Chapter Nine

Narration
College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e
John Langan

College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
 Chapter 9

Narration

Narration is storytelling:
giving readers an account
of something that
happened.
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College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
 Chapter 9

Narration
Narration is used to make
a statement clear or
illustrate a point.
point
For example, you might provide a vivid
account of your first driving experiences to
argue for a higher minimum driving age.
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College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
 Chapter 9

Narration
The sharper and
more colorful the
detail,
detail the greater the
IMPACT the narration
will have.
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College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
 Chapter 9

Using Dialogue
Dialogue
•can be used to move the plot or action of the
story along
•tells what happened before the story began
•reveals important facts that make the story
clearer, suspenseful, or more meaningful.

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College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc
 Chapter 9

Rules for Using Dialogue

• Place quotation marks around the words a
character speaks
• Start a new paragraph when a new character
begins to speak
• Record people’s words exactly as they
speak them
• Make sure readers can identify who is
speaking
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College Writing Skills with Readings, 9/e © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc