death to topic sentences: a divisive theory of paragraphing michael hoey and matthew brook...

Death to topic sentences: A divisive theory of paragraphing

Michael Hoeyand

Matthew Brook O’DonnellSchool of English

University of Liverpool

An experiment in paragraphing…

An experiment in paragraphing…(1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal. (2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want. (3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January. (5) He and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area. (6) Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot. (7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. (8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality. (9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. (10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. (11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12) It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system." (13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

Prince Charles sacked by Sainsbury's

(1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal

(2) The move has prompted the director of the organic food and farming charity, Patrick Holden, to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralised and industrialised that they cannot deliver the local, organic food their customers want.

(3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January.

(5) He and the prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralised packhouse in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area.

(6) Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot.

(7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. (8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality.

(9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. (10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. (11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12) It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system."

(13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. (14) It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

Summary of previous experiments• Hoey (1985, 1997, 2005) reported an experiment on a

de-paragraphed extract from a history monograph given to native speakers to add paragraphs, based on an experiment by Young & Becker (1966)– The question investigated was: Is there structural

integrity in paragraph units (topic sentence) or is paragraphing largely random?

– He found neither position supported as respondent choices were neither random or entirely consistent

– He concluded that there was one or more regulating principle influencing decisions

– Hoey (2005) suggested a particular kind of lexical priming, namely textual colligation, as an explanation.

AHRC Project - The textual priming of hard news stories

Every word may be primed for us to occur at the beginning or end of an independently recognised ‘chunk’ of text, e.g. the paragraph, the whole text

[textual colligation]

(Hoey 2005)

TEXT A: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) But the report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) But some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining at sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) The report stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) It urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

TEXT B: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit it proposes would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) The report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) However, some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining what sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) It stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) The report urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

TEXT B: (1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday. (2) The report ^ urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements. (3) The ‘myth busting’ unit it proposes would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) ^ The report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place. (5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) However, some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration. (7) “Our fear is that in the current climate, the majority will be pandered to, with immigrant rights being removed or freedoms being restricted ... (8) We want to see work that either defuses the issue or dispels the myth,” the authors wrote. (9) The report said councils should explain clearly how they distributed resources such as housing, and should produce briefing packs for new arrivals, explaining what sort of behaviour was acceptable. (10) It stressed that speaking English was the key to successful integration for new arrivals, urging employers to help pay for their workers to learn, and for councils to divert money from translation services to language lessons. (11) The report urged the Department for Education and Skills to reconsider funding arrangements, after it announced that it was cutting the universal entitlement to free English lessons. (12) Ms Kelly said she would explore the proposals and "think very carefully" about the idea of a national integration body.

Results from 72 respondents for Texts A & B

Sent. # TEXT A % TEXT B % % CHANGEChanges from Text A to Text B

2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6 It also The report

3 22 61.1 3 8.3 -52.8 Ø it proposes

4 2 5.6 22 61.1 +55.6 But Ø

5 29 80.6 14 38.9 -41.7 Set up by fronted

6 2 5.6 13 36.1 +30.6 But However

7 5 13.9 3 8.3 -5.6 no change

8 2 5.6 1 2.8 -2.8 no change

9 28 77.8 31 86.1 +8.3 no change

10 13 36.1 2 5.6 -30.6 The report It

11 0 0.0 23 63.9 +63.9 It The report

12 20 55.6 9 25.0 -30.6 no change

# of participants 36 36

We made no changes to sentences 7,8,9 & 12

• These results demonstrate that paragraph boundaries have nothing to do with content

• And therefore the topic sentence is a false concept unless defined in terms of wording rather than content

We suggest that…

In Taiwan this sent one poor chap right over the edge….

Step 1: ‘Taking the PISC…’

Process each article and extract sentences into:

•TISC – first sentence of first paragraph

•PISC – first sentence of subsequent paragraphs

•NISC – all non paragraph-initial sentences

Step 1. ‘Taking the PISC…’

Process each article and extract sentences into:

•TISC – first sentence of first paragraph

•PISC – first sentence of subsequent paragraphs

•NISC – all non paragraph-initial sentences

•SISC – sentences from single sentence paragraphs

•HISC – headline and subheadline material

Anatomy of a news articlePrince Charles sacked by Sainsbury's

(1) Sainsbury's has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal


(3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles.(4)They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January.



TISCtext initial sentence

PISCparagraph initial sent.

HISC

NISCnon-initial sentence

SISCsingle instance sentence



(7) The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden.(8) Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality.

(9) Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical.(10) "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted.(11) This is not confined to one supermarket. (12)It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system."

(13) Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers.(14) It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold.

PISC

PISC

NISC

NISC

Anatomy of a news article

PISC

NISC

NISCNISC

Summary of positional subcorpora

Guardian Home News 1998-2004

TISC PISC SISC NISC

tokens 3,122,037 12,521,902 17,129,694 19,338,590

types 58,432 127,038 137,322 141,793

type/token ratio (TTR) 53.43 98.57 124.74 136.39

sentences 113,288 607,125 555,641 1,064,493

mean (in words) 28 21 31 18

std.dev. 11.11 9.68 23.8 9.88

• Returning now to our paragraphing experiment TEXT A….

