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Engineering instructors may require you to include a title page and organize your report around methods, results, discussion, conclusions, and references. Other disciplines may require different organizations. Consider whether to include any visuals Many reports include information that is best presented in visual texts. The annual report for Girls Who Code, for example, includes a map to show all the states where that organization has chapters.

And the Atlantic article on smartphones includes a number of graphs showing ways that smartphones have affected teenagers' behavior. The one below shows how much less they've been hanging out with friends since the iPhone was released. Joe Sacco's depiction of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. But there are many other ways to use illustrations in a report. Journalist and war correspondent Joe Sacco is well known for his graphic reporting on the horrors and heartaches of warfare.

Reporting on the 1990s war in Bosnia in a series of reports later published in a book called The Fixer , Sacco describes what he saw when he entered the devastated city of Sarajevo: [P]ut yourself in my shoes: You've just arrived at the Great Siege . . . your teeth are still rattling from the ride over Mt. Igman . . . and someone has just pointed you down the road and into an awful silence.

-JOE SACCO, The Fixer The awful silence is surprising, given that the siege featured horrific noise-exploding bombs, gunfire, and what Sacco describes as a very noisy media circus. But that has all given way to an awful silence. At this point, Sacco includes a wordless, two-page image of his entry into Sarajevo. Readers see Sacco, very small and hunched over and wearing a heavy backpack, walking past burned-out buildings, including a shelled Holiday Inn. No words. No sounds at all.

Thus the illustration shows readers just what walking into an awful silence looked like. Read your draft with a critical eye, get response-and revise Once you have a draft, it's time to read over what you've written to be sure that your report will engage readers and tell them what you want them to know about your topic. If at all possible, get feedback from a classmate or friend. The following questions can help you or others read a report with a critical eye.

Does the title make clear what the report is about-and will it engage readers' interest? What other title might you use? How well does the report address your intended AUDIENCE ? Will they see why the topic matters? Have you indicated in a THESIS what the report is about and how it is organized? How have you established your CREDIBILITY ? How many PERSPECTIVES does your report represent? Have you done your homework? How have you demonstrated that the information in your report is accurate and trustworthy?

Have you FACT-CHECKED to be sure? How would you characterize the TONE ? Does it reflect your STANCE and the way you want to come across to your readers? If you have an opinion about your topic, have you kept it out of the report? Is the organization clear and appropriate to the topic? Have you included headings and TRANSITIONS to help readers follow the report easily? Have you included any VISUALS or presented any text graphically?

If not, is there any information that would be easier to understand in a chart or table or list? How does the report CONCLUDE ? What do you want to leave readers thinking-and does the conclusion do that? How else might your report conclude? And now it's time to REVISE . If you've analyzed your draft and gotten advice from others, you've got a plan. You know what you want to do-but think about what you need to do.

Remember that you're writing a REPORT , and that means providing FACTUAL information-just the facts, some would say. You're also writing to a particular AUDIENCE about something that you think matters, so now's your chance to make them care as well. REFLECT! Choose a topic you are very interested in, and then browse the web to find someone who is reporting on that topic. Read the report carefully, and reflect on how effective the reporting is: How trustworthy is the information it provides?

How objective is it? How credible is the author? How well does the report engage you and make you want to read on (or not)? If you could revise the report or give advice to the writer, what would you do or say? Glossary BRAINSTORMING, 45, 82 A process for GENERATING IDEAS AND TEXT by writing down everything that comes to mind about a topic, then looking for patterns or connections among the ideas.

REFERENCE WORKS, 257 Encyclopedias, handbooks, atlases, biographical dictionaries, almanacs, and other such sources that provide overviews of a topic. STANCE, 17-19, 26-27 A writer's attitude toward the subject-for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious. Stance is conveyed through TONE and word choice. QUALIFY, 84, 104-5 To limit a CLAIM -saying, for example, that most people like cake rather than people like cake.

Words like frequently, often, generally , or sometimes can help you qualify what you claim-and make it something you'll be able to support. AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . TONE, 27, 96 The way a writer's or speaker's STANCE is reflected in the text. STANCE, 17-19, 26-27 A writer's attitude toward the subject-for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious.

Stance is conveyed through TONE and word choice. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST, 87-88 A STRATEGY that highlights the points of similarity and difference between items. Using the block method , a writer discusses all the points about one item and then all the same points about the next item; using the point-by-point method , a writer discusses one point for both items before going on to discuss the next point for both items, and so on.

