HOW TO WRITE AN IDEA EXPANSION
I have previously written a bit about idea expansion where I have described what Idea expansion is and why I think it is an important part of English composition despite being removed from the new syllabus.
At the cost of repetition, I would reproduce some of it here.
"I know this is not included in the syllabus now, but it is a fruitful exercise that will improve your written expression.
I have discussed various aspects of idea expansion in a post at great length. If you wish to read it, you can find it on my blog page. It is titled “How I learned to write essay in 30 minutes a day.”
For idea expansion, there is no particular book I can suggest. However, you will get an idea from Sundry Reflections by Manzoor Mirza.
In short, it is a mini-essay that employs all the mechanics of essay writing. It consists of an introduction, body and conclusion. It is roughly 3 to 4 paragraphs depending on the number of arguments you have."
So, in this post I am going to tell you how to write an idea expansion. For this purpose, I will go for a 4 paragraph structure.
The first paragraph would be on Introduction, the second and third would be body paragraphs followed by the conclusion paragraph at the end.
But remember that before starting to write on any topic, you will have to generate some good ideas and make an outline. Read my post on "How to generate ideas for Essay" to get some clarification.
1. Introduction
The introductory paragraph consists of two main things. The first one is the thesis statement (On which I have written two posts already) and the roadmap of how you are going to tackle the topic.
For an idea expansion, this paragraph should not contain more than 5 sentences. Although there is no fixed number of sentences that you can write, I am telling this from my experience.
The first sentence (also known as the topic sentence) should directly hit the topic, the sentence we usually call the thesis statement.
The second sentence would give an explanation of the thesis statement. The third and fourth sentences would give a hint on what arguments you are going to take up.
The final sentence would give a summary of the thesis statement; a kind of paraphrasing you may call it.
2. Body Paragraph 1
In this paragraph, the first sentence would describe the first argument.
The second and third sentence (also called the supporting sentences) would explain or expand the argument followed by the third sentence in which we will provide an evidence (fact, data, example etc) to lend some weight to the argument. Without evidence, your paragraph would be of no use.
The final sentence would be the summary of the argument.
3. Body Paragraph 2
This paragraph would follow the similar pattern, if you have multiple arguments on it. But if you cannot find an argument, just flip the argument given in Body paragraph 1, and prove your point. Got it? No? Let me explain.
For instance, on the topic of knowledge is power, you gave an argument that with knowledge you can lead other nations in the fields of science, technology and defence. And then you will quote the examples of USA, Japan etc.
But in the second body paragraph, if you don't have any new argument, what you would do is "flipping the argument".
You would say that lack of knowledge will make your nation subservient to others. Such nations depend on others for science, and technology. For instance, Pakistan is not a knowledge based economy and hence depends on others.
You see, in first body paragraph you wrote about the power gained from knowledge and in the other paragraph you wrote about the "lack of knowledge that leads to powerlessness". You essentially flipped the same argument.
4. Conclusion.
The concluding paragraph is relatively shorter. It's length varies from 3 to 5 sentences. I usually write three sentences for conclusion in Idea expansion. The conclusion for essay doesn't follow this pattern.
The first sentence would be a paraphrased thesis statement, the second and third sentences would be paraphrased arguments. You can also combine these two sentences as well. The last sentence would conclude the whole argument.
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This is the template that you can use for Idea expansion. You can also get benefit from my blog on "A template to write Paragraphs" as well.
Regards,
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