Back to "The Essay as a Whole"
Unity
Another word for unity is "focus." An essay should be focussed on one main point. A paragraph should make a point. A sentence should make a point.
But what is a "point"? Which of the following are points, that is, make a point? Which could be the main point of a paragraph (in which case it is called the topic sentence) or of an essay (in which case it is the thesis)?
Compare the following paragraphs for unity. What is the topic sentence in each paragraph? Which version is easier to read? Why?
1a) The pilot of an airplane, whether he flies a Piper Cub or one of the giant jetliners which have two decks, carry over 300 passengers, and are now in use throughout the world on most runs of 3,000 miles or more, must depend on his instruments (H,84).
1b) The pilot of an airplane, whether he flies a giant jetliner which carries over 300 passengers or a Piper Cub, must depend on his instruments. Without an altimeter, for example, ...
2a) When I set out to gather material for my feature story, the town library, which has an unusually good reference collection thanks to the generosity of one of the early settlers who established an endowed fund for reference works, was my first stop (H,84).
2b) When I set out to gather material for my feature story, the town library was my first stop. It has an unusually good reference collection thanks to the generosity of an early settler who established an endowed fund for reference works. Here I could find ...
3a) His mother, who had been living in Ohio, where she had been keeping house for her nephew who had lost his wife in a car accident and needed help in bringing up his three small children, having been in poor health since her husband died, because she suffered from chronic asthma, had to move to Colorado (M,118).
3b) His mother had to move to Colorado. She had been living in Ohio, helping her widowed nephew bring up his three small children, but her asthma became so bad that she was forced to move to a drier climate.
4a) College entrance tests seem to be holy writ to counselors, for they take the scores to be immutable evidence of a student's ability, and they aren't always, and so when some other data might give the counselor a better understanding of the student's capacity, he'll only say, "But your score was so and so," whereas I know that a student can make an entirely different score on a different day, which I did once (W,119).
4b) College entrance tests seem to be holy writ to counselors, for they take the scores to be immutable evidence of a student's ability. They aren't always. I know that a student can make an entirely different score on a different day. Once I ...
Some other data might give the counselor a better understanding of the student's capacity. For example, ...
But even when this other information is available, the counselor will only say, "But your score was so and so." This over-reliance on test scores may derive from ... / result in ...
5a) When the cry for woman's suffrage was first heard, there was immediate opposition to it, which continued for a long time until men finally began to realize that women were entitled to the same rights as themselves, and in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified (H,86).
5b) When the cry for woman's suffrage was first heard, there was immediate opposition to it. The labor unions, for example, ...
This opposition continued for a long time, until men finally began to realize that women were entitled to the same rights as themselves. As more women entered the work force, men ...
Finally, in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. This law ...
5c) (another alternative) Despite immediate and long-lasting opposition to the cry for woman's suffrage, in 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was finally ratified. This law ...
6a) Egypt was civilized long before there was any written history of the country. Egypt has an area of 386,000 square miles. Ancient Egyptians knew so much about embalming that some of their mummies are preserved for us to view in museums. The people of the world are concerned about saving these treasures, and others, now that the course of the Nile River is to be altered in the next decade. The Egyptians carried on commerce with neighboring nations. They studied and were successful with military strategy. For a time they lived under a system of government-controlled production. There is a wide area of fertile farmland along the Nile River. The early Egyptians built great halls and temples whose ruins still stand. Without modern machinery, they built the great pyramids near Cairo. Tourists come in great numbers each year to visit them. Today Cairo is the country's hurried and noisy commercial capital. Long before the birth of Christ, Egyptians knew how to turn wastelands into arable fields. They encouraged the arts and held great meetings where learned men gathered. They were always a religious people, holding to their beliefs in many gods until about 1400 B.C. when Aton, the single god who represented the life-giving power of the sun, was established as the Egyptian deity. In 1945, Egypt gained charter membership in the United Nations (Ma,48).
6b) Egypt was civilized long before there was any written history of the country. These ancient people knew so much about embalming that some of their mummies are preserved for us to view in museums. They carried on commerce with neighboring nations. They studied and were successful with military strategy. For a time they lived under a system of government-controlled production. The early Egyptians built great halls and temples whose ruins still stand. Without modern machinery, they built the great pyramids near Cairo. Long before the birth of Christ, Egyptians knew how to turn wastelands into arable fields. They encouraged the arts and held great meetings where learned men gathered.
