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...
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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.
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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.
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"A led to B" is a claim; how A led to B is the development.
Match each method to how it should be written.
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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.
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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?
Write from an audience that cannot see the step
- Readers accept that a price rose and that the queue shortened, but they cannot see the step between those facts.
- Choose the method of development.
Readers already know a lunch price rose and that the queue later shortened. They do not see the step between the two. Which method of development fits that obstacle?
The unseen step is a cause-effect problem.
Which method fits readers who miss the step between price and queue?
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The missing link is the cause-effect job.