Essay Exercise 1

Study the paragraphs that follow, paying particular attention to the order of the sentences and, if appropriate, to the placement of the main idea. In the space that follows, write the pattern of paragraph organization represented.


1			The bay in front of the dock was framed by the shores of the mainland, which curved together from both sides to meet in a point. At that vertex another island, rocky and tall, rose from the water. It looked uninhabited; and although a few cabins were scattered along the mainland, between and behind them was unbroken forest. It was my first sight of a natural wilderness. Behind our tent, too, and several other tents here and a house in their midst, was the forest. Over everything, as pervasive as sunshine, was the fragrance of balsam firs. It was aromatic and sweet and I closed my eyes and breathed deeply to draw in more of it. --Sally Carrighar, Home to the Wilderness




2			B. [In this passage, the narrator, Robinson Crusoe, describes an incident when he found a single footprint in the sand. He had been shipwrecked, and he had thought the island where he landed to be uninhabited.] It happened one day about noon. Going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition: I listened, I looked around me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything. I went up to a rising ground, to look further; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but, after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. --Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe




3			C. Every culture, in every time throughout history, has commemorated the transition of a human being from one state in life to another. Birth, the emergence into manhood, graduation from school at various levels, birthdays, marriage, death--each of these outstanding steps is acknowledged by a ceremony of some sort, always public, the guests in effect becoming witnesses to the statement of life's ongoingness, of the natural order of history. To insure the special significance of this rite of passage, its apartness from any other event of the day, these rituals usually require pageantry, costumed adornment, and are accompanied by gift-bearing and feasting. We wear black to funerals, bring presents to christenings and birthday parties, get loaded at wakes, eat ourselves sick at bar mitzvahs. Birth, marriage and death, to be sure, are the most elemental and major steps, and as there is only one of those ritual commemorations for which we are actually, fully present, the wedding becomes, for mankind, its most vital rite of passage. And for this reason it is anchored at the very core of civilization. --Marcia Seligson, The Eternal Bliss Machine: America's Way of Wedding




4			D. Swimming is essentially a simple and even a humble sport. It inspires none of the mass adulation of baseball, or the protocol or tennis or the folklore of fishing or the esprit de corps of skiing. Most sports require equipment ranging from a ball to a bull, but swimming is independent even of the fins and goggles and other innovations that have brought so much new fun in the water. This is the sport of commoners. All you need to enjoy it is a certain amount of water--the most abundant substance on earth. --John Knowles, "Everybody's Sport," Holiday




5			E. During the spawning season, a female darter lays around six hundred eggs in the swift water of the gravel shoals in the shallowest parts of a river. The eggs, rolling along the bottom, have a sticky exterior, and will fasten onto a stone. There, for about two weeks, the embryos inside develop. Upon hatching, they drift downstream to a pool of deep water--if they are lucky, that is; infant mortality as with most fish, is very high. Probably less than one or two per cent of the eggs laid produce adults. All kinds of darters, including snail darters, probably eat snail-darter eggs and larvae. The deep-water pools act as snail-darter nurseries. For some weeks, the larvae live on the unconsumed egg yolk they carry with them. They are strange, still embryonic-looking things, less than a quarter of an inch long. After the egg yolk is gone, they stay in the pool, feeding on microcrustaceans through the summer. By fall, the diet shifts to snails, and the fish make their way back upstream in the shallows. --Eugene Kinkead, "Tennessee Small Fry, " The New Yorker




6			F. We have a good idea why the two species of big cats [tigers and lions], despite their historical proximity, failed to hybridize in nature. First, they liked different habitats. Lions stayed mostly in open savanna and grassland and tigers in forests, although the segregation was far from perfect. Second, their behavior was and is radically different in ways that count for the choice of mates. Lions are the only social cats. They live in prides, whose enduring centers are closely bonded females and their young. Upon maturing, males leave their birth pride and join other groups, often as pairs of brothers. The adult males and females hunt together, with the females taking the lead role. Tigers, like all other cat species except lions, are solitary. The males produce a different urinary scent from that of lions to mark their territories and approach one another and the females only briefly during the breeding season. In short, there appears to have been little opportunity for adults of the two species to meet and bond long enough to produce offspring. --Edwin O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life

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