Sometimes comparison and/or contrast can serve as the organizing principle for a paragraph or whole text. VISUAL ANALYSIS, 63-65, 139 A GENRE of writing that examines an image, video, or some other visual text and how it communicates its message to an AUDIENCE .

Key Features: a description of the visual - some contextual information - attention to any words - close ANALYSIS of the message - insight into what the visual says IMRAD A GENRE of writing scientific reports organized in four parts: an introduction (asks a question), methods (tells about experiments), results (states findings), and discussion (tries to make sense of findings in light of what was already known).

AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION . THESIS, 84-85 A statement that identifies the topic and main point of a piece of writing, giving readers an idea of what the text will cover. CREDIBILITY, 164-66, 297-98 The sense of trustworthiness that a writer conveys through the text. PERSPECTIVES, 90-91, 29-41 Viewpoints, an important part of a writer's STANCE .

As a writer and a researcher, you should always strive to seek, think about, and work to understand multiple perspectives. FACT-CHECKING, 266-69 The process of verifying the accuracy of FACTS and CLAIMS presented in a piece of writing, a speech, or elsewhere-by READING LATERALLY, TRIANGULATING , or consulting various fact-checking sites. TONE, 27, 96 The way a writer's or speaker's STANCE is reflected in the text.

STANCE, 17-19, 26-27 A writer's attitude toward the subject-for example, reasonable, neutral, angry, curious. Stance is conveyed through TONE and word choice. TRANSITIONS, 424 Words or phrases that help to connect sentences and paragraphs and to guide readers through a text.

Transitions can signal COMPARISONS ( also, similarly, likewise, in the same way ); CONTRASTS ( but, instead, although, however, nonetheless ); examples ( for instance, in fact, such as ); place or position ( above, beyond, near, elsewhere ); sequence ( finally, next, again, also ); SUMMARIES or CONCLUSIONS ( on the whole, as we have seen, in brief ); time ( at first, meanwhile, so far, later ); and more. VISUALS, 455-57, 459-67 Photos, graphs, maps, diagrams, pie charts, tables, videos, and other images.

Visuals can be used to support or illustrate a point and also to present information that is easier to understand in a chart or graph than it would be in a paragraph. CONCLUSION, 92, 211, 417-18 The way a text ends, a chance to leave an AUDIENCE thinking about what's been said. Some ways of concluding an essay: REITERATING your point, discussing the implications of your ARGUMENT , proposing some kind of action, inviting response.

REVISING, 93-94 The process of making substantive changes, including additions and deletions, to a DRAFT so that it contains all the necessary information in an appropriate organization. Revision generally moves from whole-text issues to details with the goals of sharpening the focus and strengthening the ARGUMENT . See also response and revision REPORT, 157-85 A GENRE of writing that presents information to inform readers on a subject.

Key Features: a topic carefully focused for a specific AUDIENCE - definitions of key terms - trustworthy information - appropriate organization and DESIGN - a confident TONE that informs rather than argues. See also IMRAD ; PROFILE FACTS, 69-70, 266-69 Information that can be backed up and verified by reliable evidence: Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 . AUDIENCE, 25-26 Those to whom a text is directed-the people who read, listen to, or view the text. Audience is a key part of any RHETORICAL SITUATION .

A STUDENT REPORT STEPHANIE POMALES For Better or Worse: Spotify and the Music Industry Stephanie Pomales wrote this essay for an introduction to computers class when she was a student at the University of Califoria at Davis, and it was a winner of the school's annual Prized Writing competition. She has a passion for communication and social media, and she has continued to pursue writing and research since her graduation. Her essay is documented using APA style.

Opens with questions that engage her audience of college students. When you want music, where do you turn? Are you a purist who demands vinyl? Or do you go online to Pandora ? YouTube ? Apple Music ? Tidal Music ? Spotify ? If so, you are one of millions upon millions of people who access music digitally. But how much do you really know about the digital streaming services you are using?

If streaming is the way most of us now listen to music, what issues does this shift raise for artists and the music industry? This report sets out to explore that question. Provides background information. Let's consider Spotify , the most popular streaming music service in the United States today. Founded in 2008 by Swedish entrepreneur Daniel Ek, Spotify was first made available here in 2011.

