A columnist argues that her town's new skate park has made downtown safer: since it opened, police have logged far fewer complaints about skateboarders on sidewalks. The argument is built as cause and effect: an event, then a consequence the writer pins on it. It holds only if nothing else explains the drop, and complaints may also have fallen because the town banned boards on Main Street the same month. Topic 1.5 covered the job each part of an argument does; the pattern a writer uses to connect those parts is called a method of development.
Methods of development: patterns readers already know
A method of development is a familiar pattern a writer uses to build and arrange reasoning: telling a story, describing something closely, setting two things side by side, defining a term, or tracing causes and effects. Because readers recognize these patterns, a method tells them what kind of reasoning to expect and how to follow it. When a paragraph opens "Consider the two fire trucks the county could buy," you are already waiting for a difference that matters.
| Method | What the writer does | What it can do for an argument | Signals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narration | Tells what happened, then reflects on what it meant | Gives an abstract claim a human case; shows the writer knows the subject firsthand | Past tense and time markers ("that winter," "by noon"), then a shift to present-tense judgment |
| Description | Renders a place, object, or person in concrete detail | Makes readers see a problem they would otherwise accept only in the abstract | Sensory details, spatial order ("at the far end of the hall") |
| Comparison-contrast | Sets two subjects side by side on the same points | Shows one option is better, or that things assumed different are alike | "Both," "whereas," "unlike," "in the same way" |
| Definition | Fixes what a term means, often by separating it from a near neighbor | Sets the terms of the debate so the conclusion follows from the meaning | "By X I mean," "X is not ... but," "a true X" |
| Cause-effect | Traces why something happened or what an event will lead to | Judges a policy by its consequences; explains how a problem arose | "Because," "so," "as a result," "led to," "since" |
Most arguments combine methods, often one to a paragraph, and the move from one method to the next is part of the line of reasoning. A passage might open with a story, generalize from it with a comparison, explain it with cause-effect, and end with a recommendation; the passage in the third worked example below follows a version of that sequence. You will also meet analogy, classification, and problem-solution; the same way of reading works on them.
Naming the method is only half of an answer. The other half is its purpose: what the method lets this writer show this audience that a plain statement couldn't. A writer who wants a budget committee to reject a used fire truck could simply say it's a bad buy. If instead she lays the two trucks' repair records side by side year by year, the committee draws the conclusion itself from numbers it can check, and a conclusion readers reach on their own is harder for them to dismiss. Topic 4.5 studies comparison, definition, and description in depth; this unit concentrates on narration and cause-effect.
Narration: the story and the reflection
Narration in an argument has two parts. The experience is what happened: where, who, what was said, what the writer noticed. The reflection is the writer stepping back to say what the experience means, and the reflection is where the argument lives. A story without one is only a story; readers can take any lesson from it they like, including the opposite of the writer's.
So when a passage tells a story, look for the sentence where the tense or the scale changes: "I understood only later that...," "Every family on the block has a version of this," "That is what the rule costs." Treat that sentence as the claim the story was told to support. The details before it are evidence, and they were selected for that claim. A writer who wants you to see her grandfather's patience tells you he untangled the same fishing line four times without a word, and leaves out what he was wearing. When a question asks why a detail is in a narrative, start with what the detail lets the reflection claim.
Narration also does rhetorical work beyond proof. A firsthand story shows the writer was there, which builds credibility, and a story placed first lets readers feel a problem before anyone asks them to agree about it. That makes narration a natural opening for a writer who delays the thesis (Topic 1.5).
Cause-effect: one cause, many causes, or a chain
Cause-effect reasoning takes three shapes:
- One cause, several effects. A cannery closes, and the diner, the bus route, and the youth baseball league go with it.
- Several causes, one effect. A creek floods because of new parking lots upstream, a wet spring, and a culvert nobody cleared.
- A chain, where each effect becomes the next cause. Fewer riders means fewer buses, which means longer waits, which means fewer riders.
The shape tells you what the writer is arguing. A one-cause-many-effects passage usually argues that something matters more than readers think. A many-causes passage usually argues against an easy explanation ("it wasn't only the rain"). A chain usually argues for acting now, before the next link. Cause-effect is persuasive because consequences are what readers care about, and fragile because causes are hard to prove. That fragility is why the next skill matters.
