Category or class

Model Paragraph: What Is Crime?
There is no real answer to the question, What is crime? There are 
popular ideas about crime: crime is bad behavior, antisocial behavior, 
blameworthy acts, and the like. But in a very basic sense crime is a 
legal
concept; what makes some conduct criminal, and other conduct not, is 
the fact that some, but not others, are “against the law.” Before some act 
can be isolated and labeled as a crime, there must be a special, solemn, 
social and political decision. In our society, Congress, a state legislature, 
or a city government has to pass a law or enact an ordinance adding the 
behavior to the list of crimes. Then this behavior, like a bottle of poison, 
carries the proper label and can be turned over to the heavy artillery of 
law for possible enforcement.
Topic sentence
1. Pornography
2. Child abuse
3. Torture
4. Freedom
5. Intelligence
6. Patriotism
7. Marriage
8. Masculinity
9. Justice
10. Conservatism
Ten suggested topics
CHAPTER 24
DEVELOPING PARAGRAPHS: DEFINITION AND ANALYSIS
481
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ASSIGNMENT 3: YOUR DEFINITION OF A TYPE OF PERSON
Write a paragraph that defi nes a type of person according to your own opinion. 
In the following paragraph, semantics expert S. I. Hayakawa defi nes his idea 
of the creative person.
Model Paragraph: The Creative Person
A creative person, fi rst, is not limited in his thinking to “what everyone 
knows.” “Everyone knows” that trees are green. The creative artist is able 
to see that in certain lights some trees look blue or purple or yellow. The 
creative person looks at the world with his or her own eyes, not with the 
eyes of others. The creative individual also knows his or her own feelings 
better than the average person. Most people don’t know the answer to the 
question, ”How are you? How do you feel?” The reason they don’t know is 
that they are so busy feeling what they are supposed to feel, thinking what 
they are supposed to think, that they never get down to examining their 
own deepest feelings.
Your defi nition of a type of person
1. The couch potato
2. The worry bird
3. The drama queen
4. The abusive person
5. The hypochondriac
6. The gang member
7. The taker (or, the giver)
8. The artist
9. The egotist
10. The dependent person