Waltz right through development
Exposition writing in oral patterns

In the hands of a beginning writer, exposition — writing that exposes ideas the way tabloids expose celebrities' behavior — can have as little solid content as a tabloid story.

Beginning writers' expository paragraphs are often underdeveloped because students don't know what to include when exposition writing is required.

Since beginning writers often are not required to express even their evidence in complete sentences, the only building material they have for their expository paragraphs is a few sentence fragments.

It's no wonder their body paragraphs are puny.

Students need to be taught strategies for developing their ideas. To be exposition, writing must explain a writer's ideas so well readers don't have to guess at what the writer had in mind.

SOP for giving evidence

The standard way of presenting evidence is

Subject verb object.

Or, if the grammatical terms turn you off,

Source said that ____.

There's nothing exotic about that model. It's the way we present evidence when we talk:

My mother said I had to do my homework first.

The weather report said it would rain later.

Using the standard way of presenting evidence is far more important in exposition writing than in exposition in conversation, as you will soon learn.

Evidence writing conventions

In business and academic writing, the only word used to convey the meaning said is said. Do not use avowed, sighed, crowed, exclaimed, drawled or any other descriptive word in business or academic writing.

Also, do not use adverbs in business or academic writing to tell how the source said the information. No loudly, sharply, or thoughtfully.

And never, reverse the normal subject-verb order; "said Jones" is pretentious and slows down reading speed.

1, 2, 3. Feel the rhythm. 1, 2, 3.

You can teach even middle school students to develop the ideas in their expository paragraphs more fully by doing the evidence waltz. The waltz steps are:

1. Prepare the reader to receive the evidence.

2. Present the evidence.

3. Pull out the significance of the evidence for the reader.

You need to explain to students exactly what each of those steps means and how to perform it.

The prep step: evidence ahead

Writers need to alert readers to the fact that they are about to present evidence and suggest what the readers can expect in the evidence. They will say things such as:

The first study to show the need for paint box turtles to use lead-free paints was done in 1954.

The preparation always names the source of the information. A source may be a person or a group of people (such as the American Medical Association or the University of Alaska).

The source can also be a term that refers to a person or group, such as Capitol Hill, meaning Congress, or the Oval Office, meaning the President of the United States.

The preparation step also gives the source's credentials. By credentials, we mean what makes the source an expert on the topic under discussion. Is the source an expert because she is president of the League of Latin Teachers or because she had her oratorio produced at Carnegie hall when she was 7?

Once you start looking at how expository paragraphs are developed, you will see that writers often make a single sentence perform all three of the prep step tasks.

Summarize & slip credentials in

Writers usually slip the source's credentials into their exposition by writing the credentials in the same sentence with the expert's name. Below are some examples of how to do that. I put the credentials in orange so they stand out.

Maybell Muttonhead, 16-term mayor of Mudflats, said.....

Cliff Clench, 1957 Montana state wresting champ, said.......

Dried Pea Collectors League of North America President Chick Legume said ..........

In a short essay or a literature review in a term paper, it is OK to take up to a full sentence to establish the source's credentials; taking more space than that feels like you are padding the essay.

The presentation step: summarize

In business and academic writing evidence is almost always presented as a summary. Paraphrase and quotation are frowned on.

I recommend you require students to summarize evidence when they gather it. Then when it's time to put the evidence into their exposition, writing it as a summary is no problem at all.

Pull out significance of evidence

Beginning writers of all ages overlook the third step of the evidence waltz, which is explaining to readers how the evidence supports the point the writer is trying to make.

In other words, writers must explain how a specific bit of evidence is an example of the reason that they gave in their topic sentence for believing their thesis statement is true.

Follow the conversational pattern

Most of us have no trouble pulling out the significance of evidence when we talk. For example, I say to my walking partner, "The weather forecaster says it will rain all day Thursday, so I guess we'd better not plan to walk that afternoon."

I could just as well find some other significance in my evidence. I might say, "The weather forecaster says it will rain all day Thursday, so that might be a good day for us to go see the new baby."

Why stating the significance matters

In a conversation where all parties know the context, a listener may be able to figure out the significance of evidence without help. However, when writers need to explain the significance in case readers lack the background information and context the writer has.

Learn tips for teaching the evidence waltz for exposition writing.