Revising explanations

Since clarity is the number-one goal in explaining, concentrate on making yourself perfectly clear, on illustrating with examples where your reader might be confused, and on signaling the relationship of the parts of your essay to your reader.

Guidelines for Revision 

• Compare your thesis sentence with what you say in your conclusion. You may have a clearer statement of your thesis near the end of your paper. Revise your original thesis sentence to make it clearer, more focused, or more in line with what your essay actually says.
• Explaining means showing and demonstrating relationships. Be sure to follow general statements with specific examples, details, facts, statistics, memories, dialogues, or other illustrations.
• In a formal definition, be sure to include the class of objects or concepts to which the term belongs. Avoid ungrammatical writing, such as "Photosynthesis is when plants absorb oxygen," or "The lymphatic system is where the body removes bacteria and transports fatty cells."
• Avoid introducing definitions with "Webster says..." Instead, read definitions from several dictionaries and give the best or most appropriate definition.
• Remember that you can modify the dictionary definition of a term or concept to fit your particular context. For example, to you, "heroism" may mean having the courage to say what you believe, not just to endanger your life through selfless actions.
• Don't mix categories when you are classifying objects or ideas. If you are classifying houses by floor design (ranch, bilevel, split level, two story), don't bring in other categories, such as passive solar, which could be incorporated into any of those designs.
• In explaining how something occurs or how it should be done, be sure to indicate to your audience which steps are most important.
• In cause-and-effect explanations, avoid post hoc fallacies. (The term comes from the Latin phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc: "after this, therefore because of this.") Just because Event B occurred after Event A does not mean, necessarily, that A caused B. If, for example, statistics show that traffic fatalities in your state actually declined after the speed limit on interstate highways was increased, you should not conclude that higher speeds actually caused the reduction in fatalities. Other causes — increased radarpatrols. Stiffer drunk-driving penalties or rigorous vehicle maintenance laws — may have been responsible for the reduction.
• As you revise to sharpen your meaning or make your organization clearer, use appropriate transitional words and phrases to signal the relationship among the various parts of your subject.