The Shaping of Meaning: Options in Writing the Comparison

Abstract

When composing, writers give shape to the meaning they construct, and they signal a possible configuration for meaning through the organizational patterns they supply for their readers. This study examined writers’ options in organizing comparisons–texts that are often considered to have a canonical pattern. Thirty college students wrote their comparisons through discourse synthesis, integrating content cued by two informative texts, each text dealing with one of the two topics to be compared. Analyses focused on the organizational patterns the writers generated and on the content they included. Of the two major ways of organizing comparisons–organization by aspect and organization by object–organizing by aspect was the format used by most writers in this study. However, there was much variability within this format in how writers combined material for the comparison. Writers could focus on specific aspects, could separate aspects into those that were similarities and those that were differences, or could generate macro-aspects to subsume several related aspects. In selecting source material the writers preferentially included content that was symmetrical, in that it related information that was available for both objects being compared. And almost half of their additions also contributed to symmetry by balancing their treatments of the two objects. Chunking of content in a systematic way, especially by generating macro-aspects for topical focus, was a strong predictor of holistic quality ratings, stronger than measures for the nature of the content that was included. These higher-rated papers providing readers with macro-aspects tended to be written by students with higher verbal ability and more extensive topic knowledge. The study points out the variability within comparison discourse and demonstrates the complexity of the choices writers must make in structuring comparison texts

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