compress

COMPRESS AND EXPAND IDEAS
from The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson

Even in these days of Diesel power, the coastwise shipping off southern Florida shows a wholesome respect for the Gulf Stream. Almost any day, if you are out in a small boat below Miami, you may see the big freighters and tankers moving south in a course that seems surprisingly close to the Keys. Landward is the almost unbroken wall of submerged reefs where the big niggerhead corals send their solid bulks up to within a fathom or two of the surface. To seaward is the Gulf Stream, and while the big boats could fight their way south against it, they would consume much time and fuel in doing so. Therefore they pick their way with care between the reefs and the Stream.

The energy of the Stream off southern Florida probably results from the fact that here it is actually flowing downhill. Strong easterly winds pile up so much surface water in the narrow Ycatan Channel and in the Gulf of Mexico that the sea level there is higher than in the open Atlantic. At Cedar Keys, on the Gulf coast of Florida, the level of the sea is 19 centimeters (about 7 1/2 inches) higher than at St. Augustine....

Northward, the Stream follows the contours of the continental slope to the offing of Cape Hatteras, whence it turns more to seaward, deserting the sunken edge of the land. But it has left its impress on the continent. The four beautifully sculptured capes of the southern Atlantic coast--Canaveral, Fear, Lookuout, Hatteras--apparently have been molded by powerful eddies set up by the passage of the Stream. Each is a cusp projecting seaward; between each pair of capes the beach runs in a long curving arc--the expression of the rhythmically swirling waters of the Gulf Stream eddies.

EXPRESS THE MAIN IDEA--COMPRESSED FORM. The practice of building paragraphs by repeating the paragraph idea is essential to making sure your readers understand you, and the compressed statement of the total paragraph idea--the topic sentence--is one of the best ways to make your meaning absolutely clear. When you read the selection above, note that it is the first sentence that contains all the details of the other four. Each of the remaining four adds new facts, but no single sentence includes all the facts. You must use all four together to state again the main idea in the first sentence. We refer to these four sentences as the expanded statement because it states the paragraph idea at length.
EXPAND THE MAIN IDEA--EXPANDED FORM. The expanded statement allows you to furnish the particulars, the reasons, the added details that make the compressed statement clear or more reasonable to accept. The expanded statement also reveals your personal viewpoint and your ability to present information that will command your reader's attention. In a well written, unified paragraph, the expanded statement will repeat the same kind of details as those used in the compressed statement.

ASSIGNMENT. Consider a belief or conviction you hold concerning a subject important to you. Think of two or three reasons why you hold this conviction and put each into a compressed statement. Then say it "twice" by developing a paragraph for each that will leave no doubt in your reader's mind concerning what you believe and why. Take into account that not everyone holds for "truth" what you might consider to be a given. Below is a list of possible topics.

1. Appropriate Sabbath activities
2. The role of women in the church
3. The importance of Christian education
4. Qualities a potential spouse must have