CLASSIFICATION ESSAY
When we classify. we sort people, things, or ideas into categories. In daily life. we constantly classify items in order to make life easier and more efficient. Imagine how confused you would be if a large store like Marjan did not classify items into categories if they did not sort cleaning products, electronic products, food. beverages. and stationery items. to name just a few. Imagine a large bookstore in which hooks were sorted by their size or the color of their covers. It could take you hours to find a novel by Paul Bowles, a book of recipes for sweets, or a computer manual. When you return home from Marjan with several bags of items, you put them away according to your own system of classification, and if you have a great many books, you probably arrange them by subject or author. not by the color of the cover.
Classification is more than just a practical matter, however: it makes certain kinds of analytical and systematic thought possible. Biologists, for instance, classify living things in order to make basic sense of the world. They classify living things into plants and animals. they classify animals into vertebrates and invertebrates, and they classify vertebrate into mammals. birds, reptiles, amphibians. and fish. A young woman analyzing her life might divide the periods of her life according to the types of schools she had attended: elementary, lycee, and college. An older man might think of the categories of childhood. adolescence., young adulthood, and middle age. Either person might choose instead to analyze his or her life by considering the people who were most influential: family members. teachers, friends, and employers
You might use classification in writing about literature. for example, discussing how the main characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Macbeth and Julius Caesar are affected by ghosts. A businessperson might be asked to write about the types of products produced by the company. Classification can also lead to humorous papers: for instance, one discussing chores you can put off for a week, chores you can put off for a month. and chores you can put off forever.
Three Steps to Effective Classification:
- Sort things into useful categories.
- Make sure all the categories follow a single organizing principle.
- Give examples that fit into each category.
OUTLINE
As with any writing, spend time up front brainstorming ideas and outlining your ideas. . To classify, or sort, things in a logical way, find the categories to put them into. For example, say you need to sort the stack of papers on your desk. Before you would put them in random piles, you would decide what useful categories might be: papers that can be thrown away; papers that need immediate action; papers to read; papers to pass on to other coworkers; or papers to file. After that, you can easily create an outline that develops supporting ideas and examples for the classifications you have developed.
- Introduction & thesis
- Body paragraph number 1/Category number 1
- Body paragraph number 2/Category number 2
- Body paragraph number 3/Category number 3
- Conclusion
- THE INTRODUCTION
Students often don’t know how to start a classification essay. In the introductory paragraph, you should clearly identify the subject. You won’t start talking about the categories right away. First, you’ll identify the overall concept that you’ll be classifying. You can attract the interest of your reader if you offer descriptive or informative details regarding that topic.
Then, you’ll include a thesis sentence that explains the classification that you’re about to develop further.
THE THESIS STATEMENT
The thesis is in the last paragraph of an essay and gives the reader an idea of what your essay will be about. It is important that the thesis describes the essay as a classification and that it identifies the key idea. For instance, the professors in a university could be classified into three main teaching styles, the authority style, the demonstrator style, and the delegator style.
THE BODY
The body of your essay will be 3 or more paragraphs. How many categories do you have? That’s how many body paragraphs you’ll need. Each paragraph should deal with a different category. Start by explaining the criteria for each of them and perhaps discuss the strengths or weaknesses. Support each category with several examples that provide evidence and further prove the validity of the points. Depending on the length of your paragraphs you may wish to break them down into shorter ones. This is fine, but you will need to make sure you have clear transitions when moving to a new category.
THE CONCLUSION
Conclude classification essays by re-emphasizing the main points. It is important to restate and rewrite the thesis of the essay at the beginning of the conclusion. Be careful to avoid rewriting it word for word. This will refresh the reader’s memory and allow him or her to form complete ideas about the information given. Unlike an introduction, it is best for the conclusion paragraph to start specific and lead to broader topics. Do not mention any information that was not previously discussed in the essay.
avoid:
- Using too many categories: if you do it, the idea and the criteria for the classification are very likely to be disintegrated and your essay will turn into a simple enumeration, thus, failing to show generalization skills.
- Using not enough categories: it can result in the omission of an important type of objects.
- Using no unified criterion for the classification: absence of the governing classification principle will result in the lack of clarity.
- Using an unequal number of examples: it will result in making some categories less important than the others.
Changing Times, Changing Values
The Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are a large group: approximately 72 million. One of the best known Baby Boomers is former president Bill Clinton. Though he is as unique as any other human being, he also demonstrates some of the traits that researchers have observed in members of his generation. These traits include a strong work ethic, idealism, and the desire to find fulfillment, not simply a salary, in work.
The following generation, known as Generation X, born between 1965 and 1979, is much smaller: approximately 17 million. Unlike the Boomers, who are marked by a strong work ethic, the members of Generation X place a greater premium on leisure. Like the Boomers, they seek emotional security from their work, but they are not as interested in status, money, and social climbing. They are also more skeptical and less optimistic than the previous generation.
The third generation in this group, born between 1980 and 1995, is often referred to as Generation Y. Numbering almost 60 million, they are more than three times the size of Generation X, and close to the size of the Baby Boomers group. In their attitude toward work, members of this generation are more like the Baby Boomers than generation X: they are extremely practical and, though young, most expect to have careers and are already thinking of owning a house. They have been given more financial responsibility that the two previous generations, and are the largest consumer group in the history of the U.S, spending about 172 billion dollars a year. One in nine of the high-school students in this generation has a credit card co-signed by a parent. This is a group marked by great racial and ethnic diversity, reflecting the 400% increase in interracial marriage over the past fifty years. One-third of them consider themselves to be non-Caucasian, and, not surprisingly, surveys show that they are less racially polarized than members of previous generations.
Being aware of the different values held by these three generations can lead to better relationships between them. The work ethic of the Baby Boomers is in sharp contrast the value placed on leisure time by members of Generation X, which in turn is in contrast to the practical outlook of members of Generation Y. Although each person, regardless of generation, is unique, these general patterns can be useful both in family life in the workplace.
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