Writing Modes

Narration: This involves telling a short nonfiction story or anecdote (personal experience, observation, or reflection based on past experiences). It is a direct short story that will add spark to your writing while introducing the topic or illustrating a main point.

An example follows . . .

Around 2 a.m. something woke Charles Hanson up. He lay in the dark listening. Something felt wrong. Outside, crickets sang, tree-frogs chirruped. Across the distant forest floated two muffled hoots from a barred owl. It was too quiet. And much too dark. Even starlight failed to penetrate the 80-foot canopy of trees the camper was parked beneath. It was the darkest dark he had ever seen. He felt for the flashlight beside his bunk. It was gone. He found where his pants were hanging and, as he felt the pockets for a box of matches, something rustled in the leaves right outside the window, inches from his face. He heard his wife, Wanda, hold her breath; she was awake, too. Then, whatever, was outside in the darkness also breathed, and the huge silence of the night seemed to come inside the camper, stifling them. It was then he decided to pack up and move to a motel.

Writing samples courtesy of by Gerald Grow, PhD, Division of Journalism, Florida A&M University © 1999. May be used by teachers for nonprofit educational use. May not be reprinted elsewhere without permission. Available at: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/

Description: Your reader cannot see what you see, so using word pictures called concrete sensory images (the senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) is like making a multisensory film. You want the readers to vividly sense the subject. You, as the writer, want to select details that will create a dominant impression of the subject, so the reader will sense it as a whole.

O'Leno Park is a good example of a state park in Florida. Surrounded by the tall, shaded woods of a beautiful hardwood forest, the Santa Fe River disappears in a large, slowly swirling, tree-lined pool. Nearby, stands of cypress mirror themselves in the still waters, walls of dense river swamp rise before you, sudden sinkholes open in the woodlands-rich with cool ferns and mosses. Farther from the river, expanses of longleaf pinelands stretch across rolling hills. In the midst of this lovely setting are 65 campsites, 18 rustic cabins, and a pavilion for group meetings. A diving platform marks a good place to swim in the soft, cool waters of the Santa Fe, and canoeing up this dark river is like traveling backwards in time in the direction of original Florida.

Comparison and/or Contrast: Often explaining how things are alike or different, or how they were and how they have changed, will present new information. This strategy can be useful in showing relationships; by showing the comparisons and/or contrasts, we provide clarity and insight and, therefore, we understand each one more clearly.

Forest and river dominate O'Leno State Park. By contrast, Lloyd Beach State Recreation Area, near Fort Lauderdale, is dominated by the oily bodies of sun-worshippers who crowd into it every summer weekend. Where O'Leno offers so much quiet that campers can hear the leaves whispering, Lloyd Beach is a place of boisterous activity. Walk a few yards in O'Leno and you’ll pass beyond every sign of human civilization. When you walk at Lloyd Beach, you have to be careful to step over the picnic baskets, umbrellas, jam boxes, and browning bodies. At night, O'Leno wraps itself with the silence of crickets and owls; whereas, Lloyd Beach is busy with fishermen till well past midnight. If you want to fish near town, or dive into the busy bustle of an urban beach, Lloyd Beach is the place to go. But if you want to stand at the edge of civilization and look across time into an older natural world, O'Leno is the park to visit.

Definition: This strategy is necessary to define key terms, vague terms, or ambiguous terms. Your reader needs to know exactly what you mean so that he or she can understand your points.

"Park" is difficult to define in Florida, because there are so many kinds of parks. Basically, a park is a place to go for outdoor recreation-to swim, picnic, hike, camp, walk the dog, play tennis, paddle your canoe, and, in some places take rides in miniature trains or swish down a waterslide. Florida has a rich variety of parks, ranging from acres of RVs ringed around recreation halls, to impenetrable mangrove wilderness. To make things more complicated, not all of them are called "parks," and even the ones called "parks" come in several varieties.

Process Analysis:Sometimes explaining how something is done, made, or works, or how it came to be, will clarify a topic for a reader. Writing of this type analyzes the process, breaks it into steps, and shows how the process works.

When you find the park you are looking for, you will need to make camp.

* First, clear a 9 by 9 foot area of snags, limbs, and anything that might pierce the bottom of the tent. Unfold the tent so that the corners of the waterproof bottom form a square. Peg down the corners of the bottom.

* Next, snap together all four external tent-poles (they are held together by shock cords to make sure you get the pieces matched up).

* Place a pole near each of the pegs. Thread each pole through the two loops leading toward the top of the tent.

* After you have all four poles in place, lift one of the poles. While holding the pole up, pull its guyrope tight and peg the guyrope down, so that the pole is held up by the guyrope and the pegs on opposing sides of the tent bottom.

* Lift the pole on the opposite side of the tent in the same way, but this time, fit it into the upper end of the standing pole before securing its guywire.

* Assemble the two remaining tent poles in a similar manner.

* Finally, unroll the front flap to form an awning. Prop up the awning with the two remaining poles and secure them with guyropes.

Now you are ready to move in.

Cause and Effect: By explaining or analyzing the causes and/or effects of something, and the whys and what happened or will happen, your readers will be able to understand and sometimes cope with the new ideas.

In recent decades, cities have grown so large that now about 50% of the Earth's population lives in urban areas. There are several reasons for this occurrence. First, the increasing industrialization of the nineteenth century resulted in the creation of many factory jobs, which tended to be located in cities. These jobs, with their promise of a better material life, attracted many people from rural areas. Second, there were many schools established to educate the children of the new factory laborers. The promise of a better education persuaded many families to leave farming communities and move to the cities. Finally, as the cities grew, people established places of leisure, entertainment, and culture, such as sports stadiums, theaters, and museums. For many people, these facilities made city life appear more interesting than life on the farm, and therefore drew them away from rural communities.

Classification: Writers often use this “sorting out” tactic to clarify a complicated or complex topic. The writer looks at the topic and breaks it into components or subgroups that can be more easily understood. Each component is described and explained in relationship to the others. The individual components, as well as the relationship between them, can be more easily understood by the reader.

Today, most Internet users access the web in one of three ways, either on a handheld device, a laptop or notebook computer, or from a full-fledged desktop model, usually with a tower or large capacity hard drive. Although all three provide the same basic service, the features, capabilities, and functions differ greatly.

Problem/Solution

As implied by the name, this type of writing presents one or more problems and then provide one or more solutions. The key is to clearly present, explain, and demonstrate the problem and then to do the same for solutions that logical, effective, and realistic.

Although tent cities are common in Hawai’i, these unregulated communities present various health and safety problems, including lack of running water and sewers and ample opportunity for various crimes involving drugs, theft, and even violence. Short of an outright ban, other measures the authorities could take are to provide portable toilets, a common water supply, and increased police patrols.