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Monday, November 12, 2012

lardo

Hey, remember that paragraph analogy from fifth grade, about how good paragraphs resemble hamburgers?  Because...there's a bun, and it's like the first sentence...and then some tomatoes...and onions and pickles to make it good, and the meat of the paragraph is the actual claim you're making...and then there's another bun, and some sesame seeds...

yeah.  you can tell that I remember it perfectly.

Well, first of all this paragraph analogy is flawed.  Nobody is going to remember it post-puberty because we'll all get distracted, imagining creating the perfect burger, and how many pickles it should have, and how juicy the meat will be, and how the mustard and the ketchup will blend beautifully and act as an adhesive to hold the burger together, since you overloaded it a bit with onions and tomatoes, because you can never have too many tomatoes...

Secondly, the hamburger is flawed because it lacks bacon.

Third, every analogy is flawed, because it is not bacon.

Forget the hamburger analogy, especially if it makes you think of clowns.  Hamburger paragraphs can't make a paper strong.  

Here is how a paragraph should be written, in a fashion resembling bacon:
  • Paragraphs should be pleasant to listen to.  They must sizzle.
  • Paragraphs should be crispy.  Not too much extra stuff because bacon needs no augmentation, but should be dripping in a little extra fat to make it extra good.
  • Paragraphs should be an indulgence.  Readers should thoroughly enjoy the paragraph, and once they finish one paragraph, they must desire another.
  • Paragraphs should have a nice oscillatory shape.  Sentences should flow with some short ones and some long ones.  
  • If it's flat, it's not done.
  • Paragraphs should be used with everything.  Writing about maple doughnuts? Use bacon. Salad? Use bacon. Animal rights? Use bacon.
  • Sharing paragraphs should make you more popular and win you love.
  • Just smelling the paragraph should make consuming it compulsory.
If your paragraph does not have these characteristics, you have some revision to do.

2 comments:

  1. Why didn't you come up with this while I was teaching? I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You could always go back into teaching for the sole reason of using this ;)

    ReplyDelete