7a) The composition student, in one year alone, sees enough waste to permanently destroy his sense of well-being. He sacrifices fifty minutes a day, five days a week, thirty-six weeks of the otherwise useful year. If his scooter is missing or if Mary Lou wasn't home when he called last night or if breakfast was burned, it's hard for him to keep his mind on paper writing. No matter how full of vitality he is when he marches into the classroom, the essay writer droops away, physically exhausted, when the final bell rings. One of those "dedicated" teachers can turn a potential writer into a nervous, quaking mouse with her constant shoulder-tapping, head-shaking and advice-giving. Even the most enthusiastic student is ready to give up when he has to be listening always to reprimands about spelling and where to put he semicolon. Writing is bad enough, but writing under such a dictator who denies the classroom citizen his freedom is unbearable. Writing materials are wasted, too. High school students have to buy ball point pens for one class, cartridge pens for another, and compasses and drawing pencils for others. It's sometimes pretty difficult to figure out how the Public Education System can call itself "free." Some of the less expensive notebooks fall apart when one semester is about half through, which means probably the notebook was not a wise choice after all (Ma,50).
7b) The composition student, in one year alone, sees enough waste to permanently destroy his sense of well-being. He sacrifices fifty minutes a day, five days a week, thirty-six weeks of the otherwise useful year. No matter how full of vitality he is when he marches into the classroom, the essay writer droops away, physically exhausted, when the final bell rings. Writing materials are wasted, too.
8a) European castles still standing prove that life in those great damp structures was far from comfortable. Cold, wet drafts blew through the long corridors, and heating such a barn was difficult and expensive. Although many bedrooms had fireplaces in them, the beds still had to be heavily curtained in winter before the occupants could keep from freezing to death. Walls were draped with tapestries and curtains to keep the cold winds out of other rooms. Five hundred years ago, it might have been easy for a lord to retain a hundred carpenters to build enough heavy oak pieces to furnish his manor, but today such an undertaking would cost thousands of dollars. For instance, just installing wall-to-wall carpeting in one of the gigantic rooms would make a dent in a multimillionaire's bank roll. And think of the staff that would have to be maintained if a castle were to be lived in today. There would be the kitchen help, a whole battalion of housekeepers, several moat cleaners, and an army of grounds keepers (Ma,46).
8b) At today's prices, maintaining a castle in the way the feudal lords of the middle ages did would be impossible even for the Really Rich. Any castle worth mentioning needed a big enough staff of domestics to at least keep the chewed-on bones shoveled up off the mead hall floor while the fulltime silversmith hammered out the amulets for next week's dragon slayers. Then there would have to be thatch put on the gardener's hut while he replanted the rosemary and thyme, and scullery jacks and jills to turn the pig on the spit in the galley. Menservants stood by in platoons to weld the knights into their armor and to let down the drawbridge and grind it up again if the Danes tried sneaking through. Add knights and embroidered squires waiting for permission to Crusade, and pink and pretty ladies-in-waiting standing by to deliver the next sonnet to Milady's courtly love. Add the cost for all this to the expense of feeding the Poor Porters, the cellarful of emaciated unknowns, and the fish in the moat. The monthly expense of the noble family's entourage would be enough to eat the heart out of any modern multimillionaire's paycheck.
Explain why the following paragraphs lack unity:
1) As the owner of a small business you can best create good will by giving each customer the impression that his patronage is of special importance to you. You should observe the order of arrival of customers and not wait on one out of his turn, even if he is an especially good customer. You of course are dealing with many customers as the day passes and you get tired, but if you concentrate on each customer as though he is the first important one you've seen that day, he will respond to your interest and will tend to think that you really do consider him special. Once he gets that idea in mind, you have acquired a steady patron. The simplest reason is that you have flattered your customer by making him think that he is important, and the person who does not respond to flattery is rare indeed.
Another way to build good will in a small business is to always keep only first-rate goods for your customers. In a small business, most of your sales will be to repeat-customers whom you know. All you have to do to lose one of them is to sell him one piece of inferior merchandise. It's true that other stores with cheaper items will draw off some of your trade, but as the buyers learn that the cheaper items are not good, they will come back to you and pay the higher prices that you have to charge for good merchandise. To encourage your customers to come back you should once in a while give them a little extra without extra cost, such as a little more than a pound of nails (W,93).
2) Being lucky helps, but you can still win at poker even if you are not lucky enough to hold good cards. You can bluff your way to good pots. If you plan to bluff regularly, you must be careful not to establish a pattern of betting. Keep your opponents off guard by varying your play widely. On the other hand, if you plan to bluff only rarely, try to establish the reputation of being a steady, conservative player. Don't let a drink too many cause you to overestimate a hand. When you are actually bluffing a hand, be sure not to give yourself away with some odd gesture, such as eye-blinking. And after you have won a bluff, never, never let your opponents know you were bluffing (W,96).