写作 Chapter Five.pptVIP

Comment: In the above paragraph, Ken Emerson offers a low-key comparison of Alice Cooper as he used to be and Alice Cooper as he is today. Notice that Emerson gives us information about the first part of the contrast (Alice before the change); then—using the transitional expression No sooner... than—gives us the other part (the new Alice Cooper). You can set up a more elaborate point-by-point contrast in a single paragraph, but unless you’re contrasting ideas stated very briefly, you’ll likely end up with an exceedingly long paragraph. Choosing a Pattern of Development Study the next paragraph in which E. B. White uses contrast to make us see the unusual beauty of most Florida days. Whereas Emerson treats the compared subjects side by side, White discusses all of one element before turning to the other. Activity On many days, the dampness of the air pervades all life, all living. Matches refuse to strike. The towel, hung to dry, grows wetter by the hour. The newspaper, with its headlines about integration, wilts in your hand and Choosing a Pattern of Development falls limply into the coffee and the egg. Envelopes seal themselves. Postage stamps mate with one another as shamelessly as grasshoppers. But most of the time the days are models of beauty and wonder and comfort, with the kind sea stroking the back of the warm sand. At evening there are great flights of birds over the sea, where the light lingers; the gulls, the pelicans, the terns, the herons stay aloft for half an hour after land birds have gone to roost. They hold their ancient formations, wheel and fish over the Pass, enjoying the last of day like children playing outdoors after suppertime. Choosing a Pattern of Development Comment: The most effective contrasts occur between ideas or things that are usually perceived as similar. White’s days are like that. So are, say, two modern science fiction writers with opposite views of the future, or two photographic techniques