|
WHAT IS BASIC EXPOSITION? Basic exposition is writing which tells as quickly and clearly as possible exactly what the point of the writing is. Basic exposition is one of the four types of discourse (based on a 1949 text titled Modern Rhetoric by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks). While rhetoricians, linguists, and other language experts have developed many other newer specialized approaches to discourse, these four types can serve as a useful way to understand the type of writing you undertake when you write an expository paper. The four types of discourse are: narration, description, argumentation, and exposition. Narration is telling a story. Henry James perhaps best defined the novel when he called it a good story well told. Description is describing, sometimes using merely descriptive words ("flowery" descriptions are usually weak attempts at writing), often using analogy, metaphor, and effective imagery. (Note the word "effective." Try to decide when imagery is effective and when ineffective, to avoid mixing metaphors-such as "This has all the earmarks of an eyesore," or "up against a vicious stone wall"--, and to use valid illustrations.) Argumentation is persuasion, trying to get someone to change their* [*for a justification of using singular pronoun with plural antecedent, see end of manuscript, p. 16] minds or come over to your way of thinking. (Often considered "preaching.") When argumentation goes on without proof, the result is weak, frequently purposefully propagandistic writing, and may reflect "begging the question." Have a look at "logical fallacies," in almost any writing book. Exposition is exposing, explaining, clarifying, proving, illustrating. Its purpose differs from that of narration and description, which is often far more alluring or charming or shocking or spell-binding. A notable difference between exposition and narration is that while exposition is designed to reveal its message as quickly and clearly as possible, narration often may not reveal its purpose for many, many pages. A mystery novel, in fact, usually won't reveal "who dunnit" until the end. Exposition's purpose also differs from argumentation, which is to persuade, convince, to change another's viewpoint or opinion or thinking, often to yours. Analysis - Team action. Narration and description work as a team. They rarely involve argumentation or exposition. If a narration lapses into argumentation, a writer too easily becomes a preacher. Most writers of any integrity do not want that to happen. They want to write art rather than sermons. On the other hand, argumentation and exposition almost always involve bits and pieces of narration and description. If we define narration as telling a story and argumentation as preaching, then we can illustrate the point by saying that story tellers rarely preach, but preachers frequently tell stories. Narration. As children we get a taste of the narrative impulse with the phrase, "Once upon a time…." Novels, short stories, tales by the campfire, any form of telling a story is narration. Christ's parables and Mohammed's tales are narration. Many poems are narration, especially the epic. While we traditionally conceive of narrative as prose, it also includes an important classification of poetry. Epics are book-length poems that tell stories about heroes, national events, and the founding of nations. Poetry is, in fact, often divided into three general categories: narrative, dramatic, and lyric.
Description does just that-it describes. The description may be natural, it may be emotional, it may be surrealistic and weird. One of the most common items to describe is a sunset. Effective description involves more than just hues and colors, reaching emotional and spiritual levels with words. Description is also important in science. To many, geological strata and microbes and blood cells can be as appealing and powerful as love and turmoil. Descriptive writing tells not only the what but sometimes helps resolve the how and why. How do these feelings, how does this rock layer, affect me? Why do I feel a different sense of time or being when looking at tonight's sunset or through this microscope? Argumentation is closely related to persuasion. Ideally argumentation contains examples and illustrations and proof. When it does not contain these items, argumentation shrivels to mere propaganda. When you argue, you are usually trying to convince somebody of something (in writing, for our purposes). Responsible argument involves logic, common sense, appeal to kindness and fair play and justice and the healthy side of things. Emotion is always involved. Listing facts, statistics, data, and reporting observation drifts toward and usually results in explanation (an important part of exposition). When you season data with opinion and emotional appeal, you merge into argumentation. When you leave out some data, or change it, you merge into propaganda and deception. Unless you have an audience you know is already prepared for your message, to be convincing you need a careful balance between facts and desire, what we call common sense. There are many who argue from a standpoint of emotion alone. Preaching is considered by many as spoken argumentation. Exposition could in some ways be considered argumentation without emotion, without the purpose of persuading. Simply explaining, and letting the reader take their choice. If you charge your writing with strong emotion, you have not committed any sin or broken any law or any kind of writing "rules"; you have simply merged from exposition into argumentation. An important part of developing your writing skill is maintaining awareness when you are moving from one type of discourse into another, from narration into description, from exposition into argumentation. These shifts can take place in the middle of a sentence! Exposition, or explanation, involves analyzing, clarifying, evaluating; most written attempts to understand, to explain rather than to sell something, are explanatory in nature and function. This is the type of writing most college students find themselves engaged in, whether they like it or not. A key to this type is organization. If you evaluate or discuss causes of the Civil War, if you analyze the "recorder" image in Hamlet or the symbolism of "The Pit and the Pendulum," if you explain where the "temple butte" strata appears in the Grand Canyon, if you analyze symbolism in William Golding's shattering novel Lord of the Flies, you are writing explanation. If you try to reason why, or which one is better than the other, you may easily lapse into argumentation. As you can see, the two discourse pairs, 1. narration and description, and 2. argumentation and exposition, have a specialized relationship with one another, the first pair generally eschewing [don't be afraid to look this word up if you need to] the second, and the second employing the first like a favored member of the family. For better writing, it is helpful to understand the interrelationships of these four discourse functions in a little more detail. Narration and description work together. Their proportions slide about within a manuscript, with narration dominating at one time or for one writer, while description dominates for another time and author. Writers decide for themselves how much narration and how much description to use when and where. Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad represent extremities; in his short story "Hills Like White Elephants," Hemingway uses very little description. Almost the entire story is composed of action and dialogue. The story, like his hills, are barren of all but the harshest details. That is, in fact, why they look like white elephants. Conrad's short story "The Lagoon," on the other hand, is so heavily descriptive that the jungle almost becomes a character. No rules exist--no writer with any self respect would ever want to try to make such rules--which tell when and how much narration and/or description to use. The two processes flow at each writer's command--an important part of the art. One of the most fun ways to read a story, in fact, is to try to realize when a writer is narrating and when they are describing. These processes do not happen by accident. Argumentation and exposition can also work together, and both utilize narration and description. Argument, however, relies on exposition more heavily than exposition relies on argument. Argument uses explanation as an important process, but it often lapses into emotional appeal as well. Explaining can function easily without argument. How a rotary engine operates, or seven basic steps to a happier relationship. Exposition without argument can be a means of persuading, convincing a reader that your idea or approach or opinion is better by telling or reasoning how it operates. Explaining objectively, without argument, without trying to get someone to agree or spend money or vote a certain way, is closer to "pure" exposition. A handbook on how to operate a lawnmower would be an example. Nobody's trying to tell you why to operate a lawnmower. If you are reading the handbook, you've probably bought it and you've decided why to operate it. In literary analysis, at the report writing level of most college students, you are learning to balance preference, emotional reason, and choice with objective analysis, weighing elements such as imagery, plot, appeal, deciding both whether a book is worth reading and why it is worth reading.
|
