Notes

1. Expository writing is fact-based, so why does it sometimes include more than just facts?
Sample response: Expository writing is fact-based, but the author's personal opinion will usually come through in some small way.
2. Explain why prose must express complete ideas, while conversation doesn't. Use an example from Tyson's preface and interview to illustrate this difference.
Sample response: In conversation, we often speak in fragments and express ideas incompletely, and the listener can ask questions to gain more understanding. Melissa Block does this often during the interview. In prose, no one can ask questions so you have to be clear the first time. In the preface, everything is laid out in a really organized way. All of the sentences are complete and carefully worded.
3. Explain how prose is more complex than conversation. Use examples from Tyson's preface and interview to make your point.
Sample response: Compared to casual speech, prose is more complex. Prose uses longer sentences and more precise vocabulary. Tyson's words are much more formal in the preface than in his interview. For example, in the preface, he uses words and phrases like "newly conceived exhibits," "enumerations," and "of which I served as head." This language is not conversational and he doesn't speak like that in the interview.
4. Which is more organized, prose or conversation? Use examples from Tyson's preface and interview to explain.
Sample response: In conversation, we don't have to organize our thoughts as much as we do in prose. In prose, the thoughts must be carefully organized to give the reader a clear understanding of our ideas. Tyson uses a lot of words to express ideas in the interview: "They have similar orbits, similar weird orbits I might add. Pluto is the only planet whose orbit crosses the orbit of another planet. And so I — that's kind of misbehaving, if you think of it in those terms, and yet others of these icy bodies also cross the orbits of other planets." When he writes that same idea in the preface, he uses fewer and more formal words: "This decision landed Pluto among the growing number of icy objects found beyond Neptune . . . ."
5. Why is an introduction paragraph important?
Sample response: The introduction paragraph sets up the whole paper or essay by telling the readers what they'll read and, if it's a good paragraph, why they should care. It has to grab the reader's attention. A bad introduction paragraph might mean no one reads the rest of the essay.
6. Why should each body paragraph address only one piece of a topic?
Sample response: That's how paragraphs organize writing — each paragraph introduces the information being covered and then covers it. Each new paragraph signals to the reader that a new idea will be explored.
7. The conclusion paragraph has two main jobs. What are they?
Sample response:
To sum up everything the previous paragraphs have said
To leave a mark on readers so they remember what they read
8. What might happen to writing if paragraphs didn't exist? How would that affect the reader?
Sample response: Paragraphs are designed to organize information clearly. Without paragraphs, writing would be a jumble of information, with one idea running into the next. This would make it a lot more difficult to read, since the ideas would be hard to follow. Not breaking a work of writing into paragraphs would also make the paper or essay harder to write since an author relies on that organization to structure his or her thoughts and words.