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Chapter 5: Patterns: Relationships Among Ideas

Good readers look for the arrangement of supporting details. This knowledge of academic thought patterns, or simply paragraph patterns, enables them to process and learn information from a textbook in an efficient and systematic way. In this chapter numerous exercises for identifying these patterns in articles, essays, and content area readings are provided. Included are patterns for (1) Chronological order; (2) definition; (3) classification; (4)comparison-contrast; (5) cause-effect; and (6) enumeration or simple listing.

Explanations for recognizing other paragraph patterns such as statement and clarification, summary, generalization and example, addition, and spatial order along with practice exercises are also given.

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