Judging a line of reasoning
Describing a line of reasoning means describing the sequence of moves, not the sequence of topics. "The passage discusses trains, then buses, then cars" is a list of topics. "The passage narrates a missed connection, compares the rail and bus timetables to show the miss was built into them, and traces what the gap costs commuters in order to argue for a joint schedule" says how each paragraph advances the thesis. The sentences that join the moves are commentary: the writer explaining why a piece of evidence is significant and how it bears on the claim. After a comparison, commentary says which difference matters; after a story, the commentary is the reflection.
Judging the line means checking whether each move earns the next. A flaw is a step that doesn't follow from what came before. Flawed arguments are often specious: they look sound on a quick read because the evidence is real and the conclusion sounds sensible, but the connection between them fails. Each method has a characteristic weak point, which tells you where to look.
| Method | Typical flaw | What it looks like | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narration | Generalizing from one case | One long wait at a clinic becomes proof the clinic is badly run | Is this case typical, and does the writer show it is? |
| Cause-effect | Treating sequence as cause | Complaints fell after the skate park opened, so the park caused the drop | What else changed at the same time? |
| Cause-effect | An unsupported chain | One food truck downtown will close every restaurant on the street | Is each link supported, or only the first? |
| Comparison | Alike in the wrong way | A school should be run like a business, since both have budgets | Are the two alike in the way the conclusion needs? |
| Definition | A definition built to win | "No serious reader uses audiobooks," where "serious reader" is defined to exclude listeners | Is the conclusion hidden inside the definition? |
| Any | A false choice | Either the pool closes or taxes rise | Are those really the only options? |
You won't be asked for the labels. What earns credit, in a multiple-choice answer or an essay, is saying exactly which step fails and why. "The argument is weak" says nothing. "The writer shows complaints fell after the park opened but never mentions the Main Street ban that took effect the same month, so the drop may have another cause" is analysis.
Watch for the reverse too: careful writers close these gaps before a reader can point to them. A writer who follows an anecdote with "this was not one bad night; the ward's own log records forty such waits that winter" is answering the one-case objection in advance. When a question asks what a sentence like that does, that is its job: it anticipates and answers an objection.
Worked examples
Identify the method of development in this paragraph from an op-ed and explain its purpose.
The summer I turned fifteen, I worked the snack window at the Brandt Lake public beach. By the second week I knew the regulars: the grandmother who brought four grandchildren every morning at nine and paid in quarters, the night-shift nurse who swam laps at seven and slept on a towel until noon, the boys from the apartments on Route 9 who walked the two miles because the bus didn't run on weekends. None of them could have paid the twelve dollars a day the lake association now proposes to charge. A fee would not thin the crowds at Brandt Lake. It would choose them.
Show solution
Method: narration with reflection. The first two sentences are the experience: a specific summer, specific people, and details (paying in quarters, walking two miles) that show these swimmers have little money and no alternative. The last three sentences are the reflection, and the shift is marked in the third sentence by the jump to the present ("now proposes") and to judgment.
Purpose. The story turns an abstract fee into a list of people it would exclude. The details were chosen for that job: quarters suggest a tight budget, the walk suggests no car and no bus. The final two sentences convert the story into the claim: a fee doesn't reduce crowding fairly, it selects who gets in. The writer's job at the window also gives her credibility, since she saw the regulars daily. Remove the narrative and "a fee would choose who swims" becomes an assertion readers could shrug off.
A school newsletter prints this paragraph. Explain the flaw in its reasoning and what evidence would repair it.
When Harlow Middle School moved lunch from 11:00 to 12:15 last fall, it was hoping to cut down on students snacking in afternoon classes. It got more than it hoped for. That same fall the school also capped fifth-period classes at 24 students, down from 32, and by January fifth-period grades had risen an average of four points over the year before. A later lunch clearly sharpens students' focus. Every school in the county should move its lunch period.
Show solution
The flaws. First, the paragraph treats sequence as cause. Two things changed that fall, and the writer mentions both, but credits only the lunch change. Smaller classes are an equally plausible reason grades rose, and the paragraph gives no way to tell the two apart. That is what makes it specious: every fact is accurate, and the writer even reports the rival cause, but the conclusion ignores it.