Looking at the 3rd sentence…

The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration.

91.1 per mill1762NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences)

140.8 per mill1763PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences)

94.5 per mill295TISC (Text Initial Sentences)

Occurrences of ‘unit’ in subcorpora



91.1 per mill1762NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences)

140.8 per mill

1763PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences)

94.5 per mill295TISC (Text Initial Sentences)

Occurrences of ‘unit’ in subcorpora

Guardian June 15, 2007

‘Myth busting’ unit urged to quell migration fears

(1) A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday.(2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements.

(3) The ‘myth busting’ unit would form part of a new national body to promote integration. (4) But the report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion stressed that it would be up to councils to produce local solutions and programmes, because issues varied from place to place.

(5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration. (6) But some people were concerned about the impact of immigration, and in places the majority might come to believe there was a problem with integration.


‘a/an…unit’ vs ‘the…unit’ in subcorpora

464 (25.1%)NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences)

391 (22.8%)PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences)

131 (44.7% of occs of unit)

TISC (Text Initial Sentences)

a/an

1014 (54.9%)

1059 (61.9%)


the


Looking at the first sentence…A rapid rebuttal unit is needed to challenge myths and rumours about immigration and prevent public policy from pandering to unfounded fears, an official report said yesterday.

‘a/an…unit’ vs ‘the…unit’ in subcorpora

464 (25.1%)NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences)

391 (22.8%)PISC(Paragraph Initial Sentences)


TISC (Text Initial Sentences)

a/an

1014 (54.9%)

1059 (61.9%)


the

So a unit is primed for text-initial sentences

and the unit is primed for paragraph-initial sentences

which is exactly what happens in Text A

TEXT A

(5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

TEXT B

(5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

WHY?

Sentence 5

Sent. # TEXT A % TEXT B % % CHANGE

5 29 80.6 14 38.9 -41.7

Beginning of Paragraph 3(5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

2.3 per 1000 sentences

2463NISC(Non-Paragraph Initial Sentences)




483TISC (Text Initial Sentences)

Occurrences of ‘set up’ in subcorpora


26.3 per million sentences






Occurrences of *, set up by in subcorpora





Occurrences of ‘commission, set up’ in subcorpora

NOUN, set up

PISC TISC NISC

commission 16 1 5

committee 8 1 5

group 8 0 3

trust 6 0 0

council 5 0 0

fund 5 0 0

unit 5 0 5

inquiry 2 0 5

TEXT A

(5) The commission, set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

TEXT B

(5) Set up by the communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, after the July 7 bombings, and chaired by Darra Singh, the commission said Britain was primarily a harmonious society that had benefited from migration.

WHY?

• Removed a PISC pattern , set up and took PISC noun (commission) from front of sentence

Sentence 5


5 29 80.6 14 38.9 -41.7

TEXT A

(2) It also urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements.

TEXT B

(2) The report urged politicians to sign up to new duties under race relations laws, preventing them from making inflammatory statements.

WHY?

Sentence 2


2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6


• In some ways this looks like a paragraph initial sentence

A Non-initial sentence:

930 occ in a million sents






Occurrences of ‘urged’ in subcorpora








Occurrences of ‘also’ in subcorpora

A Non-initial sentence:

• In some ways this looks like a paragraph initial sentence

Overriders

TISC 2202 out of 115171

sentences

1.91%

PISC 15837 out of 600203

sentences

2.64%

NISC 59161 out of 1046572

sentences

5.65%

IT as the first word in sentence

TEXT A


TEXT B


WHY is sentence in Text A not paragraph initial?

because It overrides paragraph initial associations for also and urged

Sentence 2


2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6

TEXT A


TEXT B


WHY is sentence in Text A not paragraph initial?

• because It overrides paragraph initial associations for also and urged

Sentence 2


2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6

TEXT A


TEXT B


WHY does change in Text B increase likelihood of paragraph break by 30%?

because It overrider replaced by words with paragraph initial associations (also and urged)

Sentence 2


2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6

TEXT A


TEXT B


WHY does change in Text B increase likelihood of paragraph break by 30%?

• because It overrider replaced by words with paragraph initial associations (report and urged)

Sentence 2


2 0 0.0 11 30.6 +30.6

So what of the paragraph?

• Looking at experimental and corpus-based evidence it appears to be lexically driven– Choice of lexis is important (cf. rapid rebuttal

text)

Results from today…Sent. # # of breaks %

2 0 0.00

3 0 0.00

4 0 0.00

5 0 0.00

6 0 0.00

7 0 0.00

8 0 0.00

9 0 0.00

10 0 0.00

11 0 0.00

12 0 0.00

13 0 0.00

# of participants 0

Paragraph 1

(1) Sainsbury’s has dropped the Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal.

(1) Sainsbury’s has dropped the... ..Prince of Wales and the head of the Soil Association as vegetable suppliers because it says their produce did not meet the right standards, the Guardian can reveal.