Since then, Spotify has created a new way for people to consume music and has had a huge impact on the music industry's business model. With over 40 million paying subscribers, Spotify currently ranks number one as the most popular music service in the world, with more users than Apple Music , Tidal , or Pandora . However, with popularity has come a critical backlash.

The company, and its CEO, have been on defense ever since Spotify was first introduced into the US music marketplace, facing public opposition from recording artists, labels, and music industry executives. Piracy concerns, a decline in physical record sales, and Spotify 's pay-per-stream model have been major points of discord between the music industry and streaming companies.

Most everyone in the industry acknowledges that streaming services are not going away, but many are still concerned about the ethics of streaming and whether musicians, especially independent artists, are being treated fairly. Despite these criticisms, streaming services are likely here to stay-at least until a new technology that is better, faster, or cheaper comes onto the marketplace. Provides a short narrative about the history of streaming.

In fact, Spotify was once a new technology, one that was invented to be better than existing technology. You might say it all started with Napster , a peer-to-peer service that let people share and receive music files online or through email. It made music available for free, and thus was hugely popular. Its site was shut down after intense legal battles with copyright holders, but Napster had already changed the face of the music industry (Swanson, 2013).

Apple's iTunes , Rhapsody , and Pandora all came shortly thereafter, each helping to further the digital music sphere into a more legitimate way of listening to music online (Marshall, 2015). And then, in 2008, along came Spotify . Describes the services Spotify provides. Provides statistics. Spotify is an on demand streaming service that operates on two plans. The first level, Spotify Free (freemium), lets users listen to music for free but with advertisements and with limited options.

For example, they can listen to music only on shuffle mode and cannot access the higher quality sound that comes with a paid subscription. They also cannot listen to songs on demand and are limited to a certain number of skips in shuffle mode. For $9.99 per month ($4.99 for students), users can upgrade to the second tier, Spotify Premium , which gives them consistent, high quality, on-demand music.

The music is considered on demand because users can listen to specific music that they choose instead of having music chosen for them by a computer-generated formula. Spotify licenses access to millions of songs by making deals with labels and independent artists for a certain percentage of its profits, money that comes from advertisements in the Spotify Free tier or from subscription fees in Spotify Premium .

These funds go into a pool that is distributed based on how often songs are played and other popularity factors; think of it like having your paycheck fluctuate based not only on your own performance, but on the performance of everyone else in your industry as well (Luckerson, 2019). According to an article in Quartz , song rightsholders make anywhere from $.006 to $.0084 cents per play, and these earnings can be divided up between the label, the producers, and the artists (Livni, 2018).

Introduces alternative views of streaming services. Streaming services are currently locked in a heated debate with music industry professionals over whether or not the pay-per-stream model is adversely affecting the industry and the artists. As the top streaming service in the world, Spotify takes up much of the spotlight, especially after Taylor Swift pulled all her music from Spotify in 2014.

Swift added her albums back in 2017, but her absence on the site for many years raised serious questions about the ethics of Spotify 's free model. Many artists and music industry professionals believe that the backlash is warranted, while others argue that Spotify provides a legal alternative to pirating that justifies its existence (Swanson, 2013). Taylor Swift raised red flags about Spotify when she removed her albums from Spotify in 2014.

Spotify started with good intentions: to combat the music piracy that Napster had unleashed, as people began to see peer-to-peer sharing as a way of owning free music. Daniel Ek, Spotify 's founder, believed that streaming services could simply monetize already existing consumer behavior, and that it would be a legitimate alternative to the global issue of pirating. Provides evidence of Spotify 's positive effects. In spite of the criticism, Spotify has lived up to much of its early promise.

Streaming services are in fact saving music sales, which have been declining in recent years in part because of struggles with piracy (Shaw, 2016). Even Carl Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, has spoken out on the subject.

In a recent blog article reporting on the music industry midway through 2016, Sherman admitted that much of the growth in the music industry in recent years has been brought about by music subscription services (Sherman, 2016), saying that 2016 was the first time that music professionals had seen consistent sales since 1999, when record sales reached their peak (Singleton &Popper, 2016).

Sherman even acknowledged that streaming had contributed a lot to these record-high sales numbers, noting that it accounted for almost half of all recorded music revenue in the first half of 2016 (Sherman, 2016). Since Spotify is the streaming service with the most subscribers, and the main contributor to the industry's increased sales, its impact on the music marketplace is considerable.