Second, it generalizes from one case. One school's one semester becomes a recommendation for "every school in the county," with no reason to think other schools resemble Harlow.
What would repair it. Evidence that separates the causes: grades in other periods, which got the later lunch but not the smaller classes, or a comparison with a school that moved lunch without changing class size. To support the countywide claim, the writer would need results from more than one school or more than one year. An honest version without that evidence would claim less: "the changes coincided with better grades, and the lunch schedule is worth testing elsewhere."
The following passage was written for this lesson. Its speaker is a country physician in the early 1900s, addressing other doctors in a professional journal.
In my second year of practice I was called at night to the Ostrander farm, where the youngest child had been feverish for a week. I had seen the same complaint in my office a dozen times that summer and carried a powder for it in my bag. But the lantern showed me what no office visit had: the well stood twenty paces downhill from the barn, and the yard between them was a slope of mud. I left the powder, and I left instructions about boiling the water, and the fever left the house within the fortnight. The powder would have treated the child. The walk across the yard treated the household.
The office and the house give a physician two different kinds of knowledge. In the office the patient brings me his symptoms, arranged as he thinks I want them, and I see him scrubbed and in his good coat. In his house I see what he would not think to mention: the damp wall behind the bed, the stove that smokes, the bread the children eat. The office tells me what is wrong with a man; the house, as often as not, tells me why.
It will be said that I have built a doctrine on one muddy yard. I have not. In the eleven years since, I have kept a record of every first visit I made to a patient's home, some four hundred of them, and in nearly a third I found a cause of illness the patient had not described and I would not have guessed. Now that the motor car and the telephone make it easy to bring the patient to the doctor, younger men in our profession are giving up the first visit altogether. They will save an afternoon each week, and they will lose that third.
I do not ask that we go back to the saddle. I ask only that no physician treat a family he has never visited, and that the first visit be made where the family lives.
Question 1. The first paragraph develops the passage's argument primarily through
- (A) a description of farm life that establishes the setting of the essay
- (B) a narrative whose closing reflection introduces a distinction the passage goes on to develop
- (C) a comparison of two remedies for fever
- (D) a definition of a physician's duty to a family
Question 2. The relationship of the second paragraph to the first is best described as which of the following?
- (A) The second paragraph generalizes the single case in the first into a contrast between two settings.
- (B) The second paragraph refutes the conclusion the writer reached in the first.
- (C) The second paragraph continues the story of the Ostrander family in chronological order.
- (D) The second paragraph explains the medical cause of the illness described in the first.
Question 3. In the third paragraph, the reference to "some four hundred" first visits primarily serves to
- (A) establish the writer's authority by showing how large his practice is
- (B) answer the objection that the argument rests on a single, possibly unusual case
- (C) contrast the writer's methods with those of younger physicians
- (D) suggest that most illnesses are caused by conditions in the home
Question 4. The last two sentences of the third paragraph present
- (A) a sequence of causes leading to a predicted loss
- (B) a concession that younger physicians' methods are superior
- (C) a comparison between rural and city medicine
- (D) an anecdote illustrating the dangers of the motor car
Show solution
1. (B). The paragraph tells a story (the night call, the lantern, the well) and closes with a two-sentence reflection that sets "treated the child" against "treated the household." That contrast is exactly what the second paragraph develops. (A) is tempting because the paragraph has vivid setting details, but they are evidence for the reflection, not scenery. (C) mistakes a detail for the method: the powder and the boiled water appear, but the paragraph's point is about what the doctor saw, not which remedy is better.
2. (A). The first paragraph is one night at one farm; the second turns it into a general contrast ("The office and the house give a physician two different kinds of knowledge"), set out point by point. (B) reverses the relationship: the second paragraph extends the first's conclusion. (C) fails because the Ostranders never reappear. (D) fails because the second paragraph names no cause of the fever.
3. (B). The paragraph opens by stating the objection itself ("It will be said that I have built a doctrine on one muddy yard"), and the record of four hundred visits is the answer: the farm was one case among many. This is a writer closing the one-case gap before a reader can point to it. (A) is the most tempting choice, since a large practice does suggest experience, but the sentence's job is set by the objection right before it. (D) overstates the evidence: "nearly a third" is not "most."
