After rejecting the unnecessary items in the preceding list, re-arrange the remaining ones in a coherent order. How many paragraphs would you make and what would you include in each?
3. The third step in making an outline has relation to emphasis. In some outlines emphasis is secured by placing the more important points first, in others by placing them last. In this particular outline we have a natural time-order to follow, and emphasis will be determined mainly by the relative proportion to be given to different paragraphs. Do not give unimportant paragraphs too much space. Be sure that the introduction and the conclusion are short.
+Theme XLV.+—Write a personal narrative at least three paragraphs in length.
Suggested subjects:— 1. How I was saved from drowning. 2. The largest string of fish I ever caught. 3. An incident of the skating season. 4. What I did on Christmas day. 5. A Saturday with my grandmother. 6. To the city and back.
(Make an outline. Keep in mind unity, coherence, and emphasis. Consider each paragraph with reference to unity, coherence, and emphasis.)
+85. Development of a Composition with Reference to the Time-Order.+— Of the several methods of developing a composition let us consider first that of giving details in the natural time-order. (See Section 46.) If a composition composed of a series of paragraphs possesses coherence, each paragraph is so related to the preceding ones that the thought goes steadily forward from one to another. Often the connection in thought is so evident that no special indication needs to be made, but if the paragraphs are arranged with reference to a time-order, this time-order is usually indicated.
Notice how the relation in time of each paragraph to the preceding is shown by the following sentences of parts of sentences taken in order from a magazine article entitled "Yachting at Kiel," by James B. Connolly:—
1. It was slow waiting in Travemunde. The long-enduring twilight of a
summer's day at fifty-four north began to settle down…
2. The dusk comes on, and on the ships of war they seem to be getting
nervous…
3. The dusk deepens…