.

Topic sentence

The sentence in which the writer states a paragraph’s main idea. The topic sentence often appears at or near the beginning of the paragraph. When Gloria Anzaldúa in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (p. 27) begins a paragraph, “Chicanos, after 250 years of Spanish/Anglo colonization, have developed significant differences in the Spanish we speak” (par. 18), we should suspect the rest of the paragraph will develop that idea, perhaps with examples of these differences (and we would be right).

Transitions

The connective tissue among sentences, ideas, and paragraphs. Transitions help readers follow writers through their ideas and see the connections among the parts of an argument or the relation between scenes in a narrative. Through the use of transitional words (therefore, nonetheless, then), phrases (on the other hand, as a result, in the same way), effects (such as repetition or parallel sentence structures), and even whole paragraphs, good writers include signposts to show readers the direction the argument or story is going. Nancy Mairs in “On Being a Cripple” (p. 226) begins many of her paragraphs with transitions that help readers follow the line of her thought. Some examples: “Lest I begin to sound like Pollyanna, however, let me say that I don’t like having MS” (par. 9); “Along with this fear that people are secretly accepting shoddy goods comes a relentless pressure to please” (par. 18); “This gentleness is part of the reason that I’m not sorry to be a cripple” (par. 32).