Approximately $1 billion was spent on streaming services in the first half of 2016, with more people than ever opting for paid subscription plans. Music spending in total for the same year, including record sales and online sales, was more than $3.4 billion according to industry statistics (Shaw, 2016).

The three major record labels-Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group-have all seen improved sales, largely due to the popularity of streaming services in the United States (Shaw, 2016). Provides evidence of Spotify 's negative effects. Notes counterarguments to Spotify 's critics. Many still believe, however, that Spotify is not doing enough to help musicians earn a living wage, especially in the case of independent artists.

Many common arguments state that music buying is decreasing. During the heydays of CDs and records, buying music was a more public, even social, experience. Now that big box stores are reducing their CD sections and there are fewer music stores around, music buying takes place mostly online and in the privacy of one's home.

While it's easy to assume that fewer people are willing to pay for music, data shows that people who pay for streaming services will spend more over time than those who bought physical CDs in the 1990s (Shaw, 2016). A typical CD buyer in 1990 spent $50 per year on music, while a Spotify subscription could cost as much as $120 per year (Singleton &Popper, 2016).

With 25% of all Spotify freemium users converting to paid subscriptions (Singleton &Popper, 2016), more people than ever before are paying for their music. Spotify 's billboards celebrate its listeners and inspire others to join the fun. Compares streaming with earlier technologies. Many of Spotify 's defenders believe that critics are simply looking at streaming services in the wrong way, saying that streaming services and store-bought albums are different things.

Streaming, they say, needs to be taken seriously as a new technology that cannot be compared to previous technologies. Vinyl, cassettes, and CDs each had a moment in which they were the most in-demand technology, and streaming is now having its moment. This suggests that a major change is overdue concerning how people view the streaming model. When radio DJs play a song, they are sending music over airwaves to hundreds or even thousands of people at the same time.

On the other hand, streaming occurs on a one-to-one basis with individual people accessing a song they want to hear whenever they want to hear it. This explains why the payment per stream is so low, and why Spotify simply can't be compared with AirPlay . Spotify 's Daniel Ek has a response to all the criticism that his company has faced. Most industry professionals see music sales on a per-unit basis, he says, like buying an individual song on an online music store.

Ek suggests that the music industry needs to move away from a unit-based business model and to a streaming model. People do not buy music from streaming services-instead, they pay for access to music for a designated period. Over an extended period, the small payments for music access will result in more money for both artists and industry professionals (Marshall, 2015). Introduces the music industry's main problem: piracy. But Spotify 's biggest problem is not the complaints of artists or industry bigwigs.

Indeed, it is piracy, in the form of illegal music downloading. The switch to streaming has many researchers trying to determine whether it has resulted in more or less music piracy. After all, one of the main reasons Ek started Spotify was to make streaming a viable alternative to piracy in the digital age.

If piracy has decreased, then one could say that streaming services have fulfilled a valuable goal for the music industry; if piracy has risen, it may be that streaming services are adding to digital piracy. Provides evidence of the damage done by piracy. The Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that 20 million Americans are pirating on a regular basis (Carman, 2016), and it seems that the exclusives that some streaming companies offer may be partly responsible.

When popular music is available only on specific streaming services, users are less able to get all their music on one service, resulting in widespread pirating of that music (Singleton &Popper, 2016). For example, when Kanye West's Life of Pablo album was available only on Tidal , it is estimated that 500,000 people illegally downloaded the album from various file-sharing websites (Carman, 2016).

Each of the illegal downloads resulted in loss of income for the artist, the streaming services, and the industry professionals behind the production and creation of the album. Although exclusive content may help to bring more business to a specific streaming service, ultimately, they may be doing more harm than good to the industry and to Spotify 's efforts to eradicate pirating. Cites research about Spotify 's effects on piracy.

Citing scholarly research helps build the author's credibility: she's done her homework! Academic research offers conflicting viewpoints about music streaming services and their influence on pirating. In their paper Streaming Reaches Flood Stage: Does Spotify Stimulate or Depress Music Sales? Aguiar and Waldfogel (2015) conclude that Spotify has been revenue-neutral for the music industry, stating that losses from displaced sales are roughly outweighed by the gains in streaming revenue (p. 1).

Their research also shows that Spotify has helped to decrease the amount of music piracy in the United States and across the globe, but does not do much to raise the net profit of the music industry (Aguiar &Waldfogel, 2015). Borja and Dieringer (2016), however, conclude that streaming services like Spotify increase instances of pirating by 11%, with more streaming directly correlated with higher rates of music pirating.

