Discussion Questions

1. What ideas do each of the italicized words and phrases connect?

2. What relationship does each show?

Repeated Key Words. Repeating key words, especially those that help con­vey a paragraph's central idea, can smooth the reader's path. The words may appear in different forms, but their presence keeps the main issues before the reader. In the following paragraph, the repetition of majority, minority, and will aids coherence, as does the more limited repetition of government and interests.

Whatever fine-spun theories we may devise to resolve or obscure the diffi­culty, there is no use blinking the fact that the will of the majority is not the same thing as the will of all. Majority rule works well only so long as the minority is willing to accept the will of the majority as the will of the nation and let it go at that. Generally speaking, the minority will be willing to let it go at that so long as it feels that its essential interests and rights are not fundamentally different from those of the current majority, and so long as it can, in any case, look forward with confidence to mustering enough votes within four or six years to become itself the majority and so redress the balance. But if it comes to pass that a large minority feels that it has no such chance, that it is a fixed and permanent minority and that another group or class with rights and interests fundamentally hostile to its own is in permanent control, then government by majority vote ceases in any sense to be government by the will of the people for the good of all, and becomes government by the will of some of the people for their own interests at the expense of the others.

Carl Becker, Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life

Pronouns and Demonstrative Adjectives. Pronouns stand in for nouns that appear earlier in the sentence or in previous sentences. Mixing pronouns and their nouns throughout the paragraph prevents monotony and promotes clar­ity. We have underlined the pronouns in the following excerpt from an article about Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, two organizers of The United Farm Workers union.

A book could be written on their [Huerta's and Chavez's] complex relationship. Both are stubborn and opinionated. She is notorious in the union for combativeness. (Stories are told of growers begging to face anyone at the negoti­ating table except Huerta.) Chavez jokes of "unleashing Dolores"; but he respects her "opinions and they generally agree on larger issues. Dolores says they fight a lot because " he knows I ’ll never quit, so he uses me to let off steam; he knows I ’ll fight back anyway." Chavez, a traditionalist in his own home life, is said to privately disapprove of Dolores's divorces, her living now with his brother Richard, and her -chaotic way of raising her kids. But he knows that the union is the center of her life, just as it is with his. "Dolores is absolutely fearless, physically and emotionally," he says.

Judith Coburn, "Dolores Huerta: La Pasionaria of the Farm Workers";

Except for it in the second sentence from the end, all the pronouns refer to Huerta, Chavez, or both.

Four demonstrative adjectives— this, that, these, and those —also help hook ideas together. Demonstratives are special adjectives that identify or point out nouns rather than describe them. Here is an example from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and orga­nizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Parallelism. Parallelism uses repetition of grammatical form to express a series of equivalent ideas. Besides giving continuity, the repetition adds rhythm and balance to the writing. Note how the following underlined constructions tie together the unfolding definition of poverty:

Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights to watch the fire, knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means your sleeping children die in flames. In summer poverty is watching gnats and flies devour your baby's tears when he cries. The screens are torn and you pay so little rent you know they will never be fixed. Poverty means insects in your food, in your nose, in your eyes, and crawling over you when you sleep. Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won't dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers. Poverty is seeing your children forever with runny noses. Paper handkerchiefs cost money and all your rags you need for other things. Even more costly are antihistamines. Poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without soap.

Jo Goodwill Parker, "What Is Poverty?";