Classificatio
Practical Writer
Dozens of times each week we organize items by classification. We classify
when we sort laundry into piles for machine wash, hand wash, or dry
clean; or when we put the machine wash into piles for hot water, cold
water, or medium temperature. We think of automobiles in groupings by
size (subcompact, compact, intermediate, and so on), by cost (under
$20,000, $20,000–$30,000, and so on), or by expected use (individual,
family, or commercial).
• The process of grouping a long list into categories is classification.
• The important idea is that the groups all answer the same question.
• If you classify on the basis of a different characteristic related to the
items, you’ll get a different listing.
Organization
Three common problems
– The first problem is to limit the subject you intend to
classify.
– The second and most common problem is related to
unity.
– Finally, you need to realize that many classifications that
work well for grouping items actually have minor flaws.
THESIS
– The classification may itself be the thesis.
– The classification may be only the means of organizing
the argument that persuades readers to accept the
thesis.
Today there are two types of politician: the dishonest and the half-honest.
Like thousands of Americans, my compulsive drive to eat keeps me
continually on a diet. When I told a friend that I eat if I’m happy,
sad, or just sort of blah, he said I need to occupy my mind. He
suggested that when I’m hungry I should watch television. This
solution seemed particularly appropriate, for I enjoy television
when I’m happy, when I’m sad, and when my mind is too dull to
feel much of anything. My friend was right about the television
shows; even the worst of them draws my attention away from food.
But my friend forgot about the advertisements. Whether
commercials for food in restaurants or for food to take home, these
television advertisements represent cruel and all-too-usual
punishment for the dieter.
Ads for Restaurants
Numerous restaurant ads provide seemingly continuous reminders of a world of eating
enjoyment, all of it forbidden on my 1,200-calorie diet. There are so many restaurant ads
that I can turn from channel to channel during commercial time and usually be assaulted
with only one laundry detergent ad, one pet food ad, but four ads for restaurants.
After a week on my diet, I’m jealous of the kitten in the cat chow commercial; imagine
what the barrage of restaurant ads does to me. I see commercials for steak (with salad,
potato, and toast), pizza (thick or thin crust, with dozens of toppings to choose from), fish
or clams, chicken (with fixin’s), hamburgers (with or without cheese, decorated with
catsup and mustard, sprinkled with chopped onions and lettuce, topped with a pickle,
stuffed in a lightly toasted bun), roast beef or ham sandwiches (for a change from the
hamburger habit), and tacos or burritos (as well as related Mexican foods that I’ve never
heard of but begin to crave anyway when I see them on TV).
Need I go on? Probably by now even your stomach has started to rumble, and you’ve had
more for supper than my spoonful of cottage cheese on half a small peach (made more
appetizing by a scrap of wilting lettuce for decoration).
Ads for Take-Home Food
Less numerous than restaurant ads but more enticing are the commercials for the foods I can
buy to take home. When I’ve been starved for carbohydrates for a few days, the convenience of
takehome foods appeals to the remnants of my ability to reason. You see, if my willpower
wavers and I go to a restaurant—even a quick-order place—someone who knows I’m dieting
may catch me, but it’s easy to dart into a grocery store, ice-cream parlor, or doughnut shop and
dash home without being seen.
Besides, the TV ads for foods to take home are so inviting. For example, you may remember
seeing the advertisement for one of the doughnut shops in town. As the TV camera pans slowly
across a counter laden with bakery goodies, I begin to drool. The commercial’s soundtrack
broadcasts a man calling to his wife to run to the TV to see the panorama of food laid out before
his—and my— impressionable eyes.
He says that the sight of the doughnuts will “drive him crazy,” and his voice sounds as though
he’s already slightly deranged because of what he sees. He proclaims the scene “heavenly,” but I
know it’s a dieter’s hell.
I’ve always assumed he demands that his wife give him her car keys so he can rush to the
doughnut shop; I say “assumed” because I’ve never stayed at my TV set long enough to hear the
end of the commercial. I’m on my way out the door to beat that crazy fool to the best of the
doughnuts.
Just Deserts
You’re reading the ravings of a dieter too often distracted by hunger
and too long provoked by TV commercials for food. Yes, I confess—stop
the torture—the ads are obviously effective. I salivate right on cue for
all the food advertisers. But in my few remaining rational moments, I
can still judge those advertisements for restaurants and take-home
foods: To the dieter they’re cruel. They play on the dieter’s weakness,
the compulsion to eat.
But I’ll have my revenge, in my own limited way. My friend has invited
me to his apartment tomorrow to watch TV, as he puts it, “to relieve
the depression” of my latest diet. I’ll sit calmly in his favorite chair; I’ll
stare innocently at his television. But when the first commercial for
food comes on, I’m going to cut the plug off his set. While he’s
paralyzed by shock, I’ll go into his kitchen to make myself a sandwich.
Exercise
Use classification to develop an essay about one of the following topics.
You’ll need to limit the topic before you attempt to classify it.
– electronic devices
– future travel
– high school
– a famous work of art
– brother or sister