This might have to do with the fact that most people do not view streaming as a low-price substitute for pirating, as many complain that streaming services are still too expensive (Borja &Dieringer, 2016, p. 91). In fact, Borja and Dieringer found that the two most predictive factors for pirating were peer pressure and a high tendency toward risk taking. College students seem to be the population most inclined to this behavior, as students have little income and many expenses.

With higher levels of risk taking, students are more likely to pirate from illegal file-sharing websites because they have less money to buy music and are more susceptible to the considerations of others. Considers other perspectives on piracy. While peer pressure surely plays a significant role in piracy behavior, internet users may have more complex reasons behind why they resort to pirating even when low-cost alternatives like streaming are available.

In 2016, Russ Crupnick, a writer for MusicWatch .com , conducted a survey with 1,000 respondents between the ages of 13 and 50 and found that the reasons for music pirating are varied between different age categories. Some people surveyed simply stated that they want to own the music, rather than only have access to it for a brief period, while others only pirate music if they do not like the track enough to purchase it on a digital music site (Crupnick, 2016).

Many of the respondents stated that they wanted to have on demand music on their smartphones, a feature that Spotify Free does not offer. Somewhat surprisingly, many of the people surveyed who pirated music claimed that they spend a fair amount of money buying music from legal sources; in fact, the amount they spend on legal music is only slightly less than the amount spent by average, non-pirating music buyers (Crupnick, 2016). Sums up the findings of her research.

Although criticism of streaming continues and research gives conflicting information concerning piracy, streaming services have made their mark on the music industry. Those using these sites, including both premium and freemium subscribers, have grown accustomed to accessing large quantities of music for free, or for incredibly cheap prices.

Music labels must adjust to these changes and work accordingly with streaming services in order to stay relevant into the 21st century, especially given the potential for streaming services to independently contract with musicians in the near future. The more subscribers join, the more money artists will see in their pockets and the less irritated music executives will be with Spotify 's cut of the profits. This not only applies to big name artists receiving millions of streams, but indie artists as well.

Longer free trials, special discounts, and family memberships are all ways that streaming services can get more paid subscribers. Any money that goes to the music industry is still better than having musicians' work be pirated. Marketing toward older generations on the benefits of streaming services may also prove to be useful in increasing the number of paid subscription members.

With Spotify holding a high conversion rate of users from free to paid plans, it is likely that streaming services will become more normalized in music history and will begin to secure a stronger reputation in the eyes of industry professionals. Challenges readers to think about where they get music; invites response. If you're someone who gets your music via Spotify , Pandora , or another streaming service, do you subscribe or take the freemium options?

Or do you find a way to download what you want for free? What do you think you should do, and why? As subscribers, or potential subscribers, these are all issues that you should consider when you stream your next song. As this report has demonstrated, these are decisions we all need to think about. References Aguiar, L., &Waldfogel, J. (2015). Streaming reaches flood stage: Does Spotify stimulate or depress music sales? (NBER Working Paper No. 21653). The National Bureau of Economic Research.

http://doi.org/df3d Borja, K., &Dieringer, S. (2016). Streaming or stealing? The complementary features between music streaming and music piracy. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 32 , 86-95. http://doi.org/gc8qv8 Carman, A. (2016, April 10). How music streaming service exclusives make pirating tempting again . The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/10/11394272/music-streaming-service-piracy-spoti fy-tlop-tidal Crupnick, R. (2016, February 22). Bad company, you can't deny . MusicWatch.

http://www.musicwatchinc.com/blog/bad-company-you-cant-deny/ Livni, E. (2018, December 25). Mariah Carey's record-breaking day shows how little musicians make from Spotify. Quartz. https://qz.com/1507361/mariah-careys-record-breaking-day-shows-how-little-musici ans-make-from-spotify/ Luckerson, V. (2019, January 16). Is Spotify 's model wiping out music's middle class? The Ringer. https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/16/18184314/spotify-music-streaming-servic e-royalty-payout-model Marshall, L. (2015).

