BECOME CLOSER WITH EXPOSITION TEXT

What is an exposition?

An exposition argues for or against a certain point of view based on a certain topic. An exposition is a well-structured argument or persuasion. The point of view must be supported by facts and relevant information on that topic.

An exposition needs to:

• clearly state the point of view
• use research to support that view
• address other points of view 
• defend that point of view from others. 

Examples of an exposition 

Expositions can be used to persuade other people to share your point of view. They can also be used to share your point of view on a certain topic that may have two (or more) distinct sides.

Some places that you might find expositions include:

• newspaper 
• editorials
• letters to the editor
• political speeches 
• advertisements 
• debates 

Structure of an exposition

Expositions can be either written or spoken. Often, an exposition is first written down before being presented orally.

An exposition should have a title or heading. This will introduce the topic of the text and may even show the writer's point of view on the topic.

The first paragraph is the introduction. This is where the writer states the topic that is addressed in the text. The introduction is important because this is where the writer establishes the point of view of the exposition.

The following body paragraphs are used to make different points, called claims, about the topic. Each paragraph addresses one part of the exposition topic. Each paragraph will make a point, give the reason for that point and then provide evidence for that point.

The conclusion is used to re-state the writer's point of view on a certain topic. This is where the writer sums up the ideas discussed in the text. A conclusion can also address and respond to another point of view on the topic.

To help support the point of view, visual elements can be used. These elements include charts, photographs, drawings or graphs. Visual elements often help the audience to better understand the topic.

Many expositions use evidence from other sources. If you do any research or use any facts, figures or quotes in your exposition it is important to list all these resources in the bibliography.

Preparing your own exposition

Before writing an exposition you must first establish a topic and a point of view on that topic. It is then important to research that topic and find evidence and facts to help support your point of view.

The structure of an exposition is important. Each body paragraph should have the following:

• A main point (also called a claim) 
• Your reason for that point 
• Evidence to support that point 

Make sure that your writing is easy to understand and that it is relevant to the topic through the entire exposition.

Always check your text for correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

QUIZ FOR 7 GRADE OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Here is the file of English Quiz for 7 grade students of Junior High School.
You can download the file here

Planning And Writing Essay

You can download the file here

10 Ideas for Writers by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer, recognized widely for her award-winning book, The Handmaid's Tale. While she is mostly known as a novelist, Atwood has also published many volumes of poetry, a great deal of which is inspired by myths and fairytales. 

She offers inspiring writers some practical (and perhaps not-so-practical) tips: 

1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. 
2. If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type. 
3. Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do. 
4. If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a memory stick. 
5. Do back exercises. Pain is distracting. 
6. Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B. 
7. You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine. 
8. You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up. 
9. Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. 
10. Prayer might work. Or reading something else. Or a constant visualization of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

Taken from :
http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/915

HOW TO WRITE GOOD PARAGRAPHS

A good paragraph is a mini-essay. It should demonstrate three components: 

1. Introduction, i.e., a topic sentence
2. Body, i.e., supporting details 
3. Conclusion or a transitional sentence to the paragraph that follows. 

A good paragraph is characterized by unity, coherence, and adequate development. 

Unity: 

State the main idea of the paragraph in a clearly constructed topic sentence. Make sure each sentence is related to the central thought. 

Coherence:

Arrange ideas in a clear, logical order. Provide appropriate transitions to the subsequent paragraph. 

Adequate development: 

Develop your paragraphs with specific details and examples. 

Strategies for adequate development:

Elaborate:

Spell out the details by defining, or by clarifying and adding relevant, pertinent information.

Illustrate: 

Paint a verbal picture that helps make or clarify your point(s). Well illustrated pieces are easier to read and follow than those on a high level of abstraction. 

Argue: 

Give the reasons, justifications, and rationales for the position or view you have taken in the topic sentence. Draw inferences for the reader and explain the significance of assertions or claims being made. 

Narrate: 

Relate the historical development of the phenomenon at issue. 

Process: 

Describe how something works. Describe: Observe without preconceived categories. 

Classify: 

Organize phenomena or ideas into larger categories that share common characteristics. 

Analyze: 

Divide phenomena or ideas into elements. 

Compare and Contrast: 

Show similarities and differences between two or more phenomena or ideas. 

Relate:

Show correlations and causes (beware of logical fallacies, however!)

A paragraph should be neither too short nor too long. A good paragraph in a Trinity exercise should be 5-6 sentences long. As a general rule, avoid single-sentence paragraphs. If your paragraphs run longer than a page, you are probably straining the grader’s thought span. Look for a logical place to make a break or reorganize the material. Indent each new paragraph five spaces.

