Chapter 7 Reflection

               Chapter 7 basically talks about understanding paragraphs using supporting details and transition. Supporting details are those facts and ideas that prove or explain the main idea of a paragraph. While all the details in a paragraph support the main idea, not all details are equally important. The key details directly explain the main idea. Other minor details may provide additional information, offer an example, or further explain one of the key details. The most common types of supporting details are examples, facts or statistics, reasons, descriptions, and steps or procedures. Examples make ideas and concepts real and understandable. The facts and statistics may provide evidence that the main idea is correct. Or facts may further explain the main idea. A writer may support and idea by giving reasons why a main idea is correct. When the topic of a paragraph is a person, object, place or process, the writer may develop the paragraph by describing the object. Descriptions are details that help you create a mental picture of the object. When a paragraph explains how to do something, the paragraph details are often lists of steps or procedures to be followed.
             Transitions are linking words or phrases used to lead the reader from one idea to another. If you get into the habit of recognizing transitions, you will see that they often guide you through a paragraph, helping you read it more easily. Paraphrasing paragraphs is a useful technique for both building and checking your comprehension. By taking a paragraph apart sentence by sentence, you are forced to understand the meaning of each sentence and see how ideas relate to one another. Paraphrasing paragraphs is similar to paraphrasing sentences, it involves the same two steps: substituting synonyms and rearranging sentence parts. When paraphrasing you should concentrate on maintaing the author's focus and emphasis. Ideas that seem most important in the paragraph should appear as most important in your paraphrase. You also have to work sentence by sentence, paraphrasing the ideas in the order in which they appear in the paragraph.