English

I think the fourth paragraph of “Possessed by Stuff” is a good paragraph because the author effective uses examples and details to develop the controlling idea. A good paragraph should have a topic sentence that states the main idea clearly, and the main idea has to be well developed with supporting examples and details as well. The topic of the paragraph is dealers, and the controlling idea is the fact that dealers take a detached attitude toward stuff. Examples can be an effective way for an author to develop the main idea of a paragraph, but they need to be clearly developed and strongly support the main idea. In the paragraph, the author uses an example of rifling through old books and snapping up what you thought, clearly shows the reader the detached attitude of dealer toward stuff. Therefore,

Part2

Examples can be an effective way for an author to develop the main idea of a paragraph. A good example should be related to the topic and should help the reader to understand the topic. In the second paragraph of “The End of Manual Labour”, the author effectively uses an example to develop her main idea. The author says that she could carry three plates at once in her left hand to prove the main idea that she was an outstanding waitress. However, in the fifth paragraph of “The End of Manual Labour”, she doesn’t use examples effectively because they do not relate directly to the paragraph’s main idea. In the paragraph, the author uses examples to demonstrate that people used their own hands to make furniture in the past. But these examples don’t support the main idea that “The decline of manual skills in the modern world has been swift and relentless”; instead, it talks about the difference between what we do now and did in the past.