Student Writing Handbook Fifth+Edition

Classification / 69

STEP 5: Prewriting—Listing Details

Next, develop a list for each of the items you will classify. In the lists, name the spe-
cific details you will discuss for each.

Three general kinds of advertising bombard the unsuspecting consumer: print,

television, and radio.

Subject: advertising

Means: medium

Number: three

print television radio

magazines sound effects sound effects

print size moving image good voice

copy visual copy

visual design copy timing

photographs timing anyplace

readable auditory auditory

STEP 6: Prewriting—Organizing and Thinking about

the Parts

Using the lists you prepared in Step 5, organize the details. Look for similar cat-
egories in each of the lists to help you group ideas. In the advertising example, for
instance, two lists included “auditory” and two included “visual.” The column headed
“television” included both terms. Study the following reorganized lists to see how
other terms have been grouped and reorganized. Note also that some items from the
original list have disappeared from the reorganized list.

print television radio

visual visual and auditory auditory

copy copy copy

availability availability availability

Now the lists are parallel. [See parallel structure in the Glossary.] They include the
same number of items, and the items appear in the same order on each list. The
reorganization suggests logical divisions for the discussion of each of the topics.

Reorganize your lists to show logical divisions and parallel structure.