How to Write Good Paragraphs

A good paragraph is a mini-essay. It should demonstrate three components:

1. Introduction, i.e., a topic sentence
2. Body, i.e., supporting details
3. Conclusion or a transitional sentence to the paragraph that follows.

A good paragraph is characterized by unity, coherence, and adequate development.

Unity:
State the main idea of the paragraph in a clearly constructed topic sentence. Make sure each sentence is related to the central thought.

Coherence:
Arrange ideas in a clear, logical order. Provide appropriate transitions to the subsequent paragraph.

Adequate development:
Develop your paragraphs with specific details and examples.

Strategies for adequate development:

Elaborate:
Spell out the details by defining, or by clarifying and adding relevant, pertinent information.

Illustrate:
Paint a verbal picture that helps make or clarify your point(s). Well illustrated pieces are easier to read and follow than those on a high level of abstraction.

Argue:
Give the reasons, justifications, and rationales for the position or view you have taken in the topic sentence. Draw inferences for the reader and explain the significance of assertions or claims being made.

Narrate:
Relate the historical development of the phenomenon at issue.

Process:
Describe how something works.

Describe:
Observe without preconceived categories.

Classify:
Organize phenomena or ideas into larger categories that share common characteristics.

Analyze:
Divide phenomena or ideas into elements.

Compare and Contrast:
Show similarities and differences between two or more phenomena or ideas.

Relate:
Show correlations and causes (beware of logical fallacies, however!)

A paragraph should be neither too short nor too long. A good paragraph in a Trinity exercise should be 5-6 sentences long. As a general rule, avoid single-sentence paragraphs. If your paragraphs run longer than a page, you are probably straining the grader’s thought span. Look for a logical place to make a break or reorganize the material. Indent each new paragraph five spaces.

Taken from:
http://www.trinitysem.edu/Student/LessonInstruction/Paragraph.html

5 Ways to Write a Damn Good Sentence

Average copywriters write average sentences. You, I’m guessing, don’t want to be average.

You want to be great. You believe you can be remarkable. That means you need to write damn good sentences … without even thinking about it … day in and day out. 

Do that and you’ll become an unstoppable writing machine. You’ll become a killer copywriter. See, everything you write … every blog post, every landing page, every email, short story, or Google+ post … begins and ends with a sentence. 

Bone up on your sentence-writing skills and those pieces of content will only get better and be more widely shared. 

Want to learn how? Follow me … 

More than mastering freshman English 

“The skill it takes to produce a sentence,” Stanley Fish said, “the skill of lining events, actions, and objects in a strict logic — is also the skill of creating a world.” In other words, sentences are the engines of creativity.

Take this sentence for instance: “Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammoth.” 

There is a mountain of meaning buried in those eight words. Sure, change the sequence and you change the meaning, but as long as you don’t screw with that framework, people will stay with you (unlike the misguided James Joyce). 

But as a copywriter it’s not just about mastering freshman English. There’s more to it. Eugene Schwartz has the answer: 

No sentence can be effective if it contains facts alone. It must also contain emotion, image, logic, and promise.

Here’s a great example: Baby shoes: for sale, never worn.” 

That’s Ernest Hemingway, and that little six-word story is possibly his best (his own estimation, not mine). Why? It’s a story selling a pair of shoes … shoes with an intense emotional connotation.

See, your sentences don’t have to say much. They just have to say the right things. Our imaginations will fill in the blanks. 

So, when you are trying to get people to respond to your requests, subscribe to your email newsletter, or donate to your cause … you need to write seductive sentences, and you need to do it naturally.

Here’s how it’s done. 

1. Insert facts 

This is nothing more than basic subject and verb agreement: “Moses ate a muffaletta.” Logical and consistent. The building blocks of a story. You insert facts by thinking through the 5 Ws: Who, What, When, Where, Why. Think specific and concrete, but how you say it matters, too. Compare “On the first day of winter Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammoth” to “On the last day of winter Moses fed his muffuletta to the woolly mammoth.” The significance is heightened in the first sentence, minimized in the second. All by one word. And notice how your sympathies change when I write, “On the first day of winter, Moses fed his muffuletta to the three-day old woolly mammoth.” Those new facts heighten the emotional appeal of that simple story. It’s the same sort of feeling you get when you read “Baby shoes: for sale, never used.”

