Creating Unity

Sometimes writers get caught up in the moment and cannot resist a good digression. Even though you might enjoy such detours when you chat with friends, unplanned digressions usually harm a piece of writing.

Mariah stayed close to her outline when she drafted the three body paragraphs of her essay she tentatively titled "Digital Technology: The Newest and the Best at What Price?" But a recent shopping trip for an HDTV upset her enough that she digressed from the main topic of her third paragraph and included comments about the sales staff at the electronics store she visited. When she revised her essay, she deleted the off-topic sentences that affected the unity of the paragraph.

Read the following paragraph twice, the first time without Mariah's changes, and the second time with them. Click on the image of her paragraph to make it larger and easier to read.

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 Exercise 1

Value: 1

Do you agree with Mariah's decision to make the deletions she made? Did she cut too much, too little, or just enough? Explain

   

 Exercise 2

Value: 1

Is the explanation of what screen resolution means a digression, or is it audience friendly and essential to understanding the paragraph? Explain.

   

 


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