Let's keep music special. F- Spotify : On-demand streaming and the controversy over artist royalties. Creative Industries Journal, 8 (2), 177-189. http://doi.org/gc3chw Shaw, L. (2016, September 19). The music industry is finally making money on streaming . Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-20/spotify-apple-drive-u-s-music -industry-s-8-first-half-growth Sherman, C. (2016, September 20). The modern music business midway through 2016 . Medium.

https://medium.com/@RIAA/the-modern-music-business-midway-through-2016-f74 e22ecff42#.ge04odf4s Singleton, M., &Popper, B. (2016, September 20). The music industry is on the rebound thanks to paid streaming . The Verge. http://theverge.com/2016/9/20/12986980/music-industry-apple-spotify-paid-streami ng Swanson, K. (2013). A case study on Spotify : Exploring perceptions of the music streaming service. MEIEA Journal, 13 (1), 207-230. http://doi.org/gfvxmh Thinking about the Text 1.

Stephanie Pomales has obviously done a lot of research on Spotify and other streaming services. What is her major CLAIM and where is it stated? 2. What examples, facts, and reasons does she offer to support the major claim? How well do you think she supports that claim? What EVIDENCE do you find most informative and persuasive-and what leads you to that conclusion? 3. How does Pomales deal with COUNTERARGUMENTS and alternative viewpoints? Do you think she does so fairly? 4.

Make a rough outline of this report. What does it reveal about how she has organized all her information? How effective is that organization? How else could it be organized? 5. Pomales concludes her report by asking readers how they get music-by subscribing to a streaming service, using a free streaming service, or downloading what they want for free-and then asking what they think they should do, and why.

Write a paragraph or two describing how you get music, and reflecting on what you now think you should do-and why. Glossary CLAIM, 84-85, 103-5 A statement of a belief or POSITION . In an ARGUMENT , a claim needs to be stated in a THESIS or clearly implied, and requires support by REASONS and EVIDENCE . EVIDENCE, 85-90 In ARGUMENT , the data you present to support your REASONS .

Such data may include statistics, calculations, examples, ANECDOTES , QUOTATIONS , case studies, or anything else that will convince your readers that your reasons are compelling. Evidence should be sufficient (enough to show that the reasons have merit) and relevant (appropriate to the argument you're making). COUNTERARGUMENT, 16, 90-91, 265 In ARGUMENT , an alternative POSITION or objection to the writer's position.

The writer of an argument should not only acknowledge counterarguments but also, if at all possible, accept, accommodate, or refute each counterargument. Endnotes Announces the purpose of her report. Return to text Establishes a conversational tone. Return to text States thesis. Return to text States the conclusion supported by research. Return to text PART 3 WRITING / MAKE YOUR POINT Chapter 11 Narrating WHAT UNITES PEOPLE? ARMIES? GOLD? FLAGS? NAH. STORIES .

THERE'S NOTHING MORE POWERFUL THAN A GOOD STORY. NOTHING CAN STOP IT. NO ENEMY CAN DEFEAT IT. -TYRION LANNISTER Why would telling a story be more powerful than everything else in the world? Is it because millions of people watch Game of Thrones ? Or read about the adventures of Odysseus, or Captain Underpants? It's much more than that. Storytelling is a universal genre: the one true democracy we have, says novelist Colum McCann.

It goes across borders, boundaries, genders, wealth, race-everyone has a story to tell. A good story can even change minds. These are all reasons that stories mean so much to our lives and to the work we do as readers, writers, and speakers. If you're a biology major, you'll learn a lot through stories about how major discoveries were made, from Watson and Crick's quest to solve the structure of DNA to the epic journeys that led Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace to their theory of evolution.

If you're a business major, you're likely to work with case studies, narratives about situations that real companies faced in which you might be assigned to be the CEO (the protagonist) and have to figure out how to deal with the situation. And if you watched the 2019 Super Bowl , you likely saw the Toyota ad that linked a vehicle to the powerful story about Toni Harris, the first woman to win a college football scholarship and who hopes someday to be the first woman to play in the Super Bowl.

So narratives are all around us, not just in literature and on TV. It's no surprise then that they will play a role in your composition class. You might open an argument with a personal narrative that makes a point about your topic-and perhaps return to that story in your conclusion. Or you might compose a narrative as a way to make a point. And sometimes you may be assigned to write a literacy narrative about how you learned to read or write or do something else.

This chapter aims to guide you in creating a narrative of your own. Toni Harris with her teammates. A GUIDE TO DEVELOPING A NARRATIVE Put most simply, a narrative tells about something that's happened in order to make a point of some kind. A personal narrative focuses on something that happened to the person writing it. That's you, and here are some steps to get you started. Identify an event that matters The first step is to come up with a topic that matters-to you, and hopefully to others as well.

