C h a p t e r 7 : I n fe r r i n g M e a n i n g f r o m D e t a i l
RDG 100-710
April 9, 2012
• Did you send me your selection of country
or culture via email?
• We are going to cover Chapters 7 and 8
tonight. Make sure to read these chapters
in the book.
• Meet in computer lab 346A and bring your
initial research materials for your project.
• We are going to discuss research via the
Internet and work on projects.
• An inference is a logical solution or
outcome developed by examining
evidence for patterns.
• The evidence comes from the author’s
words, sentences, and paragraphs.
Observe
events
Gather
evidence
Analyze
evidence
for
patterns
Evaluate
possible
hypotheses
Select
inference
that best
fits
evidence
• A good inference will account for all
known facts or details.
Detail
Inference
Detail
Detail
Detail
• Prior knowledge is often required to
understand jokes, riddles or comedy
sketches.
• For example, can you answer this
children’s riddle?
How do you keep an
elephant from charging?
Take away his credit cards.
• To “get” the joke, you need prior knowledge
about charge cards and wild elephants; and
that it’s silly for an elephant to have a charge
card.
• Your prior knowledge is what makes the joke
funny. If you don’t have the knowledge, you
don’t get the joke.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4N93jLV
PIA&feature=related
• Prior knowledge is good for more than
jokes. It also helps you understand a
reading.
• Prior knowledge plays a crucial role in
drawing inferences.
• Sometimes your prior knowledge,
especially beliefs, might conflict with
information the author is presenting.
• You’ll need to suspend your belief for a
while and concentrate on the author’s
ideas.
Experienced
Readers Know . . .
The inferences that you build must be
based on the evidence presented in the
reading – not on your beliefs.
• A generalization is a type of inference.
• A generalization is a statement that
encompasses all examples, types, or other
details the author presents.
• Sometimes the author doesn’t directly
state the main idea – instead you have to
infer the main idea.
• Use MAPPS to mark the topic, list the
details, then infer what the main idea
must be.
Search for the topic
Find the major supporting details
Look for patterns among the
details
Generalize from details
Combine generalizations with
topic to derive implied thesis
statement
C h a p t e r 8 : E va l u a t i n g t h e
A u t h o r ’s P u r p o s e a n d To n e
Three Main Purposes
Persuade
Change thoughts,
attitudes, or
behaviors
Inform
Express
Give key factual
information
Share the writer’s
emotions and
evoke the
reader’s
General Purpose
Inform
Express
Persuade
General Tone
Objective
Subjective
Subjective
• Denotation: Think “d”, dictionary. The
literal meaning of the word.
• Connotation: Think “conn”, connections.
The association of the word to emotions
or attitudes.
• Connotations suggest subjective tone.
• Subjective means the author is placing
himself/herself into the writing as one of
the subjects.
• A lack of connotation (denotation)
suggests the reading is objective or
factual.
– the author is ignoring opinions and focusing
on the object of the writing – the facts or
ideas.
Subjective
• To express or persuade.
• Usually several
connotations and/or
figurative language.
• Author creates
emotional states.
• Caution: Subjective
writing may still include
facts and information!
Objective
• To inform.
• Few connotations with
fewer degrees of
intensity.
• Author help readers
understand with their
minds.
Are connotations
present?
yes
Subjunctive
Are connotations
positive or negative?
How intense are
connotations?
no
Objective
• Connotations can be positive or negative.
• Knowing the polarity of the connotations
can help you understand the author’s
tone.
• An adjective’s job is to state the
characteristics of a person, place, thing, or
idea.
• Adjectives can show the degree of
intensity with which the author describes
ideas and events.
• Working in groups of two, list three to five
adjectives of increasing intensity for each
of the items on the next slide.
• For example, if the slide said “cleanliness
of a room” you could answer “disgusting –
dusty – clean – sparkling – sanitized.”
• In order to talk in class about an author’s
ideas, you need to use words that describe
the author’s tone more specifically.
• A few examples are on the next slide. Your
textbook has a more complete list.
Negative
alarmed
annoyed
apathetic
bitter
cynical
desperate
Neutral
balanced
factual
impartial
informative
just
matter-of-fact
Positive
amused
blessed
celebratory
cheerful
elated
excited
• Figurative language – including similes,
metaphors, personifications, and
hyperbole – has a subjective tone.
• Literal language, which often appears in
the form of facts, has an objective tone.
Are connotations or
figurative language
present?
yes
no
Subjunctive
Objective
For Connotations . . .
For Figurative Language . . .
Are connotations
positive or negative?
What type of figurative
language is being used?
How intense are
connotations?
• Simile: An indirect comparison of two
things using the words “like” or “as.”
• Metaphor: A direct comparison of two
things without using the words “like” or
“as.”
Me without a mic is like a beat without a snare . . . I'm
sweet like licorice, dangerous like syphilis.
-- Lauryn Hill, “How Many Mics”
Like a flower
Waiting to bloom
Like a light bulb
In a dark room
I'm just sitting here waiting for you
To come on home and turn me on
-- Norah Jones, “Turn Me On”
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
-- H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major
I look at you and wham, I'm head over heels.
I guess that love is a banana peel.
-- Bud Weisman and Fred Wise,
“I Slipped I Stumbled, I Fell”
• Personification is the act of giving an
inanimate object characteristics of an
animate being.
Pink is what red looks like when it kicks off its shoes
and lets its hair down. Pink is the boudoir color, the
cherubic color, the color of Heaven's gates. . . . Pink is
as laid back as beige, but while beige is dull and
bland, pink is laid back with attitude.
-- Tom Robbins, "The Eight-Story Kiss." Wild Ducks Flying
Backward.
There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.
-- Rush, “The Trees”
• Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration to
make or emphasize a point. Hyperbole is
meant to be taken figuratively.
• She sent so many text messages, her
thumbs fell off.
• He watched so much television that
you could see “Lost” reruns when you
looked into his eyes.
• Yo mama’s so fat a hyperbole couldn’t
even exaggerate her weight.
• Irony is the use of words or images to
express the opposite of what is said.
1. Verbal irony: The words used have an
unexpected meaning.
2. Situational irony: What happens is
unexpected or is the opposite of our
expectations.
3. Dramatic irony: The audience or reader
knows more about what is going on that
the character does.
• Verbal Irony—Saying what you DON’T mean
– Definition: A speaker means something different
than, often the opposite of, what she says.
• Examples:
– “I can’t wait to start writing these forty-seven
reports.”
– “My walk home was only twenty-three blocks.”
• (Note: The terms sarcasm and irony are often used
interchangeably, but there is a semantic
difference. Sarcasm is meant to insult or cause
harm. So strictly speaking, “Great, I forgot my
umbrella” is ironic, whereas “You call this a cup of
coffee?” is sarcastic.)
Why do we press harder on a remote control when we
know the batteries are getting weak?
Why do banks charge a fee on "insufficient funds"
when they know there is not enough?
Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?
Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you
use the bubbles are always white?
Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator
with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times
with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then
put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
• The Prologue from Romeo and Juliet
•
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qEKkdcT
VEM