Techniques for explaining

Explaining requires first that you assess your subject and your audience. You will need to draw on your own observations and memories about this subject, but you may also need to do some reading or interview an expert. As you consider your subject, keep in mind that an Explanation (involving both analysis and showing relationships) focuses on what, how, or why, but it may involve all three. Below are five important techniques for writing clear explanations.

1. Getting the reader's attention and stating the thesis. Devise an accurate but interesting title. Use an attention-getting lead-in. State the thesis clearly.
2. Defining key terms and describing what  something is. Analyze and define by describing, comparing, classifying, and giving examples.
3. Identifying the steps in a process and showing how the steps relate to the overall process. Describe how something should be done or how something typically happens.
4. Describing causes and effects and showing why certain causes lead to specific effects. Analyze how several causes lead to a single effect or show how a single cause leads to multiple effects.
5. Supporting explanations with specific evidence. Use descriptions, examples, comparisons, analogies, images, facts, data, or statistics to show what, how, or why.

In Spirit of the Valley: Androgyny and Chinese Thought, psychologist Sukie Colgrave illustrates many of these techniques as she explains an important concept from psychology: the phenomenon of "projection." Colgrave explains how we "project" attributes missing in our own personality onto another person — especially someone we love.

A one-sided development of either the masculine or feminine principles has [an] unfortunate consequence for our psychological and intellectual health: it encourages the phenomenon termed "projection." This is the process by which we project onto other people, things, or ideologies, those aspects of ourselves which we have not, for whatever reason, acknowledged or developed. The most familiar example of this is the obsession which usually accompanies being "in love." A person whose feminine side is unrealised will often "fall in love* with the feminine which she or he "sees" in another person, and similarly with the masculine. The experience of being "in love"' is one of powerful dependency. As long as the projection appears to fit its object nothing awakens the person to the reality of the projection. But sooner or later the lover usually becomes aware of certain discrepancies between her or his desires and the person chosen to satisfy them. Resentment, disappointment, anger and rejection rapidly follow, and often the relationship disintegrates. .. But if we can explore our own psyches we may discover what it is we were demanding from our lover and start to develop it in ourselves. The moment this happens we begin to see other people a little more clearly. We are freed from some of our needs to make others what we want them to be, and can beginlo love them more for what they are.