Think about what happened, and why. When and where did it happen? Who was involved, and what roles did they play? Why does it matter to you, and why have you chosen to write about it? How can you write about it in a way that will interest others-especially if it's something they wouldn't ordinarily read about? If you're assigned to write a LITERACY NARRATIVE , you'll focus on how you learned to do something-read, write, knit, play the guitar, whatever. Just be sure it's something you care about.

Start by thinking about what you learned, and who else was involved. Was it easy? challenging? fun? something else? Why has it mattered enough to write about it? When Melissa Hicks was assigned to write a personal narrative for her writing class at Lane Community College, in Oregon, she found herself thinking over and over about making butter on her family's farm as a young girl and her fondness for butter now as an adult.

Writing about those experiences prompted her to think about why they've been so important to her: I swear that it's the butter that makes everything taste so good. My favorite foods that remind me of my mother and my own childhood. In the grocery store aisle, I stand under the harsh white lights of the dairy case, margarine in one hand and butter in the other. . . . I weigh them in my mind, thinking of the high cost of butter. No matter how long I stand and weigh, I always put the butter in my cart.

I remem ber the times when I was a girl-the taste of sweet, fresh butter melting on my tongue. I remember the work it took, and I know the price is more than fair. -MELISSA HICKS, The High Price of Butter The story Hicks goes on to tell moves back and forth between her present grown-up self and her past childhood. She meditates on the honest, hard work on the farm where she took care of the cow and made butter, and reflects on how those experiences shaped the values that she still holds today.

And here's Savion Glover, now a famous tap dancer, telling the story about how learning to play the drums at a young age got him started making too much noise: I started playing drums in Suzuki class when I was three or four. I'd go in there and start banging on some drum or on the piano or the xylophone, and they eventually moved me up a level into the regular drum class, I think because I was just making too much noise. I just couldn't stop banging around.

Meanwhile at home I used to play everything, just everything, my mother tells me. I do remember putting on shows for her. She would come home from work, and I'd have the knives and forks out from the drawers and the pots and the pans set up like drums. I figured out you could get different tones out of the big pots and the little pots and the teakettle and the colander. -SAVION GLOVER, My Life in Tap A close-up of Savion Glover, making music and noise with his feet.

Note that Glover's narrative implicitly tells readers that this sequence of events matters a great deal to him: it captures his commitment to and near obsession with making music (and noise!) since he was a toddler, using red highlighting to underscore that he just couldn't stop banging around. Creating sound and performing for his mother seem like the most important things in his life! This paragraph draws readers in and invites us to find out what happens next.

Think about your rhetorical situation When you've decided on the event(s) your narrative will focus on and considered the point you want the narrative to lead up to, it's time to consider your rhetorical situation. Purpose. Think again about why you want to tell this story. Will telling it help you understand yourself and what has happened to you in your life in new ways? Will it help you connect with a particular audience?

Or maybe your narrative is meant to entertain-to get your audience laughing along with you. Whatever your purpose, keep it in mind from start to finish. Audience. Who will read your story? Why would it interest them-or how can you get them interested? What do you want them to take away from it? What do you know about them, and how much background will you need to provide? What do you know about their age, gender, cultural heritage, basic values and beliefs, and so on?

How might such factors influence the way you tell your story-and how you present yourself? Stance. What stance will you take? How do you want to come across-as knowledgeable? thoughtful? funny? something else? What ever stance you adopt, think about how the words you choose and the way you put them together will help establish that stance. Context. What else has been said about your topic?

Does your narrative relate to any larger social or political or economic issues (or educational ones, if you're writing a literacy narrative)-and if so, what will your audience need to know about that context? Finally, think about your own context-the requirements of an assignment, the time you have to complete your narrative, and so on. Media and design. How will your narrative be delivered-in print? online? as an oral presentation?

How does your medium affect the way your narrative is designed and the kinds of examples you can provide? Can you include visuals-photos and captions? video? audio? Would headings help readers follow the story? Your decisions about media and design should aim to help your audience follow your story and understand the major points you want to make with that story.

Try to recall details that will make your story come alive Start by writing down everything you can remember about the event that's at the heart of your narrative-just start writing and keep going until you run out of memories and words. What happened? When and where did it take place? Who was there? What were they wearing, what did they say? Can you recall any specific sounds, smells, colors, or tastes?