4. (A). The sentences form a chain: cars and telephones make office visits easy, so younger doctors give up the first visit, so they will lose the third of diagnoses that only a home visit reveals. "They will save an afternoon each week" grants a real benefit, which is why (B) tempts, but "and they will lose that third" turns the grant into a warning; nothing calls their methods superior.
The whole passage is a line of reasoning built from methods: narration (paragraph 1), comparison (2), evidence against the one-case objection plus a cause-effect chain (3), and a recommendation that follows from all three (4).
Where students lose points
On the exam
Multiple-choice questions on this skill use stems such as "develops the argument primarily through," "the relationship of the second paragraph to the first," "the third paragraph serves to," and "the final sentences present." The right answer names both what the part is (a narrative, a comparison, an objection, a chain of effects) and what it does for the argument. In the rhetorical analysis essay, explaining why a writer chose a method for this audience is commentary that scorers reward; tracking the passage paragraph by paragraph without that explanation is summary. In the argument essay, the same habits help you avoid building your own case on one story or one coincidence, which Topic 3.6 takes up.
Check yourself
Question 1
An essay explains that the shops on a town's main street closed because a highway bypass rerouted traffic, a discount store opened at the edge of town, and downtown rents doubled. It then argues that the council's plan to build a parking garage will not bring shoppers back by itself. The cause-effect reasoning in the essay primarily serves to
- A
predict that each closure will lead to further closures
- B
show that a single-cause explanation, and the single fix based on it, is incomplete
- C
compare the main street with the discount store
- D
define what a healthy downtown is
Show answer
B
Several causes leading to one effect is the shape writers use to argue against an easy explanation: if traffic, competition and rent all emptied the street, parking alone can't refill it. Choice A describes a chain, which this essay doesn't build; the closures are the endpoint, not the start of a sequence.
- A
Question 2
A letter argues: "Our city parks should charge admission the way the Funland amusement park does. Both exist to give families a day out, and Funland is never short of money." Which statement best identifies the flaw in this reasoning?
- A
The letter offers no figures on Funland's income.
- B
The two are alike in one way (families visit both) but not in the way the conclusion needs, since a public park is meant to be open to everyone regardless of ability to pay.
- C
The letter treats one family's experience as typical of all families.
- D
The letter assumes that the parks will close unless they charge admission.
Show answer
B
The argument is a comparison, and its weak point is the basis of the likeness: sharing visitors doesn't make a public park the same kind of thing as a business that exists to earn money. Choice A names a gap, but adding Funland's income figures wouldn't fix the comparison. Choice C describes a different flaw that doesn't appear here.
- A
Question 3
In the paragraph below, which sentence begins the reflection, and what claim does the reflection make?
(1) My brother learned to swim in the river behind our house, because the town pool was eleven miles away. (2) He learned the current before he learned the crawl: where the water turned cold, which rocks moved, when the spring melt made the bend impassable. (3) No lifeguard taught him any of it; my grandmother did, from the bank. (4) The county now plans to fence the river "for safety," but the river has never been as dangerous to us as the county's idea of safety, which would leave children with a river they can see and no knowledge of how to live beside it.
Show answer
Sentence 4. It claims that fencing the river would make children less safe in the long run, because it would cut them off from the knowledge of the river that the story shows keeps them safe.
Sentences 1 to 3 are the experience, in past tense and about one family. Sentence 4 shifts to the present and to a public decision, and it uses the story's details (knowing the current, learning from someone on the bank) as evidence for a claim about the fence.
Question 4
A four-paragraph op-ed tells of a student who missed the last bus home after band practice, compares the district's activity-bus schedule with a neighboring district's, traces how the missing bus has shrunk band and robotics membership, and ends by asking the board to restore a 5:30 bus. Which description of its line of reasoning is most accurate?
- A
It discusses band, then buses, then robotics, then the school board.
- B
It moves from a single case to a comparison that shows the problem is a choice, then to the problem's consequences, and finally to the remedy those consequences call for.
- C
It states its thesis first and supports it with three unrelated examples.
- D
It narrates a series of events in chronological order.
Show answer
B
A line of reasoning is a sequence of moves, each setting up the next: the story makes the problem real, the comparison shows it isn't inevitable, the cause-effect paragraph shows its cost, and the request follows. Choice A lists topics rather than moves, and Choice D describes only the first paragraph's method.
- A