Expository Strategies

There are many ways to explain things, but there are a handful of very common tools that help writers achieve
their purpose as they develop their explanation. We’ll call these expository strategies.
The most common expository strategies are:
- Example: to demonstrate with specifics
o Types of Examples
 Details and Specifics: to provide concrete information
 Research and Expert Opinion: to show what experts think about the topic
 Data and Statistics: to give a quantitative example
 Personal Experience and Anecdotes: to include a personal example or story
- Analysis: to understand something by investigating its parts
- Comparison and Contrast: to highlight similarities and differences
- Cause and Effect: to show causal relationships
- Description: to make something vivid and concrete
Authors will often draw on multiple strategies to effectively explain the main idea and achieve the writer’s
purpose.
Working Thesis: Patterson uses expository strategies and distinctive examples from history, mainstream media,
and pop culture in order to explain how the hoodie has taken on such strong political and racial meanings.
Expository Textual Evidence Commentary/Connection
Element
Compare/Contrast “In a cardigan or a crew neck, this model is The African American model’s
just another model. In the hoodie, he is a folk image of who he is, or who people
demon and a scapegoat, a political symbol might think he is, changes
and a moving target, and the system of signs depending on what he is wearing.
that weighs upon him does not make special Here, we see the contrast in how he
distinctions for an Italian cashmere hoodie is perceived based on whether he’s
timelessly designed in heather gray.” wearing a cardigan or crew neck T-
shirt, or the hoodie.
Cause/Effect “A glance at almost any police blotter, or a Wearing the hoodie, because it has
recollection of the forensic sketch of the been worn by criminals in high-
Unabomber, will confirm the hoodie as a profile cases, leads to general bias
wardrobe stable of the criminal class, and this and hostility against anyone wearing
makes it uniquely convenient as a proxy for one.
 racial profiling or any other exercise of
enmity.”
Examples “It is impossible that the production designers
were ignorant of the ghost of Trayvon Martin,
the unarmed 17-year-old fatally shot four
years ago while wearing much the same
thing.”
Trayvon’s death sparked national
debates about the relationship
between race, politics, and clothing.
His story serves as a prime
illustration of the connection
between racial profiling and the
hoodie.

Presenting Evidence in Analytical Paragraphs

Topic Sentence Patterson uses comparison and contrast to

highlight the contentious relationship between clothing,
Evidence
politics, and race. He points out that, for some, a young
(Incorporate short
black male in “a cardigan or crew neck” represents a words and phrases
different character from one in a hoodie, who then instead of full
becomes “a folk demon and a scapegoat, a political sentences.)
symbol and a moving target.” Like the model in the
internet catalog, Patterson emphasizes that the young,
Commentary black male’s image of who he is, or who people might
think he is, changes depending on what he is wearing –
that how the black male is perceived is based on whether
or not he’s wearing a nice shirt or hoodie. Patterson also Transition to next
notes that the hoodie itself represents contrasting ideas, evidence.
based on its purpose, as in the Trayvon incident. He
Evidence explains that the “basic hoodie means to defend against
the elements, [but] the protest hoodie seeks to offend the
right people.” The intended message, therefore, in not Commentary
only tied to the article of clothing, but the context in
which it is worn – in this case, as a unifying cry for
justice.