What vivid or quirky details can you add that will help bring your story to life so that others can experience it along with you? Can you add some dialogue-conversations or even just words that will let your audience listen in on what was happening? Why does this story matter? See how Lynda Barry incorporates visual details and dialogue in her narrative essay recalling how important good teachers have been to her success as a cartoonist, author, and now a teacher herself.

Here she is at age seven, sneaking out of home and in a panic about needing to get to school: It was quiet outside. Stars were still out. Nothing moved and no one was in the street. It was as if someone had turned the sound off on the world. I walked the alley, breaking thin ice over the puddles with my shoes. I didn't know why I was walking to school in the dark. . . . All I knew was a feeling of panic, like the panic that strikes kids when they realize they are lost.

That feeling eased the moment I turned the corner and saw the dark outline of my school at the top of the hill. My school was made up of about 15 nondescript portable classrooms set down on a fenced concrete lot in a rundown Seattle neighborhood, but it had the most beautiful view of the Cascade Mountains. You could see them from . . . the windows of my classroom-Room 2. . . . Hey there, young lady. Did you forget to go home last night? It was Mr. Gunderson, our janitor, whom we all loved.

He was nice and he was funny and he was old with white hair, thick glasses and an unbelievable number of keys. I could hear them jingling as he walked across the playfield. I felt incredibly happy to see him. And I saw my teacher, Mrs. Claire LeSane, walking toward us in a red coat and calling my name in a very happy and surprised way, and suddenly my throat got tight and my eyes stung and I ran toward her crying. . . . It's only thinking about it now, 28 years later, that I realize I was crying from relief.

I was with my teacher, and in a while I was going to sit at my desk, with my crayons and pencils and books and classmates all around me, and for the next six hours I was going to enjoy a thoroughly secure, warm and stable world. . . . Mrs. LeSane asked me what was wrong and when I said Nothing, she seemingly left it at that. But she asked me if I would carry her purse for her, an honor above all honors, and she asked if I wanted to come into Room 2 early and paint.

-LYNDA BARRY, The Sanctuary of School Barry is a master cartoonist and storyteller, and this passage is full of colorful, quirky details. We wonder, along with her, why she is going to school in the dark, but that thought is swept aside as she turns a corner and sees her school-her sanctuary, even though the school is just a bunch of nondescript portable classrooms. Then she sees the janitor, with his unbelievable number of keys jingling a greeting-and then her teacher, Mrs. LeSane.

Note the colorful images (red coat, thin ice over puddles) and how Barry's dialogue helps make the passage more vivid and immediate, and thus carries readers along. Finally, notice how Barry's cartoon image helps tell the story: she's literally cradling her school, her sanctuary, in her arms-and with a smile on her face-as she declares, I'm home. Figure out how to tell your story At this point, you should think about creating a scratch OUTLINE or STORYBOARD for your narrative.

You might think of the narrative as a big arc, with a dramatic event or something else at the beginning that will get your audience's attention and then lead to other events or details or insights and eventually to some kind of conclusion. Then plot points along this arc where you'll bring in particular information. How can you begin in a way that will get your audience interested? How will you sequence your story and hold their interest?

And how should you conclude: What do you want to leave your audience thinking? See Chapter 22 on ways of getting and keeping attention. You'll need to consider POINT OF VIEW . Will you write in the first person ( I , me ) throughout, or will the narrative require you to shift points of view in places as Melissa Hicks does, shifting from I to we when she refers to things her family did? Think about how you'll represent time.

Most narratives use CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER or a slight variation on it (such as adding FLASHBACKS , for example) and so use past tenses, as Hicks does: For my fourteenth birthday I got a cow. I did not ask for a cow. I had very clearly asked for a horse. While every girl-child wants a horse, I felt that I had earned mine. I had worked at a farm down the road. . . . I knew how to take care of a horse.

The life my family had worked and sweated for, clearing our own little spot in the Maine woods, was as well suited to horse-raising as any of our other pursuits. The fact was, I didn't know beans about cows. -MELISSA HICKS, The High Price of Butter If you want readers to experience the narrative as very immediate, you might use the present tense. Here's Hicks again, making butter: As my arms tire, I alter the motion. Instead of shaking the jar up and down, I go side to side. My youngest sister . . .