2. Create images

It’s not a coincidence that the root of “imagination” is “image.” Imagination is the capacity for people to see the world you are trying to paint. Intelligent people like to use their imagination. Don’t insult their intelligence by over-explaining, but also don’t abuse their intelligence by starving it. Use active verbs and concrete nouns and you will naturally create images. “The buzzard bled.” Introduce one, two, or all of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and sound), and you’ll enhance those images: “The screaming buzzard bled.” Use phrases like “imagine this” or “picture this” to signal to your reader you are about to paint a picture. That’s how I opened up the 10 Productivity Tips from a Blue-Collar Genius: 

Imagine a fifty-something man in a blue long-sleeve shirt, the cuffs unbuttoned, his knuckles thick and coarse. He’s on the side of the road, quibbling over a stack of used cinder blocks with a merchant.

In those two sentences you learn the color of the shirt, the state of the cuffs, the condition of his knuckles. I tell you where he is and what he is doing in concrete language. I use very precise language to tell you what he was doing: he wasn’t talking, he was “quibbling.” Something entirely different than chatting. 

3. Evoke emotion 

You can naturally get mood into your sentences if you follow the two steps above, but as a copywriter you don’t want emotion to be an afterthought. You must carefully plan and manufacture emotion. This starts by asking: what is the dominant mood of your reader or customer? What problem is he or she trying to solve? Is it fear over losing a job? A spouse? A scholarship? Pride of donating to a good cause? Joy for finally getting muscular definition in his calves? You must know what keeps your ideal customer up at night. What makes him get up early? What are his hopes, dreams, and fears? And then you must insert that emotion into your sentences. In a post introducing the benefits of our Authority membership site, I wrote: 

How often are these little tragedies repeated in your life? 

• You write something clever, but everyone ignores it.
• You hear about a new opportunity, but don’t pursue it because you don’t have the skills or confidence to attempt it.
• You get overlooked by everybody – including your boss – because the guy in the next cubicle seems to know everything about SEO, email marketing, or copywriting.
• You hear about all the new clients your peers are picking up … but none are showing up at your door. 

I identified the relevant pain and agitated it so the solution was a no-brainer. In other words, if you can identify with those conditions, then the solution is probably a good thing for you. But notice those four conditions are all about rejection. Yet I didn’t use the word “reject,” or a derivative, once. I didn’t tell you the emotion you should feel. I simply showed it to you. Big difference in the quality of writing. 

4. Make Promises

But as a copywriter you aren’t merely interested in heightening people’s emotions for the sake of heightening emotions, otherwise you’d be a novelist or screenwriter. Entertainment is not a copywriter’s bread and butter. Getting action is.

So, you need people to see hope in your sentences: 

• What promises are you making to the reader in this sentence? 
• What advantages will the reader gain?
• What pain will they avoid if they obey you? 

 In the opening to The Dirty Little Secret to Seducing Readers I wrote: 

I’m guessing you want to write copy that sells. You want to write copy so irresistible it makes your readers scramble down the page — begging to do whatever it is you want when they’re done reading — whether it’s to make a purchase, send a donation, or join your newsletter.

The promise is that you can learn how to write in such a way people can’t resist your words. And that’s compelling for the right people. 

5. Practice, practice, practice 

Writing great sentences takes work.

At first it may feel mechanical, wooden. That’s okay. The goal is to get to a point where you unconsciously blend these elements so they feel natural in the sentence and can’t be pulled apart.

Sort of like when a golf instructor stops your swing to adjust your mechanics. That may feel mechanical and unnatural, but eventually your swing becomes natural and he stops interrupting you. 

Here are some exercises to help you improve your sentence writing: 

• Copy great sentences: Hand-write 100 great first sentences. Memorize portions of great sales letters. Dissect killer lines. 
• Opening and closing paragraphs: It’s arduous to consciously think about each and every sentence you write in a 500-hundred word article. However, you can pour energy into every sentence inside the opening and closing paragraphs. 
• Headlines: Your headlines won’t be complete sentences, but they offer you an opportunity to focus closely on what you are writing. 
• Subject lines: Unlike headlines you can use your subject line in an unconventional way. Write complete, robust sentences. “Thought of you while I was at the steam bath.” Who’s not going to open that email up? Measure responses, adjust, and test more ideas. 
• Tweets: Twitter is the perfect mechanism for perfecting your sentences. You are forced to say a lot in 140 characters. And you get feedback. People either respond — or they don’t. Check for retweets, favorites, and replies. And if you don’t get a response, try sharing it again. 

Your turn … 
Each sentence in a 500-word landing page may not be great, but the more you pay attention to the fundamentals above and practice the techniques, the closer you are going to get with each draft. Don’t give up. Keep plugging away.