Using Methods of Development
IntroducedPick the method from the obstacle, not the topic
- Students choose a method because the topic "feels like" a story or a comparison.
- The right question is different: what stands between this audience and my claim?
- Remove that obstacle and you have chosen the method.
Choosing a method by topic alone is like taking an umbrella because the calendar says Tuesday.
Matching obstacle to method
- They need to feel the situation → narration.
- They accept the facts but not the connection → cause-effect.
- Abstraction is the obstacle and they cannot see it → description.
Which method does this obstacle call for?
Match each audience obstacle to the method that removes it.
A method of development should be chosen from...
The obstacle decides the method; the same topic can call for different methods.
Writing narration well
- Keep the story short enough that the reflection is not squeezed out.
- Choose the detail that carries the claim, not the detail you remember best.
- End on the reflection, in your own voice, connecting it to the argument.
In narration, you should choose the detail you remember most vividly.
Choose the detail that carries the claim — vividness alone is colour.
Choosing a method because the topic "feels like" a story is choosing by habit. The method should follow from the audience's obstacle — what stands between them and your claim — which means the same topic can call for different methods with different readers.
In cause-effect writing, spend your sentences on the ____ between cause and effect.
"A led to B" is a claim; how A led to B is the development.
Match each method to how it should be written.
Each method has a part that carries the marks, and it is not the part students expand.
Writing cause-effect well
- State the cause, state the effect, then spend your sentences on the step between them.
- That step is the part a reader can dispute, so it is the part worth defending.
- "A led to B" is a claim; how A led to B is the development.
Select all the checks this lesson gives for a method choice.
Repeating last time's method is habit, which is the thing to check against.
Checking your choice
- Ask: could I have made this point with a different method?
- If yes, ask what this one does that the other would not.
- If you cannot answer, the method was chosen by habit rather than by purpose.
Arguing that a fee deters students, one writer describes a corridor conversation (narration — the reader needed to feel it). Another shows how the fee falls due before the loan arrives (cause-effect — the reader accepted the fee existed but not that it deterred). Same claim, different obstacle, different method.
Choose a method from the audience's obstacle, not the topic. Narration needs a short story and a reflection; cause-effect needs your sentences spent on the step between cause and effect. Then check: what does this method do that another would not?