7. There are unquestionably increasing opportunities for an honorable and useful career in the civil service of the United States.
(Have you used any method besides that of repetition? Does your paragraph really explain the proposition?)
+165. Exposition by Use of Examples.+—Exposition treats of general subjects, and the topic statement of a paragraph is, therefore, a general statement. In order to understand what such a general statement means, the reader may need to think of a concrete case. The writer may develop his paragraph by furnishing concrete cases. (See Section 44.) In many cases no further explanation is necessary.
The following paragraph illustrates this method of explanation:—
The lower portions of stream valleys which have sunk below sea level are called drowned valleys. The lower St. Lawrence is perhaps the greatest example of a drowned valley in the world, but many other rivers are in the same condition. The old channel of the Hudson River may be traced upon the sea bottom about 125 miles beyond its present mouth, and its valley is drowned as far up as Troy, 150 miles. The sea extends up the Delaware River to Trenton, and Chesapeake Bay with its many arms is the drowned valleys of the Susquehanna and its former tributaries. Many of the most famous harbors in the world, as San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, the estuaries of the Thames and the Mersey, and the Scottish firths, are drowned valleys.
—Dryer: Lessons in Physical Geography.
+Theme XCII.+—Develop one of the following topic statements into an expository paragraph by use of examples:—
1. Weather depends to a great extent upon winds.
2. Progress in civilization has been materially aided by the use of nails.
3. Habit is formed by the repetition of the same act.