English Compositon Author:Hammond Lamont Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ENGLISH COMPOSITION CHAPTER I FOUR KINDS OF WRITING 1. Narration, Description, Exposition, and Argumentation.—There are four kinds of writing: narration... more », description, exposition, and argumentation. Narration tells of events; description presents a mental image of something ; exposition explains; argumentation convinces. An account of the last football match between Harvard and Yale is a narrative; a word-picture of the ball-field is a description; an explanation of the way to play is an exposition; a course of reasoning to prove that the game is dangerous is an argument. 2. Narration Distinguished from Description.—Narration tells of events; description presents an image, or picture, of a person, place, or thing, as in the following examples: NAHRATIOX DESCRIPTION This afternoon I started This afternoon I saw a to race with my younger monkey belonging to an Ital- brother from one end of our ian organ-grinder. The ani- block to the other. When mal was about as large as a we had gone three-quarters cat, but with a more slender of the way I was about two body. He was dressed in red yards ahead. At that mo- soldier clothes and red cap, ment I caught sight of an trimmed with gilt braid, organ-grinder with a mon- Whenever he got a pennykey. While I had my eye he -would take off his cap, on them I stumbled, fell, bow, and wink both eyes. scratched my hands, and Now and then he would bruised my knees. Jumping bang a tiny tambourine that up, I ran again as hard as he carried. His face wag I could, but my brother had much like that of a man, such a lead that he won by only wizened and rather wise five or six feet. and pathetic in expression. The distinction, clear enough in this case, is not always so easy to see. A theme on'...« less