The Oxford Essential Guide to W Thomas S. Kane

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.Where the Church had spoken, the Cath-olic obeyed.His duty was to accept without question the lawswhich councils had decreed, which popes and bishops adminis-tered, and so far as in him lay to enforce in others the same sub-mission to an outward rule which he regarded as divine.All shadesof Protestants on the other hand agreed that authority might err;that Christ had left no visible representative, whom individuallythey were bound to obey; that religion was the operation of theSpirit on the mind and conscience; that the Bible was God's word,which each Christian was to read, and which with God's help andhis natural intelligence he could not fail to understand.The Catholicleft his Bible to the learned.The Protestant translated the Bible, andbrought it to the door of every Christian family.The Catholic prayedin Latin, and whether he understood his words or repeated them asa form the effect was the same; for it was magical.The Protestantprayed with his mind as an act of faith in a language intelligible tohim, or he could not pray at all.The Catholic bowed in awe beforehis wonder-working image, adored his relics, and gave his life intothe guidance of his spiritual director.The Protestant tore open themachinery of the miracles, flung the bones and ragged garmentsinto the fire, and treated priests as men like himself.The Catholicwas intolerant upon principle; persecution was the corollary of hiscreed.The intolerance of the Protestant was in spite of his creed.In denying the right of the Church to define his own belief, he hadforfeited the privilege of punishing the errors of those who chosediffer from him.James Anthony FroudeTHE EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPHBuilding the Comparison or ContrastClosely related to the question of organization is a final prob-lem: in what compositional units will the comparison beis, out of paragraphs, portions of paragraphs, sen-tences, halves of sentences? Probably the simplest plan is tospend a paragraph, or several sentences within a paragraph,on one of the two subjects and a unit of roughly equal lengthon the other.This is what F.M.Esfandiary does in discussingthe differences between Eastern and Western attitudes towardscience.But you may also construct a comparison or contrast inpairs of sentences:The original Protestants had brought new passion into the ideal ofthe state as a religious society and they had set about to disciplinethis society more strictly than ever upon the pattern of the Bible.The later Protestants reversed a fundamental purpose and becamethe allies of individualism and the secular state.HerbertOr both parts of the comparison may be held within a singlesentence, the total effect being built up from a series of suchsentences:At first glance the traditions of journalism and scholarship seemcompletely unlike: journalism so bustling, feverish, content withdaily oblivion; the academic world so sheltered, deliberate, andhopeful of enduring products.It is true that both are concerned withascertainment and diffusion of truth.In journalism, however, theemphasis falls on a rapid diffusion of fact and idea; in academicwork it falls on a prolonged, laboriousNevinsHow you build a comparison or contrast is related, ofcourse, to how you organize it.Using two paragraphs (or twoportions of a single paragraph) is better when you are organ-izing around A and is, treating each subject in its(2) COMPARISON, CONTRAST, AND ANALOGYentirety.Proceeding by balanced sentences or halves of sen-tences is better if you wish to focus on specific points of sim-ilarity or difference.Writing a comparison or contrast requires that youthink carefully about what you want to accomplish and howyou can best focus, organize, and work up the material.Theproblem is further complicated by the fact that none of thechoices we have discussed is absolute.A paragraph is not re-stricted to comparing or contrasting: it can do both.It doesnot have to maintain only one focus: a skillful writer can shift.And extended comparisons and contrasts can, and do, varytheir methods of building.For Practice> Study the following paragraph and consider these questions: (a)Is the writer comparing, contrasting, or doing both? (b) Which ofthe two subjects receives the focus? (c) How is the comparison orcontrast organized and how is it built?Let's compare the U.S.to India, for example.We have 203 millionpeople, whereas she has 540 million on much less land.But lookat the impact of people on the land.The average Indian eats his daily few cups of rice (or perhapswheat, whose production on American farms contributed to ourone percent per year drain in quality of our active farmland), drawshis bucket of water from the communal well and sleeps in a mudhut.In his daily rounds to gather cow dung to burn to cook his riceand warm his feet, his footsteps, along with those of millions of hiscountrymen, help bring about a slow deterioration of the ability ofthe land to support people.His contribution to the destruction ofthe land is minimal.An American, 6n the other hand, can be expected to destroy apiece of land on which he builds a home, garage and driveway.He will contribute his share to the 142 million tons of smoke andfumes, seven million junked cars, 20 million tons of paper, 48 bil-lion cans, and 26 billion bottles the overburdened environmentmust absorb each year.To run his air conditioner he willa Kentucky hillside, push the dirt and slate down into the stream,THE EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPHand burn coal in a power generator, whose smokestack contributesto a plume of smoke massive enough to cause cloud seeding andpremature precipitation from Gulf winds which should be irrigatingthe wheat farms of Minnesota.Wayne H.DavisWork up a contrast in one or two paragraphs on one of thefollowing subjects.Confine yourself to three or four points of dif-ference and organize around the two is, discuss allthe points with regard to A before going on to B:Any two cities you know well2.People of two different nationalities3.A sports car and the family sedan4 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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