Paragraph 1 (text-initial key clusters)

Paragraph 2



Paragraph 2 (paragraph-initial key clusters)

Paragraph 3(3) Mr Holden told the Guardian he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. (4) They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January.

Mr X told…

Occs Per million wds

First 3 words

TISC 1 0.3 0

PISC 1268 101.3 623 (49%)

NISC 705 36.5 233 (33%)

Paragraph 4


Paragraph 5


Mr X believes…

Occs Per million wds

TISC 0 0

PISC 159 12.7

NISC 125 6.7

Paragraph 6


Paragraph 7


Paragraph 8




text)– Clustering of the lexis important (cf Prince

Charles’ farm text

TEXT C: Refit for Ministry of Defence(1) Yesterday it was announced that the Whitehall headquarters of the Ministry of Defence - a grade 1 listed building which houses an underground bunker and Henry VIII's wine cellar - is to be refurbished in a multi-million pound deal with a private consortium.

(2) 2,600 staff - civilian and military - will move out over 12 consecutive weekends next summer in a move that will severely test training in logistics.

(3) Becoming a health and safety hazard fast, the large mid-50s construction has no fire certificate. (4) A guided tour of the building reveals open wires supported by ageing metal trays screwed into corridor ceilings. (5) Notices warn against sticking pins in asbestos boarding on office walls.

(6) For £55m annually for 30 years, the ministry will lease the modernised building from Modus Services plc because it has now signed a private finance agreement agreeing this.

(7) It was money well spent, the ministry insisted yesterday, questioned about such expenditure at a time when the armed forces are short of effective weapons and turning to foreign suppliers for cheaper combat clothing.

(8) The cost of running its existing seven buildings already amounted to £40m a year and an extra £100m would have had to be spent anyway to meet health and fire regulations.

TEXT D: Refit for Ministry of Defence(1) The Whitehall headquarters of the Ministry of Defence - a grade 1 listed building which houses an underground bunker and Henry VIII's wine cellar - is to be refurbished in a multi-million pound deal with a private consortium, it was announced yesterday.

(2) In a move that will severely test training in logistics, 2,600 staff - civilian and military - will move out over 12 consecutive weekends next summer.

(3) The large mid-50s construction is fast becoming a health and safety hazard. (4) It has no fire certificate. (5) A guided tour of the building reveals open wires supported by ageing metal trays screwed into corridor ceilings. (6) Notices warn against sticking pins in asbestos boarding on office walls.

(7) The ministry has now signed a private finance agreement whereby it will lease the modernised building from Modus Services plc for £55m annually for 30 years.

(8) Questioned about such expenditure at a time when the armed forces are short of effective weapons and turning to foreign suppliers for cheaper combat clothing, the MoD insisted yesterday it was money well spent.

(9) The cost of running its existing seven buildings already amounted to £40m a year and an extra £100m would have had to be spent anyway to meet health and fire regulations.

Text, paragraph, sentence schema

First half of sentence Second half of sentence

First sentence of text

T1 T2First sentence of a paragraph that is not the first in text

P1 P2Any sentence that does not begin a paragraph or text

N1 N2

Positional distribution of yesterday it was announced that

T1 0 T2 0

P1 5 P2 1

N1 4 N2 1

Positional distribution of it was announced yesterday

Total Proportion

T1 6 (3%) T2 179 (83%) 185 (86%) 1:30

P1 2 (1%) P2 10 (5%) 12 (6%) 1:5

N1 3 (1%) N2 15 (7%) 18 (8%) 1:5

11(5%) 204 (95%) 215 1:19

Positional distribution of it was announced

Total Proportion

T1 12 (3%) T2 229 (59%) 241 (62%) 1:19

P1 45 (12%) P2 27 (7%) 72 (19%) 3:2

N1 50 (13%) N2 25 (6%) 75 (19%) 2:1

107 (27%) 281 (72%) 388 1:3

Positional distribution of move

Total Proportion

T1 274 (1.9%) T2 479 (3.3%) 753 (5.1%) 4:7

P1 5230 (35.6%) P2 3940 (28.2%) 9170 (62.4%) 5:4

N1 2170 (14.8%) N2 2597 (17.7%) 4767 (32.5%) 5:6

7674 (52.2%) 7016 (47.8) 14690 1:1

Positional distribution of in a move

Total Proportion

T1 38 (7.3%) T2 152 (29.3%) 190 (36.6%) 1:4

P1 300 (38.5%) P2 84 (16.2%) 284 (54.7%) 7:2

N1 26 (5.0%) N2 19 (3.7%) 45 (8.7%) 4:3

364 (50.8%) 255 (49.2%) 619 1:1



text)– Clustering of the lexis important (cf Prince

Charles’ farm text– Position of lexis important (cf MoD

accommodation text)

THANK YOU!

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http://lexicalpriming.org

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http://lexicalpriming.org/

http://lexicalpriming.org/

death to topic sentences: a divisive theory of paragraphing michael hoey and matthew brook...

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